Kieran Hanrahan

Hi Try small shrimper rigs if you are trying to catch them with a rod. A dropnet hauled up quickly in a pier is useful... although you have to be very quick (a bicycle wheel rim is a good start). A castnet is better if you are working off a beach. You can buy any number of these... can also work off a pier. A pushnet is also useful if you are working off a beach where they are burying themselves... similarly you can dig them out (watch out for weaverfish) if they are there in sufficient quantities... use a potato fork and throw it up onto dry land. There is a knife like instrument called a vingler that can be used also, again where the eels are buried, but it requires skill and quick reflexes... THT...

Hi Heading for the south of france and thought to add to this thread rather than start a new one... anyone fished around Perpignan / Adge in late June? Any help appreciated...

Not sure how to post photos here... here is a link for the common sea bream. http://www.sea-angling-ireland.org/bulleti...php?pic_id=1342 anyone know how I can post photos here directly? Thx

Hi Skeetshoot Just back and I promised lots of people here a a report so here goes... Try off the rocks near dusk in PDC with small prawn baits on 2s and 4s, tree hook flappers or similar rigs will do find. You can fish into the surf in daylight and catch small mullet and other species as well. Snorklet around to see where the fish holding terrain is... very easy to do. There are annular sea bream in shoals and a host of other species (behind the San Antonio hotel at the airport end of the strip). We also saw small jacks and a bluefish in the water nearby, not big but you might try a few plugs and spinners. I am told the 68 Yellow Hammer from the Tasmanian Devil range on www.wigstonslures.com.au is the business locally - bend it a bit in the middle and pull it in fast. It is a perfect imitation for the annular bream so that could be it. I would be careful about wading as it shelves very quickly in places (snorkeling will show you this) and there are submerged rocks, soft sand pockets and some fearsome rip currents... You will also pick up moray eels (known locally as morena) around the rocks on small fish baits, but they again require a wire trace and careful handling - teeth like a T-Rex On the subject of dangers, there are also three types of weaverfish that are caught after dark on mixed and sandy ground, so be very careful and that does not include the scorpionfish some of which are very seriously poisonous. Anything with frilly fins red/orange, play it very safe. Some of these buggers can put you in a hospital very quickly. They catch a type of megrim and sole off the beaches on prawn and strips of squid baits. Flatfish rigs will work well but I don't know about twitching - I know it puts the sole off here and suspect it would do the same there. Deckchair and beer fishing then! Crab is a good bait too but it attracts parrotfish which will snip anything except wire so avoid it unless fishing only on sand. You can buy them in jars in shops. If you can distance cast on the beaches you can hit several types of ray including stingers and butterfly. You can also pick up a host of small sharks and dogfish, including smoothies and tope apparently but all at night. There are also reports of all sorts of species including jacks, bonita, and sierra (bluefish) and up north on Famara beach, they apparaently get bar and spotted bars in the surf there. The best fishing on the island is in the west and north (the national park is prohibited) and on the small island of Graciosa. I took a day out and we ended up rock fishing at El Golfo on the west coast. Walk to the end of the strip and out onto the rocks. There is a keyhole shaped gully, deep, which is excellent for sea bream. We took four species in half an hour, up to a kilo on a single prawn threaded head first onto a 3/0 hook. You will be driven demented by micro species if you float fish so buy loads of small leads locally (Arrecife, you can collect your rod licence at the Cabildo in there as well to keep it all legal, it lasts three years but you do need your passport)... great fishing and very tasty! The coast around the lighthouse at Pecheguria outside Playa Blanca offers deep water fishing, tried it but you need it flat calm to be safe. Wonderful potential... had a monstrous bite that took a deadbaited bogue, a small local anchovy / sardine like fish. Closer to PDC, you can fish the rock armour OUTSIDE the harbours - try Puerto de Calero about 6 klicks down the road. The Punta de Congrio another 10 klicks down is also known as a decent spot. The trick is to get lots of small species float fishing and then wobble them in on a pike wire double treble rig towards dusk. Barracuda are the main target and they get very big with fish to 10 kilos reported! You can floatf ish for them using a qhole squid as well apparently. A wire trace is essential... it has also produced bluefish, leerfish and a meagre in recent months. No often, but then you will only need one! People reckon that lures do not work but they might be worth a try. If you deadbait on the bottom, again with wire, you can find morays, rays and a host of other species in the deeper water. Avoid the big harbours as the ferry wakes will wash you off.... you can NOT fish in the harbours - a 300 EURO fine. Lots of massive mullet there and big facio a local bream like fish that moves like lightning. If you ground bait from the rocks outside, you might be able to tempt some of them out but the barracuda tend to hang around the harbour mouth, so it can be a problem. Hope this helps, will post photos when the mate emails me them! Let me know how you get on, Ryanair are rumoured to be introducing direct flights from next year!

Panic over Wigstone tackle in Australia are the makers, you can even buy direct! No 68 is the Yellow Hammer apparently.

Hi Anyone know where I can get a Tassie Devil No 68 - plain with a yellow / green head? Quite urgent, heading off in a week... Thanks

Hmnn Could be a corkwing wrasse, typically green and yellow colouration when adult. Never seen even a small ballan with than colouration. Most unusual. Several other species of small wrasse like rock cook and goldshinny are possible, but not the right colour, but then what is!!! Did you catch it anywhere near Sellafield!

Hi all Can I strongly recommend that you amend this to show p*ta and amend the website listing as well, that way you are not giving them free publicity and enhanced Google ratings... When reading P8ta, its worth recalling "A truth told with malice is worth a thousand lies"

Hi Seaside is right, dabs like stinky baits - old lug and squid has a use after all! This said it will not do for anything else so you need to be targetting them specifically. They are the most active of the flatfish and will move around quite a bit, especially in a tidal flow. They also tend to shoal, although the specimens seem to be loners. They definitely do react to the bling, so I would use a plain lead, let it move around and twitch it as well, and the longer the snood the better. Adding a floaty bead or two will do not harm at all. As for the plaice, they're a little more fussy and less impressed with the bling IMHO but I am told that it varies from mark to mark. They feed as young fish on mussels, and indeed as adults too, which is why mussel is probably the best plaice bait (assuming the are mussel beds in the area). Very fresh bait will Plaice are active predators as well, so all the tactics mentioned above should work well. One thing about plaice is that they are very greedy buggers, and you can rarely have too big a bait for them. The one point about all this is that the twitching will scare the bejaysus out of any sole that might be in the area - static smelly baits left on the bottom close in is the only option if you want to catch a slip or two... Hope this helps...

The key is fishing early or late, i.e. from or into darkness. Once the sun is up you will need very long distance casting or deep water off rocks to hit fish properly... I fished the Guanacaste coast many moons ago and it can be excellent. There is a step caused by the tide on many of these beaches, often no more than a few metres from the edge, and at dusk and particularly at dawn the big predators, rays and sharks, move in and swim laterally along this checking for small fish and flotsam caught around this, also turtles heading to / from the beach. We camped on the beach - probably illegal then, almost certainly illegal now - and got up in darkness. Saw tuna breaking the waves but very far offshore, had one really good run from a big ray (very big, bugger came right out of the water at me) and lost it right at the end. Locals informed me that wire is essential (was using very heavy mono) and that they use wire even for the smaller fish - even things in the 1-4 lb range will bite through mono. They also never swim in the sea at or around dawn - enough said. Strongly recommend a guide or excellent book as there are lots of scorpion like fish especially in the rocky marks - we got through around 15 species over about a week, half were flats... some nice flounder like species that grew to 5-6 lbs, wow! We were convinced they were ray until we saw them... Lost tons of fish to bitten off snoods, didn't have a clue of what we were doing to be honest! I'm deeply envious, enjoy!

Try www.seaspin.com or www.caranx.net - both good on tropical species with small English sections. There is also another wow side in development based in the Seychelles at www.flyaway.com FWIW

Hi This is a really interesting thread, thanks guys. Just to clarify my suggestion, if you limit it to three per species for shoaling fish, the idea was that yes you could continue to catch and measure and release, enjoy the fishing (we're not all in it for the prizes in fact as a club we have an agreement that there are no cash prizes) and competitors can record them all and at the end, you just count the top three. I accept that it complicates the tot but we're a relatively small club and we have yet to consider holding an open. I guess for the bigger competitions it would not be workable. The problem with the undersized gut hooked whiting is easily resolved. Boost the minimum size well past 18 cms (is that how bad its got?) so that people stop using tiny hooks. Ask club members to consider a minimum hook size - even a move to 1s or 2s will reduce the number of tiddlers being brough ashore. If someone persists in this unacceptable behaviour then consider having a club bye-law about unsportsmanlike conduct and if they persist after a warning chuck them out. Who would want that kind of a lout in their club anyway, its a sport for heaven's sake! The last thing we need idiots 'arming' the antis... I was interested in the piece on the bait bans. I guess it depends on the local conditions, certainly if we felt that rag beds were getting destroyed due to competition based demand... Not likely here. Living in Mayo - all clean storm beaches ... I've forgotten what ragworm look like! Not quite but close enough... Winter, can you PM or email me the SAMF regulations. Thanks kieran.hanrahan at sea-angling-ireland.org

You could apply the same idea to common species like mackerel or coalfish at different times of the year. Landed 64 coalfish all over 30 cms in one session two years ago, absurd stuff. As a club we've yet to encounter this in competition but it is only a matter of time. I always felt that banning mackerel was unfair to an extent and very counterproductive especially in juniors where you want to encourage participation. How about a one two or three per species limit, i.e. you can try for whiting but only the best one or two or three count in competition? Same rule can be applied to other shoaling species like mackerel, coalfish, etc. so that people can still catch, still enjoy the day out, and if someone targets and lands a bigger species like cod etc. they do not lose out to someone who has spend the session scratching for sand dabs, whiting and other tiddlers! It has the effect of turning most competitions into species hunts, which to my mind, is the best test of an anglers skill in that it forces peopel to adopt different tactics throughout the session... Just a thought...

Hi Although this is written by a fly fisherman working off the slat flats around florida, I reckon it has to be worth a read. Some interesting tactics that I am sure can be utilised by lure anglers... http://www.outdoors.net/site/features/feat...V+N+SearchTerm+ HTH

Just to whet your appetite you understand... http://www.stripersonline.com/cgi-bin/ubb_...ic/1/19503.html?

After a bit of searching I found this - www.seaspin.com which has an embryonic forum in english at the bottom: equally Mike Thrussle has an excellent piece on fishing in Gibraltar that might be of interest to those of you heading into the Med. although the quality of the fishing is probably not quite up to the standards in the straits. The guys on the forum seem really knowledgeable and have produced lots of videos about different types of fishing, including spinning from the shore on the Med islands. Hope This Helps

Msot of the us tackle online shops will sell them to you - try eangler.com however be careful that you do not purchase the trolling version (12-15 inches long) if you are trying to spin for them - there are smaller ones and it occurs to me that you could probably use a German sprat or Norwegian to similar effect? Any thoughts people?

Ah that's so not what I wanted to read! I only bought it about a year ago, can;t remember where, probably mail order from the UK - I won't mention names given the context, it would be unfair. Could you have a word with your local shop and corroborate or eliminate this? If there is a systematic problem I'd like to get the rod replaced. Last thing I need is the tip section detaching when I've finally snagged a cuda! ISBSL (I should be so lucky) Thanks Jeepster

I bought the Exage STC 300-330 last year and I have more than a few quibbles with it... The casting action is far better as a pure spinning rod when reduced to 300 (10 foot) and the balance with a reasonably small reel (Okuma Zircon 50) is better too. I'd put a reel on it, assemble it to the desired length and check it out. Not always a simple thing in a shop but maybe they will let you buy it and take an option on a different model if it does not suit you? It may not sound a lot but after a long day spinning the wrist can be damn sore when you've been casting with an unbalanced rod. I find it quite heavy in itself and this has been corroborated by other users - I guess this is the price you pay for having a travel rod. Presumably the construction and design necessitate the extra weight, but it may be an issue that you are not familiar with (certainly it caught me by surprise), although it is almost certainly the same for all travel rods so its not a fair criticism of Shimano or the rod design. The cork butt section is too short for proper two handed casting and yet not ideal for one handed casting, unless you're a midget or a giant! I also a little disappointed with the joints in that I had one piece (the top piece) fly off in a cast and I'm not delicate when I'm putting rods together - the result was the top two rings inserts split or cracked when it hit the rocks, didn't notice it until they started to rip the braid to shreds and that ended the session pretty quick! I've since replaced them and the rod is packing neatly into the case for the holidays. Don't get me wrong, its a lovely piece of kit, nice travel tube, but I think it they had paid more attention to the balance and issues like the length of the handle, it would be so much better. I think it was designed as a light bait casting rather than a spinning rod, certainly that is what it is suited to... Hope this helps...

Hi Only tope taken so far was in the mouth of the Moy, presumably gorging itself on the sea trout and flatties hanging around at low water. Shocked a few fly fishermen I can tell you, especially when I pointed out it was a very small one (17 lbs). Snatcher, do you tope flies!!!! Certainly around Ireland the main tope marks are the big estuaries but whether you could call the Shannon a brackish water mark is questionable at best!!! For the record a bass was taken out of Lough Derg recently, not sure how this happened or whether it was a tall tale. BTW, to my knowledge eel became popular as a bait as much because it is crab proof as for any other reason, although I know it was very popular in the Thames in particular. Tried it on the shannon and got no results bar conger which suggests a local feeding pattern in the thames? The "summer" tope are taken from estuarine marks on the west coast (but that is down to topography), but the winter marks are all east coast venues (Wexford in the main) where the big females are chasing shoals of herring, mackerel and coalfish into the shore - little or no freshwater there. I am not so sure about the freshwater aspect, I suspect that the person in question may have confused coincidence with cause, but I very much stand to be corrected. There is so much territory and so little angling pressure and so few people prepared to try new marks, or seek them out... its hard to know. FWIW (which is not a lot!)

Hi Captain Yep, been in touch with Abe, one of the caranx moderators and he has given me contact details for when I arrive... just my Spanish is worse than his English so we could be communicating in sign language Balebfish from Altavista is very handy - you can translate a piece of text from Spanish to English and vice versa and then use this to understand and also post on the spanish language forums. The english language forums there are a little on the thin side in terms of the content etc. Thanks m8; have magnums, light wire, VMC trebles, lots of heavy spoons and other metal lures ordered - will bring a few rapalas etc. with me but I've been warned the cudas will destroy wooden lures! again, any assistance welcome

Hi Searched the forums for old threads and PMed a few people off them - many thanks to those who replied. I will be in Fuerteventrura for a week in March (with the family so fishing will be limited) and really want to have a go at the barracuda that reputedly hang around outside the harbours waiting for passing mullet. Has anyone caught one there or on any of the Canary Islands and if so how! I plan to bring an Exage rod, light reel loaded with braid, and some plugs but mostly bright spoons and the like. I've bought some light wire to make up traces and I know livebaiting is used locally but would prefer to avoid it if I could. Someone mentioned the option of float fishing a whole squid - anyone tried that? Any help really appreciated as this will probably be my last chance for a while to land a big toothy crittur! Thanks

anything that mimics a sandeel would work There is a local guide called Hendricks who might be able to help you and pugs - I think he has a website if you do a Google he owuld be able to recommend patterns for you. HTH

Hi A good mate stood on my Penn 535 bending the main arm so that the star drag is near impossible to use, he's 16 stone so it's bent quite a bit! Anyone recommend someone with a guaranteed and prompt service - have to post from west of Ireland and get return. Thanks

Hi Pugs Duncannon beach, just below the bluffs on the southern end is an excellent bait digging spot - lug, soft and black, small ragworm, occasional white rag and shrimps. For more information try the bulletin boards on the site indicated below, I am sure the lads will give you some leads...