skerries shennick island

[eoghanb]

Ive often thought of marooning myself out there over high tide ,ive heard of people doing it before and they said it was good fishing,but the storys usually start with "when i was a young lad...............",so has anyone ever tried it?,the spit looks bassy anyway and rocky at the back,anyone that dosent know the island its accesable at low water,another question i was in skerries today and passed the island i saw people on the spit are they collecting mussles but seemed like a large scale operation is it legal?

[paul mason]

Winkle pickers me thinks, have loads of anti-rat spray if you're staying overnight on the island

[eoghanb]

Im not too sure if it was winklers,too many at it and they were using huge sacks like u wud get your sand or gravel from the builders merchant,anyway i wouldnt stay on the island overnight id probably pick an early tide i dont think id be stuck too long its fairly shallow so i could probably wade back after a while on the ebb,i dont fancy sharing a bed with rodents

[Chris T]

I saw those guys yesterday!

It must be Mussles as they had loads of those one tonne bags. I'd like to know if it's legal too. That is a mussel bed with lots of big mussels so I'd say that's what they were at. They difinitely weren't picking winkles.

As for Shenick, Not sure, plenty of flats around there, some bass too I'm sure. The rats wont bother you if you light a fire. I used to do it as a kid, except on Church (St Patricks ) Island. The back of the island is very gradual rocks so pretty trickey to fish.

I'd say a better / easier place to fish would be out towards Colt Island from Red Island between the Captains and Springers swimming areas.

Keep us posted on any results i'd be very interested to hear any results as I'm from the area and I like to fish local!!

Oh, and Good Luck!!

[eeler]

i'd say they are winkle pickers, they come in bus's from the north i think to pick the beachs up here in louth, iv seen over twenty of them picking on some tides, iv also seen them picking winkles out of the mussle's in rogerstown,

[cd07]

I saw those lads there the other day too I reckon they were collecting seaweed cos those bags full of mussels/winkles would be impossible to lift even with a machine. We used to get some nice wrasse,pollack and coalies from the boat around the islands there.

[Chris T]

Confirmed, it was Mussels.... they had lifting gear for the bags. the word is they took about 300 tonnes in total!

[eoghanb]

Holy crap,is that done regularly,they picked the big tides for it too,they have to have a licence surely dats some ammount of mussles