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Ireland spearing 2007

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was out friday at portstewart were beach met rocks looking for flatties/bass etc. Didnt see anything but vis wasn't great. Must be hard to spot flatties all the same. Think im picking this sport up at the wrong time of year with vis/swell changing but off well there'll be lots of action ahead on the board.
Think I'll check out the east coast next few times as swell doesnt get round towards Belfast.
As well as magicseaweed I always check WindGURU: Weather forecasts for windsurfing, kitesurfing and other wind related sports for kiting/surfing
Will give detailed swell/wind/cloud cover etc and has allot more spots to choose from

Where is the best place to look for scallops?
sheltered tidal estuarys?
 
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got out yesterday evening on the rising tide near ballvaughan. spent about an hour and a half stealthily looking for mullet.

resulted in one fish of a guestimated 6 pounds. saw another 2 nice ones and a huge shoal of very small mullet.

and my gun is way too long for that kind of fishing. in about a metre and a half , i looked down to see that i had just drifted over a mullet which i hadn't seen, no chance of a shot. anywho, he mustn't have seen me either. the stalking in the shallows interests me, and i'll be trying it again.

i'd usually have done my spearing in 8-11 metres.
 
Indian is my favorite style of hunting, you just never know when that great grey battle ship of a bass is going to show! I do a lot of my fishing in 2 - 3' of water although the reef may be some distance off shore.
 
Indian is my favourite too, I love chicken madras and channa massala!:t
 
You may jest! but my surname is true red Indian, in fact my uncle traced his family tree back to North America & we can now get free accommodation in any teepee!
 
teepee or not teepee then!


just thought i'd get that out of the way.

first time doing that kind of stalking for an entire dive. its better than any of those first person shooter video games, especially when you get some theme tune going in your head.
 
Got in for a couple of hours yesterday morning at a spot in south connemara. Viz was poor so I decided to go looking in holes and under boulders for brown crab. At one point I noticed a likely looking cave formed by some granite boulders welded together with maerl so I went over to peer inside. A few prawns guarding the entrance scattered as soon as I arrived, then out of nowhere two large claws appeared and a sizeable lobster stuck his head out to see what was going on. First time I've seen one that wasn't already trapped in a pot, I had always thought they were nocturnal so never expected to come across one during the day like that.

This guy was more brownish in colour than usual and his head was quite encrusted with tube worms and a couple of small limpets. I read somewhere in these forums that the thing to do is just grab them by the thorax and don't worry about the claws, but there was no way I was going to stick my hand near those things! I poked my (unloaded) gun into his cave slowly to see what he would do but he just retreated slowly, then came straight back out again. I'm wondering if some sort of crayfish snare/loop would be any use in these situations, such as those used in the states?



On the way back to my entry point I saw what looked like a coalfish maybe 5/6 pounds checking me out. At least I reckon it was a coalfish as it lacked the two-toned appearance of pollack, being silvery grey all over, and it was alot less easily spooked that a pollack. It hung around quite close to me even while I loaded my gun, then moved off slowly as I swung around to try and line up a shot. I'm told the meat is closer to cod than pollack so it would have capped off a nice morning but alas not to be. All in all a satisfying enough session even though I came home empty handed (again!)
 
ronnybiggs said:
It hung around quite close to me even while I loaded my gun, then moved off slowly as I swung around to try and line up a shot... All in all a satisfying enough session even though I came home empty handed (again!)
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Next time you go out, load your gun as soon as you start looking around, normally the minute your in the water and dont unload untill just before you get out. Youll improve your chances of getting something 10 fold as most fish wont hang around long enough for you to load and aim also alot of times you see the biggest fish of the day or perhaps even the only one just after you got in or just after you unloaded on your way back to shore. Funny how these things work dontya think :crutch
 
hey ronny, i've been looking for spots around conemara myself, but my knowledge of the bays and more worryingly their currents is limited.

where abouts did you go in? don't worry i won't look for your lobster. but he must have been a nice size, to have tube worms on him.
 
Havent been out for 3 wks, weathers been rough, beaufort 6-7, been working, got enough for the T20 now, every site i seem to go on shows the gun without the reel, does anyone know a site that sells the gun with the reel, and in euro price, deliverly etc, to countries in europe
 
they go tough after a certain age tho?

can anyone spread any light on where to look for scallops?
possible close to shore?
 
tough lobsters are most often overcooked!

forgot to say, that their nervous system is slightly slower than ours, you have a greater chance of grabbing them than of them grabbing you.!:martial

scallops can be a closely kept secret. in an area with scallops, a local could tell you that they were fished out years ago, even though there could be scallop shell all over the beach!

still to find my first one, but when i do, it's going under a really hot grill with some lime juice and tabasco, then eatten with some garlic mayonnaise. if i have more than one there will definitely be crusty bread and the quantity of mayonnaise will increase.
 
no worries abusing, i'd say the lobster pots will get him before either of us will. I'll send you a PM with location rather than post it up here as there are probably non spearo-types reading too. Takes some of the fun out of it when people are chucking lead weights at you

 


sound advice Deep Thinker .... first time I'd ever come across a coalfish too. To be honest i wasn't too fussed as I was having trouble with my line release anyway so it was safer just to unload rather than get all tangled up especially as the kelp was quite dense.
 
I got out yesterday, late afternoon, and paddled for Carraigdubh reef. When I dropped anchor, south of the reef, it seemed like rather a lot of line went down, so I started hauling, only to find the anchor was stuck fast. I put on my mask and snorkel and went down for a look. I'd forgotten my D3 so I don't know the exact depth but it seemed about 50 to 55 feet and the anchor was tangled among some wreckage from the SS Norwegian. This ship ran onto the reef after being hit in WW2, then slid off after in storms, so wreckage and debris litter the area in places. The current was running and it took me 3 or 4 dives to warm up enough to relax and unwind the anchor from among a tangle of iron girders and poles laying in a dip. when I swam up with the anchor and opened the front hatch, the hatch fell off the boat, the rivet holding it having come apart. "One of those days" I was thinking. After getting the hatch back (thank heavens it floated) I tied it back onto its strap with my stringer (must make up an emergency repair kit) I paddled closer to the reef and anchored in shallower water. With only an hour to dark now I finally managed to get a fish, a pollack of 6.5lbs, before racing back to the slip in semi darkness.
While diving I saw a shoal of scad several times. The fish had two of them in its gut.
 
Sea conditions haven't been very good here so I've been catching up on other things myself. I'm definately getting in on Tuesday and that'll be a week without diving. The longest I've gone without a swim since last March!
 
didn't manage to get in this weekend sadly. have already planned next weekend's outing!
regular hydration is definitely the way to go sunfish. that's a brilliant track record, and with the summer we never had and all.

got a new phone myself, which has a decent camera, so from now on i'll be able to upload photo's of any catch.

dechann, were you away with the scuba club in killary? how'd it go?
 
Ya, i was at it, very good weekend, plenty of life, congers, Rays, Lobsters. Theres a new wreck where we dive, that had a few medium sized pollock at it. Going to St.Johns in Donegal this weekend, ill only be there Sat myself though.
 
So, I finally made it back into the sea this evening. The big depression out in the Atlantic has been sending swell here from the West for over A week now. Normally this wouldn't be too much of a problem as there'd be sheltered water somewhere. The wind this week has been from the East though, and this, against the West swell, has messed the water conditions a bit.
Anyway, conditions were safe tonight and it felt great to be back in the sea again. Vis was poor and I caught nothing. Saw plenty of small pollack and small wrasse but nothing of note.
 
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