Ireland Spearing 2013

[bobdonny]

Will have to do a few night dives on the reef there..

Was thinking the same last night...

 

[kookiebrew]

wow lads, havent checked in here in a few weeks...some unreal fish being caught....been praying for this weather and when it comes my priorities get all messed up and instead of spearing im having a bout of happy families...been doin the beach thing with my daughter but at least ive found a few new possible good spearing sites...even brought the wife camping for her first time last few days and hadnt room in the car for my gear, could have snuck off for a few hrs too.....

 

[jonnyhl]

Conditions good north coast too. A little swell and the water is still only 11 degrees though. Been chasing bigger pollock and it invariably means deeper water and current to contend with. Interesting link below on slack water prediction. I'm interested in how you guys stabilise yourselves on the bottom. It always seems like I'm fighting to stay still instead of relaxing. Do you stand, kneel, hold onto kelp? It's not an issue in 5 or 6 meters when kelp is shorter and more dense but at 10m it's a battle to stay balanced. I'd be interested to know.

[FONT=.HelveticaNeueUI]http://www.divernet.com/other_diving_topics/general_diving/953644/slack_water.html[/FONT]

 

[johnnybuoy]

Nice work in the plaice rob. Nice lobbie regan and everyone who is posting.
Jonnyhl, as Feargus always says, "you spearos wear too much lead". It's all about the weight.

 

[NZRegan]

Conditions good north coast too. A little swell and the water is still only 11 degrees though. Been chasing bigger pollock and it invariably means deeper water and current to contend with. Interesting link below on slack water prediction. I'm interested in how you guys stabilise yourselves on the bottom. It always seems like I'm fighting to stay still instead of relaxing. Do you stand, kneel, hold onto kelp? It's not an issue in 5 or 6 meters when kelp is shorter and more dense but at 10m it's a battle to stay balanced. I'd be interested to know.

[FONT=.HelveticaNeueUI]http://www.divernet.com/other_diving_topics/general_diving/953644/slack_water.html[/FONT]

I wouldn't worry too much about that article, eh. It's referring to scuba divers, who only have 30 minutes of air, and are not very mobile underwater. If they get dumped in on a high current, they are at its mercy. So timing their drop-off is very important. For us, we dive for 2 hrs +, so there's no point pretending that we can hit the ideal slack tide point for the duration of the dive - so we just get in. Also, compared to bubble blowers, we are very agile in the water, so if the current gets too strong, we can generally get out of there. Besides, slack water is generally of little interest to us. We want to be in current, because current is when fish are swimming/hunting - especially when hunting pelagics like pollock.

Staying relaxed on the bottom? My advice is a use enough lead to make yourself neutrally buoyant at 10m. At 5-6m, you will be positively buoyant and will need to hold on kelp, etc to stay down. At 10m, you will neither sink nor rise - so, if you are at the exact slack tide, you'll just stay there. However, we dive for a couple of hours at a time, not just for 10 minute intervals every 6 hours, so you will need to use kelp or something to hold yourself in place against the current.

An idea I use is to lie in the 'leeward' side of a rock/boulder to hide from the force of the current when down at 10m, which will let you just kind of sit there, like being out of the wind. I will do anything to grip the bottom if the shooting zone doesn't have an obvious hand hold - e.g. grip a stone between my knees, or kelp - you can hold kelp between your knees, and that will hold you in place quite effectively. Move a largish stone to the shooting zone to use as a hand hold - that works too. Lots of things work :king

Another idea is when going after fish, always try to swim into the current - as the fish are facing into the current too, and aren't looking behind them.

That's enough out of my yap - now a question to you fellas:

I almost always shoot pollock by diving straight down on them. If I try and approach from ground level, I find they get wise to my presence more quickly and run off. Does anyone else find this?

 

[johnnybuoy]

I usually manage my pollock by diving in behind a rock or into a gulley and wait. The smaller ones come first and if u hold off from shooting the tiny ones(which I see a lot on some "spearfishing" pages on Facebook) the larger ones tend to appear for a look when they feel it is safe. Generally after 1/2 shots are off they tend to spook so be patient is my advice. These guys with a stringer full of goldfish in my opinion are not patient and shoot on first sight(trigger happy). This is why true spearos blank often.

 

[NZRegan]

I usually manage my pollock by diving in behind a rock or into a gulley and wait. The smaller ones come first and if u hold off from shooting the tiny ones(which I see a lot on some "spearfishing" pages on Facebook) the larger ones tend to appear for a look when they feel it is safe. Generally after 1/2 shots are off they tend to spook so be patient is my advice. These guys with a stringer full of goldfish in my opinion are not patient and shoot on first sight(trigger happy). This is why true spearos blank often.

Thanks for the comments, JohnnyBoi. I agree completely. Small leads to big, if you are patient. Also, I agree on the spooking - if you spook a large one; it's over. The small ones will comes back, but not the big ones.

I play the waiting game often. Often. Sometimes I tire of the waiting time, as I know where they are (or think I know where they're hanging out) and want to sneak up on them. After all, we can't always rely on a nice 6lb pollock to be asleep on a rock in 4m of water somewhere near Mullaghmore; sometimes you have to go after them.

I don't know; it seems to me as if they are very sensitive to lateral movement (compared to some other fish), but comparatively blind to "death from above"...? I agree, you can get the small pollock from anywhere (above, below, behind, beside, in front) - but I'm finding I'm generally only successful with the big pollock using a top-down assault... :duh

 

[plbenza]

Hi all,
I would like to inform and invite all spearo community (and friends/families), that would like to meet up for the next bank holiday, that in August 2nd, 3rd 4th and 5th we will run once more our open forum.
As in previous editions the main objective is to share experiences, provide advice for new starters and cook what you get...sounds simple and nice doesn´t it?

Place: - Beara Peninsula. The exact places will depend on the conditions, but Billeragh, Cahermore and Allihies will be the main places to have in mind. The exact place could be determinate by the best conditions observed in the day or the previous day if possible.

Where to Stay:
- Hungry Hill Hostel and Camping site - In Adrigole. The man in charge is Owen (0831196659) and fell free to mentionate that you are coming for the spearfishing weekend. Great camping conditions as well. Prices from 17€ if you stay in the Hostel!
- Allihies Hostel - In Allihies. (02773107). Prices from 18€.
- Nearby B&B´s,

Usefull links:
Accomodation (B&B´s) - please go to Beara Tourism
Real time water temperature (at the moment 20,6oC):Irish Tides Ports

Any doubt please let me know.

Happy days
Pedro

 

[foxfish]

Good idea Pedro, I hope you can get a few people together.

 

[jonnyhl]

Thanks for the feedback gents. Have lightened my belt and it seemed better. Will probably take a bit more off too.

 

[chealy]

I tend to favour the drop down method as my breath hold on average is only a minute or so.
I've a spot I might try tomorrow which drops stright down into around 7mtres+ which usually holds lots of decent size Pollack, actually shot my biggest there last year and was only 3 or 4mtres from the shore.

Anyone been out around Cork since the weather changed?

 

[irishlostboy]

Today was our first dive at Thumb Rock, after receiving some good advice from Feargus. It was good fun. really nice to dive down a cliff face type thingy. a bit disorientating. The thermocline (I am told it is called) was weird. one second warm, the next cold. did not get to see much in the way of huntable fish, but had some fun with a very large jellyfish. unfortunately our camera glitched out while filming it. I think it is the pressure. here are a few stills from the day which are purty.

 

[Derekn]

I was out Thursday for a swim and I noticed all the yellow 'fir tree like' weed has died off and is lying on the sea bed. This has happened very quickly, say within a one week period...it will be interesting to see if the fish go with it as it was a great spot for the bass to hide in.
Anybody got any ideas what might have caused it?

 

[chealy]

I was out in Kerry over the weekend, headed down on Saturday but did'nt do any spearing until Sunday morning on Valentia island. The viz turned out to be quite bad and not much around in the way of takeable fish so ended up trying to film some of the Wrasse.

Then in the afternoon we went to Derrynane, viz was much better and the sun was blazing so started to dive from the kayak in about 25ft+of water. Lots of small and average size Pollack around so took two very large and two average size ones.

I then had a visit from the coast guard saying someone had reported a kayak with no one in it, I was only 150mtres from shore so would have been easy to see me surfacing and diving. They left and 5mins later I had the search and rescue helicopter circling around me so I got out and sat in the kayak. After all this I decided I would go in as did not want someone to call them out again.

I shot a John Dorry on the way back in, it was one of those times where you regret pulling the trigger as he was smaller than I thought, still meal size but should have let him be and taken a picture instead.

 

[bobdonny]

I play the waiting game often. Often. Sometimes I tire of the waiting time, as I know where they are (or think I know where they're hanging out) and want to sneak up on them. After all, we can't always rely on a nice 6lb pollock to be asleep on a rock in 4m of water somewhere near Mullaghmore; sometimes you have to go after them.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm :ko

Regarding the top down... sometimes if a pollock sees me he will deliberately swim underneath me... and stay there eying me up until I dive and then he scoots... Like Johnny, I dive, cling onto some weed and wait. No big fish around here though

 

[Derekn]

Hmm...it turns out this weed is called Wire Weed, an invasive species originating from Japan. Its supposed to have a life span of 3-4 years but it looks like its dying off after only 2-3 months.

Most Unwanted Species | Established | Marine | Wire Weed | Invasive Species Ireland

 

[arrowloopboy]

Hmm...it turns out this weed is called Wire Weed, an invasive species originating from Japan. Its supposed to have a life span of 3-4 years but it looks like its dying off after only 2-3 months.

Most Unwanted Species | Established | Marine | Wire Weed | Invasive Species Ireland

So the name I found ''Jap Weed'' was slang rofl,invasive or not,its a spearos wet dream:inlove,the Bass and mullet seem to love it ,and it gives the spearo loads of cover.

 

[Derekn]

So the name I found ''Jap Weed'' was slang rofl,invasive or not,its a spearos wet dream:inlove,the Bass and mullet seem to love it ,and it gives the spearo loads of cover.

Ye it certainly did that...it might be a while before we get out again with this weather messing with the vis. Wondering what the landscape will look like then.

 

[arrowloopboy]

Ye it certainly did that...it might be a while before we get out again with this weather messing with the vis. Wondering what the landscape will look like then.

Known our luck,Lunar.But we won't need cover,with all the extra rangerofl.We'll be hitting Bass on the S/R from the B .

 

[Minde]

Hello every1 , i"m the new spearo. i bought all my equipment 2 days ago, so should receive it tomorrow. Hopefully next week i will do my firs dive and hunt