End July – lost a Blue Shark which took a flapper designed for a Ling while fishing a wreck.  Next day went Shark fishing and had 3 runs – boated a 40 pounder and a 50 pounder.  This is indeed very early for good numbers of Blues to show and almost certainly means a bumper season for Blues – this follows the excellent season in 2007 after about 5 years of “drought”

23 July saw 2 Blue Sharks for another charter boat -  this is a really good sign for this season.  Limeburner fishing OK – Haddock & Cod scarce but lots of Gurnards, Whiting, few Spurdogs etc.  Millions of Mackeral.  Lost first Common Skate of the season – spat the hook after 15 minutes.    Flatfish and Rays  Ok in bays, but no big flatfish so far.

 

 

Nice male Blonde Ray of around 12 pounds from one of the sheltered bays.  Fishing recently has been OK – weather a little unsettled.

Fishing continues mixed.  Lots of Mackeral.  Water temperature now around 13 degrees.  Good numbers of Tope but no bonazas yet.  Wrecks loaded with Coalfish but some good Pollack and a few Ling.  Limeburner & reefs fishing well.  Bays not so good – they have not really got back to the halcion days of May.  No sign of Porbeagles.

 

Past week fishing has slowly being returning to normal.  Average fishing on the Limeburner and the Bays.  Had a good day on the Audacious with lots of good Pollack.

Cannot wait until this poor period ends.  Fished far wreck – 8 Pollack, 2 Ling and millions of Coalfish.

Seems to be a few Megrim around this year.  Two boated on Rosguill & another 2 on another local boat.

3 tope boated and another boat had a good number of runs.  Hopefully they will be here in numbers from now onwards.

Fishing remains poor to average.  Plenty of Mackeral.  Wrecks have loads of small Coalfish and few good Pollack and Ling.   Tory fishing poorly.  Limeburner and Bays fishing average. 

Rosguill saw her first Tope of 2008 – fine Tope of over 40 pounds – tagged and released.  However, just one Tope for early June was very disapointing.  Another small boat fishing nearby had 2 Tope – again, very disapointing.

Spoke to a local SCUBA diver – he stated that the visibility is absolutely atrocious at the moment & in his memory had only happened once before in 1997.  Then also the fishing had deteriorated, but had recovered in a few weeks when the vis had also improved………………..?????

Fishing on the last week of May has “nose dived”!      Wrecks have lots of small Coalfish and only a few Pollack – no numbers of good sized wreck Pollack and very few Ling.  The Limeburner grounds are fishing average but the Bays have simply stopped producing.

I suppose this is what “Fishing” is all about.

The weather has been fairly settled for around 8 weeks now with mostly east winds & I wonder has this affected the fishing? 

Rosguill had a 2.12 pound Red Gurnard – nice specimen.
Mackeral have returned – good numbers. Reports of Tope caught in Lough Swilly. Limeburner fishing well.
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The Rosguill headed to the Tope mark and no runs!!! In 2007 the Rosguill’s first trip to the Tope grounds was on 30 May and we had 20 runs that day. Mackeral almost completely dried up – on one day caught absolutely none. Rays & Flatfish in the Bays are fishing OK

All is as expected – water temperature now up to 10.5 Celcius. Wrecks producing lots of Coalfish and some reasonable Pollack and Ling. Limeburner fishing good for the time of year and Mackeral available although can be extremely patchy. Season will shortly be getting into full swing.

April & season starts mixed. Water temperature is low – end April at 8 to 8.5 Celcius.
Reasonable numbers of Mackeral around and couple of Herring. Lots & lots of small Coalfish. Fished the Audacious and could only get small Coalfish – not enough Mackeral so guys had to use feathers & jellys. Tried the Devonian & Roscommon using whole Mackeral to keep the coalfish away and had reasonable numbers of good sized Pollack and Ling. Limeburner grounds fishing as expected for April – few fish, Red Gurnards & couple Whiting.
Looking forward to May and onwards……………

2007 season ends well. October fishing was good. Looking at the season as a whole the really big story is the numbers of Blue & Porbeagle Sharks and the size of the Porbeagles. Blues made a real comeback in 2007 with average runs per day in the region of 4/5. There were quite a number of Porbeagles caught in the 80 – 90 pound range.

The Rosguill had the following 38 species caught during 2007:-
Mackeral
Herring
Cod
Pollack
Coalfish
Ling
Common Skate
Blue Shark
Porbeagle Shark
Tope
Whiting
Spurdog
Plaice
Turbot
Dab
Flounder
Brill
Thornback Ray
Homelyn Ray
Cuckoo Ray
Blonde Ray
Ballan Wrasse
Cuckoo Wrasse
Tub Gurnard
Red Gurnard
Grey Gurnard
Haddock
Lesser Spotted dogfish
Conger
Scad
Torsk
Poor Cod
Pouting
Lesser Weever
Sandeel
Long Spined Sea Scorpion
Hake
Garfish

Rosguill’s first ever Garfish caught close to the Laurentic

Rosguill spent her first day Shark fishing – 7 runs – landed 5 Blue Shark and a 30 pound Porbeagle.
Also caught a 80 pound Porbeagle which was hitting Pollack while on a wreck trip to the Empire Heritage.

The Rosguill has not been doing much fishing recently (been taking divers out), but there are good reports of Blue Shark & Porbeagle Shark.