Hi all.
I will be relocating from South Africa to Dublin in Dec'19. My two sons and I are nuts about all fishing, but for this note would want to focus on opportunities for DRONE fishing around the Dublin area. I've done some fairly extensive research and interestingly Ireland and UK are very, very far behind SA, Australia, NZ and the US in the evolving sport of Drone Fishing.
We use our DJI Phantom 4 with the custom manufactured GANNET bait release. (Advice/Tip: Please folks ignore every bit of You-tube advice about wire, clothes pegs, or other non-specific heath-robinson bait clips/releases - you will only end up losing an expensive bit of equipment). Get hold of Gannet/Dronefishing SA and order the specific release to ensure optimal functioning of your equipment.
In SA we usually fly large baits - whole mackerel or sardines, often even large fish-heads out into the deep (300m plus drops) for large inedibles (skates, rays, sharks). For this we use heavy duty rods, buckets/harnesses and make sure you have a serious reel with significant line capacity - ideally a lever brake. (I have Torium 50 with >1000m of 80lbs braid).
Depending on circumstances we also fly smaller baits - prawn/squid/sardine etc for edibles - we have significantly wider array of species, so smaller baits get picked up quickly.
I've read lots of reports and watched you-tube videos, that seem to show the local fishing shore-based marks are heavily overfished, but was wondering whether a bait dropped further into the deep - considerably past the longest distance caster's range - would yield positive results.
Would it make sense that reaching further from shore (say 200m to 400m) would open up better opportunities for more and larger catches, or are all the good near-shore marks also extensively overfished by boat-based anglers?
A big advantage of drone fishing from the rocks is that one no longer needs to venture too close to the water - in SA we have significant surf which is an ever present danger - so by drone launching and flying a bait out off a high point, you only need to get near the water once you are in a position to bring the fish onto shore and then at least you can guide it into a more sheltered gully or sandy cove.
My fishing equipment is still has to embark on it's international sea-voyage which could take 2-3 months. Once it arrives I will submit another post and then perhaps anyone who may be interested can contact me to arrange a trip to their local hotspot where we can do some flights/casts and see what bites.