Ireland spearing 2007

[stone_shot]

It seems that there are enough of us interested in trying our hands at the tuna. Assuming the proper gear could be got together, who would be interested in organising a trip for albacore? It might be too late to get that sort of thing together for this season, but it seems to me that with decent planning and a few bodies to split the costs, a trip next season could be a reality.
Opinions anyone?

 

[abusingelves]

i'm interested.

but i think you're right, it may be out for this season. initially i thought it would be a possibility for this year, but to get the necessary gear together and tested would take a bit longer.

i'll do a dig through the form for info on float systems.

and when i get time, i'll put one together.:martial

 

[Huan]

I think a boogie board float system would probably work for albies they aren't that powerful and with a good bungie you would have a good chance of landing one.
I do think that you would be best with slip tip though for proper hold on the fish.
Not sure how you would rig a eurogun for them though...
Of course you need a good boat a keen skipper and the weather for it.
I reckon either get a good fast charter boat or a decent size commercial vessel that could handle a bit of weather and not be too rolly.
I know of a guy in Waterville that might fit the bill but I would have to talk to him about it and see what he thinks.

 

[sunfish]

Stoneshot, I'm interested. Next season rather than this, sounds right. the cost of the right gear + the cost of the boat could mount up a bit. Myself and a group of friends used to hire an angling boat and skipper for 300e for the day but I'm assuming the right boat for this trip will cost more. How much would you guess approx ? On the subject of rigging a eurogun for albies, I'm sure the south africans on this forum can tell us all about what will and won't work. If we have to buy 120 RA's, then with one band removed, they can still be used for pollack etc. when the vis is good. I started out with a 120 Beauchat which I found in a fishing tackle shop in Clonakilty a few years ago. It was a little unwieldy, but could make very accurate long shots. I got my first trigger with it in Clonakilty bay and eventually lost it in almost the same spot when it came off my arm while I was stringing a fish. By the time I realised it was gone I had drifted a fair way and never found it again. I've felt nostalgic about it a few days this year as the vis has mostly been OK here in spite of the winds and weather.

 

[sunfish]

Went out last on sunday. Paddled from a beach west of here to fish a reef 10 metres deep and 150 to 200 yards offshore. I saw lots of pollack there but nothing looked over 4lb. There was a bit of tide running and after a while I decided to come inshore a bit and look for flatties on the sand as advised by Foxfish. I made a circuit of the kayak, making 15 dives, still in the 10m depth range, then got bored with looking at sand. I'll keep trying this and I'm sure that once I get one I'll be able to work harder at it! After this I swam a rocky shore nearby for bass or mullet. Saw a few bass of two to three lb and one that looked four lb. I needed none to eat so let them swim on. Saw two mullet also and I would have liked one of those but couldn't line up on them in time.
Weather conditions look better for the rest of the week so I'm hoping to get out tomorrow and Thursday. Good luck everyone.

 

[foxfish]

Don't give up dude, once you get your eye in there will be no stopping you.
Fresh plaice are the best eating fish in our waters.
Apart from little tuna :t

 

[Huan]

I have a couple of the old style RA guns with the green handle in 120 and 140 and a couple of spare spears as well, so we don't need to buy new guns just for this.
I can also rig most of what we will need maybe only a bungee or 2 will be necessary.

 

[abusingelves]

on the bungee front, how would some regular bungee cord (6mm perhaps) doubled up, attached to the float on one end and attached to more single bungee on the other, followed by float line sound?

had a look at some other threads and the south africans seem to be using speargun rubber as a bungee. i don't have any speargun rubber lying around and the bungee rope is cheap.

huan, what were you at with 140's? a few of them no less!

 

[Huan]

I was gearing up for Albacore tuna of course!
I have some bulk rubber in 18mm I think not sure how much but I know its there somewhere....
I have a 120 and a 140 not two 140's

 

[abusingelves]

right! i found two vids on this page they are the second and third ones from the bottom, if you're stuck for time.

Spearfishing Videos that you can watch online for Free

both of albacore being speared. give us a better idea of what we're up against.

also found this link, but most of you have prob seen it already.

Albacore tuna fishing Ireland

 

[stone_shot]

I have a few spare boogie boards collecting dust in storage back in the States and I'd be happy to donate them to the cause. I'll just have to get them sent over or pick them up next time I'm there. I'm sure I could have them here in plenty of time for next season.

 

[abusingelves]

right! :wavegood news! i got out spearing this evening!

got in the water at 6.30, 30 mins before low water and i was litteraly just in when i spotted a nice flatty in about 3m of water. lined up the shot and bam flatty for dinner ( its in the oven now with garlic and mojo ). my sister is just back from the canaries and she brought me a big jar of canarian mojo sauce, delicious.

so on i went in high spirits with the flatty on my stringer. :martial

at the edge of the sandy patch i spotted movement at the base of the kelp, so i hung back for a look. it turned out to be a smallish conger about 3ft or so i'd say. i must admit i did have the shot lined up(i'll talk about my accuracy in a minute) but didn't pull the trigger, because i just don't know how to cook conger, and have never eatten them.



so on i went out to the drop off which was only to 8 m. on one of my surface intervals, an inquisitive mackerel actually swam up and kissed the tip of my spear, i was again so flabbergasted, that my trigger finger just felt disconnected from my brain. anywho, about an hour or so of diving on the 'ledge' and i decided to head for the shallower water in search of another flatty, still fuelled by my earlier success.

so off i went to search some sandy patches to the west of where i entered. no flatties, but i did spot two mullet which were within range but sped off as i swiveled the cannon around!

so i hung around watching baitfish and sandeels for a while. baitfish are class! especially when they're really tightly bunched. anyway, i was doing the really still thing when another mullet appeared (a nice size), nice and in range too! so i lined up, and . . . missed. :vangry anticlimax. so the next time i'm going out i'm bringing something to hang from my float for target practice.

has anyone done this before? what would be good to dangle from the float to shoot at? at the moment i think i wouldn't hit a cow's ass with a shovel.


anyway, was a lovely evening and i'm so glad i got out. sorry about there not being any pictures. i'm just after investing in a new bow, for the other hobby, so that really has set back my camera fund.

i got home and my sister presented me with the mojo sauce and a cook book she had gotten for me. guess what was in the book? two recipes for conger!

viz was good, water felt warm, but then again i was wearing my new elios suit 5mm from dave. got up to almost a minute divetime tonight. happy out! got out around 8.15.

hope the rest of you guys got out.

 

[sunfish]

On Tuesday I went East, to the cliffs and pinnacle reef where I got the tasty crustacian recently. I've been waiting for the weather to calm down enough to make it safe round the headland as a bit of tide runs there and if there's wind with it it's not a great place to kayak. There was a bit of wind, from the land to the sea, and the tide was neap, so conditions were OK at last. I drifted the length of the reef, diving until I could see the bottom this time, but no more cray. In fact there seemed to be a dearth of most fish. I didn't see a pollock of over a pound which is very unusual here.A local angling guide brought Henry Gilbey here on a fishing program and they took many fine pollack to over seven pounds from the rocks on the headland. On the way back I had a poke about in the wreckage of a grain ship and couldn't even find a decent sized crab! I'm going back to the pinnacles when it's flat calm and crystal clear.
Tomorrow early morning I plan to paddle out to the barrel reefs in Courtmac bay. The angling boats don't come too close because of rocks and I got a john dory there last year.

 

[basilisladias]

has anyone done this before? what would be good to dangle from the float to shoot at? at the moment i think i wouldn't hit a cow's ass with a shovel.


Good morning from Greece! Well, if you want to practice, you can just fill a plastic 2lt bottle with small stones, bean size (no sand cause will fall out) and put it in the distance you shoot the fish (up to 2,5-3 metres from the edge of the gun). stay firm in the bottom and shoot till you feel confident with your gun! Good luck!

 

[fcallagy]

YouTube - Spear Dive

YouTube - Teelin Donegal

Hi Lads above is the videos on youtube from Teelin. My brother Seamus did the editing and put in some music. I stil have to learn how to do this properly so thanks Seamus.

 

[sunfish]

I set off for the barrels at 8-30 this morning with a lively force 3 breeze on my back. A couple of times when I passed lobster floats I turned to paddle back a few yards, just to make sure I could do it. The further I got from the shelter of the shore, the worse the chop got. Eventually when I was threequarters of the way there I decided I'd better turn back-the wind was forecast to swing W.SW later and if it had, coming back would have been unpleasant, maybe needing a tack west, doubling the distance to paddle.
Making the best of it I headed for a stretch of rocky shore to look for bass and mullet. Almost immediatly I shot a mullet of 4.9lb. Soon after, I peered into a gulley in a small shore reef, to see a group of half a dozen bass resting there.I shot one of 3.5lb. I strung this round my waist and swam on, happy to have a catch, but wondering now if there might be any bigger ones around. Plenty of fish were around today and I must have passed two dozen bass and a few good mullet too. I was watching a shoal of 3 to 4 pounders in a gulley when I saw a big fishy head come out of the weed on the bottom. I let my body go limp and as the fish rose and gently angled the gun round to fire, hitting it through the top of the head and out the gill-stone shot. It later weighed in at 6.5lbs.
As this brought me to the legal bag limit, I started the swim back to the kayak. I saw more bass and mullet on the way back and felt happy to be in such a healthy bit of sea.


Abusingelves, some people make a two foot square frame from wood and tack a piece of netting to it. If you mark the centre square with coloured string or something, then aim a few shots at it, you will see exactly what your gun does for you. Obviously if most shots are going high right aim low left.

 

[abusingelves]

nice bass! heading to lahinch next thursday if the weather is in any way decent, for a look around. i'll have the whole day, so i might try two dives. one early and one later in the day. will have to check tide tables and that.

also their surfcam should be a great help!

http://www.lahinchsurfshop.com/lahinch/magico.asp?magpage=9

 

[abusingelves]

got out this evening at high tide 5pm. loads of wrasse around and spent some time terrorising them, but didn't shoot any.

set up a target on my float to shoot at and i have to say, feel much more confident at hitting things (fish). i think that my problem was in just not making enough shots.

i was really hoping for some mullet to show up, but none did. however, whilei was just creepying around looking for mullet i found another flatty. not far from where i had one during the week. ok, i admit it i wouldn't have seen it if it hadn't moved (3 inches).

ther was loads of sandeels about, even some of the large sandeel, but didn't spot any pollack feeding on them.

no sign of the conger i saw the last day i was out. congers are territorial right? so they usually inhabit one area?

got out after 2 hours.

 

[sunfish]

Took my youngest two children [10 and 11] diving over the shore rocks yesterday. They have fins but prefer not to use them a lot of the time. We hope to see bass and wrasse and maybe mullet. In the end we saw only wrasse, maybe due to splashy swimming without fins. We certainly saw them in the same place last time we dived there.Today I paddled out to the outer barrels. No weather problems this time.the wind forecast was F3 northerly turning variable later with sea breezes. On this coast sea breezes are from the south . This worked out perfectly, giving me a v. gentle backwind both ways. I couldn't find much on the outer barrels so when a couple of angling boats turned up I retreated to the inner barrels where I started to see some better pollack. After a few dives a small shoal of bass appeared [around the 3-4lb mark] then simultaneously I saw a bigger bass skulking at the back of the shoal and a pollack of 6 or 7 lb rose out of the weed in front of me. Rather than shoot at the pollack I decided to wait for the bass. Needless to say, it didn't come in and I ran out of breath.
After making 46 dives I paddled inshore where I had a short flatty diving session over the sand, then took a 4.8lb bass over shoreline rocks.
This was a brilliant day out and the first proper summer day of this year.
On the subject of Albacore I did a little looking around the net and found a couple of boats near me have some experience. The price seems to be around E600 for the day but I think possibly they might do it for less if they weren't booked up for angling. I'll get back to this later.

 

[basilisladias]

YouTube - Spear Dive

YouTube - Teelin Donegal

Hi Lads above is the videos on youtube from Teelin. My brother Seamus did the editing and put in some music. I stil have to learn how to do this properly so thanks Seamus.

Hi Feargus, nice job Seamus did. I will always keep them for remembrance. Take care!