• Welcome to the DeeperBlue.com Forums, the largest online community dedicated to Freediving, Scuba Diving and Spearfishing. To gain full access to the DeeperBlue.com Forums you must register for a free account. As a registered member you will be able to:

    • Join over 47,943+ fellow diving enthusiasts from around the world on this forum
    • Participate in and browse from over 531,990+ posts.
    • Communicate privately with other divers from around the world.
    • Post your own photos or view from 7,455+ user submitted images.
    • All this and much more...

    You can gain access to all this absolutely free when you register for an account, so sign up today!

Ireland Spearing 2012

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 90 days.
It can take a long time to get an up-to-date response or contact with relevant users.
Welcome muras! Great looking fish in those photos - could be the fish of the month right there!

Did that big conger give you a hard time? And whereabouts in the country are you in those photos?

Not really
He was in 8 meters deep.
I shoot 2 times, second time was in the head and go through, and after two minutes his give up. But before his bend my shaft like bow :martial
 
Easy.. you boil the fish with two house bricks for two hours,then throw away the fish & eat the bricks!

Conger is a connoisseurs fish in lots of ways, they excrete ammonia via their skin (maybe not a technical description) & start to stink very soon after death. (factual description)
If you are ever lucky enough to encounter a live conger you will see a beautiful, seemingly friendly creature, that has a sleek appearance but upon death this soon changes into a smelly slim ball!

However they are edible & at one time in history were in fact a prime eating fish, at least where I live!
I have killed a few over the years but due to the general demise of the conger & the thrill of finding one nowadays, I now leave them alone.

If you wish to kill one, then be prepared to clean the beast & enjoy the flesh.

Goujons are a great way but, there are many ways to disguise the strong flavour using Mediterranean recipes, with onions, garlics etc

Nothing wrong with killing a creature you intend to eat, just be certain you want to prepare & eat it before you kill it.
 
I'd go along with all of the above, never say never but it's not on my menu for the foreseeable future and as Foxfish says "Nothing wrong with killing a creature you intend to eat, just be certain you want to prepare & eat it before you kill it"... and a bent spear could be costly enough these days.

Rob, did you see the BIM Seafood Handbook that's in the download section...it's mainly for fish retailer marketing but there's tons of really useful stuff in there and a good few recipes as well.

I'd love to join you all for the meet up Feargus, I won't know if I can make it until a week or so beforehand...hopefully.
 
Hello all,
Just stumbled across this forum a few days ago,i've been spear fishing on and off for about 15 years ,mostly flounder:o,from the surface,i joined this forum basically to become a better spear fisher.

Anyway,greetings from Wexford

Arrow.
 
cook the fish was not easy

I cut conger in the bit and put in the milk for 3 h. (milk for take stink smell of)then wash up, after put
some spicy.
His go to the smoking room for 5 h.
After that his ready for eat.
 
Haven't been down to the quay in a few days...vis is very erratic, no that wasn't me last Sunday week...I was supposed to go but I usually work weekends and got back pretty late so I didn't get out until that evening...managed a few lovely flounder though.
 
cook the fish was not easy

I cut conger in the bit and put in the milk for 3 h. (milk for take stink smell of)then wash up, after put
some spicy.
His go to the smoking room for 5 h.
After that his ready for eat.

My mum used to eat conger & used milk in a similar way!
She would also dry conger in a net frame that was hung in the greenhouse.
The resulting dried conger was then heated in the oven & used in stews - I joke you not the whole house would stink for days!!
You must remember that my home was occupied by the German forces during the second world war & food was extremely sparse.
The locales who remained in Guernsey developed all sorts of preserving methods & some became traditional recipes like my mums stinky conger stew!
 
Rob, did you see the BIM Seafood Handbook that's in the download section...it's mainly for fish retailer marketing but there's tons of really useful stuff in there and a good few recipes as well.

I did, its looking very good!

Regarding conger... I tried it this holiday (along with about 30 other "unusual fish") and I didn't really think very much of it... It was a conger paella rice stew sortta thing, but it was a little meh...

Don't think I'd go through the bother.
 
Think i'll leave the conger be, saw a huge one in East Cork last year, well saw part of it, but decided I'd rather he kept his head in the kelp.

I've never seen one in open water but would love to see that..
 
I can remember back in the 80s when spearfishing competitions were popular & the heavyset bag was the winner.
Conger & wrasse were the prime targets, one competition I can recall saw 40 divers participating on a little Island called Herm, Herm is reached by a 20 min ferry ride from Guernsey.
On the island there is a group of rocks called the rockery! Here you could find conger in abundance & one of the few places you could see conger out side of holes in the daylight hours.
I think this was mainly due to the sheer quantity of conger compared to the holes available.
Anyway the divers caught so many conger & wrasse that they had to make three or four journeys up the beach to carry their catch!
A truly horrible sight to see, dozens of mutated conger being dragged around, covered in slime & nobody really wanting the fish to take away!!
That particular event got some bad publicity & I think was the beginning of the end for locale spearfishing competitions :head
 

Attachments

  • 318853_10150957451423434_1548034189_n.jpg
    318853_10150957451423434_1548034189_n.jpg
    56.7 KB · Views: 239
Last edited:
Yeah that sounds brutal, hopefully those days are over.
I've no problem with anyone taking it for the table, I caught fresh water Eels back in the UK and took one home years ago, was'nt that inpressed so never took one again.
Sounds like hard work to skin them, the odd time I have taken Wrasse I regretted it due to the slime and how hard they are to skin and fillet.

Think I will stick with Pollack and Bass as my staple, roll on 2:30pm when I finish work.. sun is shining and my gear is in the car..
 
jammy git chealy :)
stuck at work till tomorrow night...
Where you thinking? I'd say viz would not be great on the east.
let me know anyway, am thinking bout another swim Sunday if vis is good.
 
Loving the idea of a cook off at the meet up in Sligo great shout Feargus. While we are on the cooking theme anyone know where I can collect some Samphire ???
My local fishmonger stocks it but he's always sticking his fishy hand or tongs in the box....... I know you say so what ! But I need the flavour to be pure I want to just barely cook it, liquidize it, then set it as a jelly with Agar or gelatine it needs to taste pure and the fishy taste does come through. Also I'm thinking of setting a piece of raw samphire in each tiny cube of jelly so I need to get young small shoots ( copyright protected) :t

Re; the conger milk does the trick alright, the lactic acid in it will also tenderise frozen squid if you soak it overnight. Great Pollack lads, I was afraid to go to near the mouth of Dingle Harbour for fear of upsetting the Fungi boatsmen last thing I wanted was more bad PR.
 
DeeperBlue.com - The Worlds Largest Community Dedicated To Freediving, Scuba Diving and Spearfishing

ABOUT US

ISSN 1469-865X | Copyright © 1996 - 2026 DeeperBlue Global Media Limited.

DeeperBlue.com is an independent digital media platform dedicated to Scuba Diving, Freediving, Ocean Advocacy, and Dive Travel.

Since 1996, we’ve been informing, educating, and inspiring the global diving community through trusted news, features, and shared community experience.

ADVERT