Ireland spearing 2007

[sunfish]

Yesterday evening I set out to spearfish a reef in a bay near Galley head. The reef was breaking nicely with terns bombing the water behind it. When I got there however, the terns had left and the action seemed to have moved much further out to sea. I dived for a while, seeing only small pollack, then moved to nearby cliffs and freedived for an hour, finding no crabs of any size, but enjoying the water. On returning to the slip I found mackeral driving shoals of baitfish against the sides of the slip. I messed about with the camera for a while then managed to gaff out 16 mackeral in half an hour.



All praise to the striped tigers, one of the tastiest fish in the sea. I'm off to check magic seaweed for tomorrows sea conditions now.

 

[Huan]

Well I have good news and bad news.
Good news is that albacore are being caught, bad news is that they are still 120miles west of Ireland.
One of the local boats spent a week for 140 fish which isn't bad.
I think it will be some time before they get close, I think late Aug and September will see a settled period in the weather and allow some action.
I must dust off the gear and try out my new 100cm carbon shafted Picasso mongrel, Old handle and head on new shaft and bands...
Well I hope the rest of you have been getting in the water even with the shoddy weather that has been plaguing us.

 

[sunfish]

Huan, my present gun is a 90cm picasso. Would it be feasible to use or upgrade this to shoot albacore? I've no experience of any type of tuna and no idea how big or strong albacore are. What shaft and bands have you on the 100 cm carbon picasso?

 

[abusingelves]

sunfish, love those photo's of the mackerel driving the baifish.

albacore are still a long way off then. would we need a break away rig? or would a reel be sufficient?

i'm getting awful itchy to get out, as i haven't been out in a few weeks now.

i'll head to aran the end of august, and see if i can get some photo's of the area and any fish we may catch!

 

[abusingelves]

the first photo you put in is the best wallpaper i have ever had.! what's your camera? pixels?

 

[foxfish]

Sunfish your pics do look great, that must of been real fun.
Albacore Tuna Fish Identification

 

[fcallagy]

great pics sunfish well done might be out tomorrow but aint feeling the may west at present so will see how I is in the morning.

 

[themosb]

hello from greece

I post some photos from our Ireland fishing trip (the grouper I caught 3 weeks ago in a reef near where I live in Greece).
thanks for the hospitality guys
keep in touch whoever is crazy about spearfishing and sea etc... and if coming to Greece to get in touch. themosb@gmail.com
Themos

 

[themosb]

And some more.........:t

 

[sunfish]

Abusingelves, my camera's a fuji finepix F31fd, with 6.3 mp. I have a few other baitfish shots. I took 73 shots alltogether, but deleted most leaving me with 15 total. Not one shot contained both mackeral and baitfish in clear focus. The problem was the mackeral, which came in so fast they always blurred. I realised afterwards I should have put the camera in sports mode. I'll know better next time.
themosb, great photos, some nice pollack and wrasse there. I'm glad you enjoyed your visit to Ireland. Did you weigh the fish at all? I'm allways curious about weights of fish, and I usually open the stomachs of fish I catch to see what they have eaten. Your grouper I specially like. I'd like to get one of those myself. The nearest thing we have here is called a "stone bass". Angling boats sometimes get them but I don't think it's possible to deliberately hunt them with the speargun. If anyone out there knows how to find them, please let me know. They are also called "Polyprion Americanum".

 

[stone_shot]

Your grouper I specially like. I'd like to get one of those myself. The nearest thing we have here is called a "stone bass". Angling boats sometimes get them but I don't think it's possible to deliberately hunt them with the speargun. If anyone out there knows how to find them, please let me know. They are also called "Polyprion Americanum".

That's also called a wreckfish, and as far as I know you won't find one at a depth you could freedive to as they are a deeper water species. It would be some sport if you could though, since they can grow to 300 - 400 pounds!!

 

[sunfish]

stone shot, thats pretty much the conclusion I'd come to, but apparently, smaller specimens often live a pelagic life under free floating wreckage, flotsam, and maybe scum lines? Some of the angling boats in this area mention having caught them in adverts in the angling press. In this context I guess a small one could be quite big.

 

[fcallagy]

Hi themos glad to see you got back ok and that you enjoyed the trip. I have some video but i have to figure out how to reduce it enough to put it up on the web.

 

[spearheads]

Upload the videos onto youtube then post the URL for the video.

 

[abusingelves]

feargus, happened to find you on youtube, added you to my buddy list.
is it yourself in the vid you have up? or are you on the other side of the camera?

 

[basilisladias]

Hi guys! A really nice trip for me and themosb to the Irish sea-Atlantic, where we also had the chance to meet feargus and his brother! Although raining (and had some misadventures too), it was a very warm and hospitable two weeks of Irish spearfishing!

 

[fcallagy]

Hi basilias good to hear from you and themos the pictures are great. Abusingselves thats basilias in the camo suit and me doing the camera work. There is a better one that basilias took thats too big for youtube and i need to resize it before it will upload. Any info on how to resize video ?

 

[basilisladias]

Hi Feargus! Good to see you here again! What is the link to your video in YouTube? Catch up again Tuesday morning!

 

[abusingelves]

was trying to post the link but it kept coming up as a video on the page. not sure if its ok to post like that so i suppose directions will have to do.

search for 'teelin' on youtube. its one of the first few results.

 

[Huan]

Sunfish: Picasso 90 not really man enough for Albies, they are small but pretty powerful and need to be stuck right through as the meat is pretty soft like all tunas.
Recommend a Rob Allen in 120-140 range with twin rubbers and heavier 8mm spear also Float system or big bungie.
Feargus:
I assume that you are using XP? you should have Windows movie maker in the programs, that allows you to edit and shorten movies and even add things like titles etc.