Post Pictures Of Your Catch. (Mod note in OP 14/05/2015)

davidk11811 wrote: »

Trout I caught in castlecoote, river suck. First one appears to have been attacked by a pike. I uploaded this mainly because of the second one. It looks like a perch but with closer examination it has a trouts spots and broown colour (May not be noticeable in photo). Perch/Trout hybrid?

There both trout!!;)

First night beach fishing as ive only ever fished from piers etc. Was attempting to catch some bass but i ended up with alot of these small sole (i think). Put them all back in after as none were very large.

shblob wrote: »

I know about conservation alright but seeing as there are no laws for keeping fish from the sea I can't see his problem.

Wrong. There in fact are laws. Especially in this country. A maximum of 2 bass per day per angler (bass must be over 40cm) with a closed season from May 15th to June 15th.

The catching and retaining of undersized fish is also severely frowned upon and imo should result in a fine.

As for the mackerel, it happens everywhere around the coast. I have no problem myself in keeping them for bait or eating but the killing of large numbers for the sheer sake of it is ridiculous. Also the comparison with trawlers is stupid - commercial pelagic trawlers catch up to 600 tonnes of mackerel per haul, making the 60 or so taken by an angler seem pitiful

My cod!

Cheers dude!
I'll have to root some more off the hard drive

Stab*City wrote: »

Decided to take the family to curraghchase forest park yesterday for my son's last day of freedom as he started pre school today.. I had promised him id take him fishing before school so i had fished this tiny lake yrs ago for perch i thought he might have a chance of catching something small.. So i brought his tiny little rod for some float fishing..Here is a video of his first cast.. need i say we have another hooked angler..:D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfHOhFkDD9Q

Cool stuff. That's the kind of memory that sticks with a kid for life. I bet the wee man felt ten foot tall after that.

elius wrote: »

Hi ryan the reason i kept them is the fishing on the east cost tends to be sh1t to be honest. Im a lover of makeral and i still have some in the freezer we caught these on friday and on saturday when we went fishing we returned most of the catch only on sunday did we keep a few more. The above was between two of us. That makes only 35 makeral each *think it was 70*. not really a hole lot to be honest!
These are purley for eating i dont fish during the winter due to shooting !

Macks aren't the best for freezing for eating at a later date tbh, they tend to deteriorate... and apparently they can give you fish flu (the symptoms of which are heavy sweating and erratic palpatations :eek:).

If I decide to get some bait I catch 20 or 30 and share with relatives and friends as well as freezing some for bait.

It really is desperate times if people start advocating Catch and Release for Mackerel... snap their little necks, or bite their heads off, and wolf as many of them down as possible, they only here for a few months.

Apparently mackerel population is under serious pressure read it somewhere cant remember where.

I would catch 3 or 4 dozen from the boat between two or three rods none of it ever goes to waste. we use some as bait for skate etc or for pots & the rest we eat ourselves.

Im pretty sure there is a legal limit on the amount of mackerel you can catch on any given trip, im open to correction but I think its two of those fish boxes

snow ghost wrote: »

I wouldn't worry about people catching 30 mackerel on a rod and line - there are plenty of them around and Irish people have been doing it for centuries. And if the angler doesn't get them the large population of seals and other predators will. If you were talking wrasse or bass, you may have a point.

I'm not aware that scientists have said the mackerel population is under threat and as long as nations stick to the scientists' recomended fishing qoutas then the levels should remain self-sustaining.

The sea angler is of minimal threat to fish stocks in comparison to commercial fishing and some of its practices.

A raw mackerel's head tastes like sushi.

The mackerel population is indeed under severe pressure at the moment. Changes in waters temperatures have altered the migratory routes of the mackerel and they can now be found further north (which is a possible explanation for the previous years' poor seasons) in the waters off the Faroes, Norway and Iceland. Last year over 130,000 tonnes were landed in these new fisheries yet they had been assigned no quota. This year they are pushing for an increase

Do not be fooled into thinking that because you can catch 30 from the shore with feather that there must be loads out there. Pelagic trawlers (the ones who catch the fish which end up in the supermarkets) are massive and can take up to 600 tonnes of mackerel in one haul (the nets are big enough to accommodate a good few 747's). If upon sampling of the catch (while still in the net), it is found that the average size is too small, then the net is left 'slip' i.e. they open the cod-end and dump 600 tonnes of dead fish into the water. Yet still this fishery has MSC (Marine Stewardship Council) accreditation for sustainability simply because they refuse to let observers on the vessels.

Long story short, quotas need to be reduced and fishing practices need to be carefully controlled and monitored

can this sticky not be kept for pics???

never seen ballan before thanks

Macspower wrote: »

gotta love the jack russell syndrome of this guy. a 14 hook and double red maggot.

Ha! Thats good. I caught a pollock the other day on a jellyworm. The jellyworm was twice as long as the pollock. I didn't know I'd anything on the rod til i reeled it back in. Greedy fecker!

Few brownies from last 2 outings

Loch Leven Brown on a bibio sedgehog




Two from a float tubing session both on a claret dhs.