Mostly divers out so far, but I have had reports of wrecks fishing normal and good Tope fishing. I shall know by this time next week – just hope for a “normal” season.

Well, 2013 has started and fishing at Tory has been poor. No flatfish apart from a couple Dabs, no Dogfish, no Gurnards, just a few Pollack, Ling and Coalfish. Bad start to the year – except stopped for Mackeral off Horn Head and had the best ever Herring fishing – well over 100 Herring in 15 minutes along with quite a few Mackeral.

I wonder how things will shape up over the next few weeks. Start May is a little early, but I have had some fantastic fishing early May in previous years.

2012 ends with reasonably good fishing. However, 2012 will be remembered by anyone involved in sea angling in Ireland as the year of the Red Tide.

Horrendous fishing for the most part of the season with almost nil catches on some days.
What 2013 holds is anyone’s guess – we all hope that the Red Tide will not have an effect going forward……..but who knows for sure.
As an indication of just how bad it was, I had divers recently on the Laurentic who said that the marine growth on the wreck was almost gone –
just rusty metal left – what a job nature can do.

Let’s see what 2013 brings……………………………………………….

href=”https://rosguill.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/151012_4924.jpg”> Mixed bag[/caption]

Great news – caught half a dozen Doggies at the Limeburner on last days fishing of 2012.

Super news!!!

As 2012 fishing season comes to a close, the fishing has been improving – hard to know to what percentage it has recovered ( the nature of fishing) but just as it started to get reasonable the weather did its best to ruin any chance of decent fishing. Could not get to the wrecks for weeks etc. Almost every day ended up looking for shelter somewhere.

But Mackeral are around in good numbers – haven’t fished wrecks! – sand not too bad – hardly fished the Limeburner due to weather.

East Belfast Anglers know not when to stop – another great day at the Flatfish – 14 Turbot, 5 Brill, 2 Plaice, 23 Dabs. How can they be matched?

There were rumours that the Belmullet men were going to take them on head to head, but the smart money is on the Belmullet men bottling it!

Fishing continues to improve gradually. Mackeral patchy. Sand fishing ok, with Rays particularily good. Limeburner still lagging. Doggies extremely bad – I imagine millions of dead Doggies on the seabed, but hope for the best. Sharks inconsistent – had zero runs one day despite great rubby dubby and very good weather conditions. Reef Pollack patchy. Not great, but some fairly good days & at least there are fish to be caught.

Fished a couple days for Blue Sharks – zero runs. It is hard to believe that they have naturally disappeared due to end of season. Could be the plankton has “chased” them away. Divers were getting very little light on the bottom due to plankton in the upper 25 metres. This is unnatural for here in August & September. Divers normally have loads of ambient light on the seabed. Divers also reported some areas good and others bad. Solution – divers reported on 22 September that the water temperature was 13 degrees – down 3 degrees in 4 weeks – hard to believe, but it absolutely explains what happened to the Blue Sharks.

On her first day’s Shark fishing of 2012, the Rosguill had 5 runs & boated 5 Blue Sharks – 2 under 20 pounds, 30 pounder, 50 pounder and a 70 pounder.

Great!

A private boat landed 3 Blue Sharks out of Downings on 18 August. Water temperature is now 16 degrees – may get to 16.5 within the next couple weeks. Other fishing is gradually improving, but still not back to normal yet.

First days good fishing for around 3 months at Tory Island & as good Pollack as I have ever had.
Limeburner still not great but at least some fish. Tope fairly good – couple days with circa. 20 runs per day. Had a lot of Spurdog including a couple of specimens.
Porbeagles – one of over 100 pounds landed last week. Another “buzzed” a diver on one of the offshore wrecks.
Blue Sharks – several boat days were done last week from Downings, but no takes. However there were several caught this past week off south Donegal, so they are on their way.
Sand – lots of Dabs, few Doggies, few Rays. Turbot poor.

One thing which has been of interest to me since the start of this plankton bloom has been the “fact” that some species seem to be less susceptable and others more so. My experience is that species doing OK are – Whiting, Tope, Spurdog, Dabs, Wrasse. Species doing badly are – Turbot, Brill, Gurnards, Doggies.

NEWSW RELEASE FROM MARINE INSTITUDE – http://www.marine.ie/home/aboutus/newsroom/pressreleases/UpdateonNorthWestAlgalBloom.htm

Update on North West Algal Bloom
The bloom that has been affecting areas of the North West from Mayo to Donegal and at lower concentrations down along the rest of the West coast continues to impact on coastal marine life in several areas.

Mr Joe Silke of the Marine Institute stated today “The bloom that reported by the Marine Institute in the North West over the past two weeks, has shown some signs of increase along the west coast in the past few days. We started to detect low levels of it in the water from late May, but in the past two weeks it developed into a dense bloom in parts of the north-western counties from the Mayo to Donegal area.

In the past week high levels have been detected in Galway Bay, but no mortalities have so far been reported in this region. In Donegal the bloom was so dense that there were many reports of discoloured red or brown water in some areas and several areas have reported dead marine life washing up on the shoreline requiring Local Authorities to close certain beaches.”

This is a one of several microscopic algae that occur naturally in coastal waters, this particular one is called Karenia mikimotoi. Dead fish on Rossnowlagh Beach Photo:Paddy Ennis While the algae is not harmful to humans it did result in large numbers of dead fish including turbot, flounder, scorpion fish and shore rockling in Inner Donegal Bay. Other dead species were worm pipefish, lesser weavers, grey gurnard, shanny, sand goby, pollock, sole, plaice, flounder and dabs which have been washing up on Rossnowlagh and Murvagh beaches and earlier this week red flags were raised. The Local Authorities took the decision to close both beaches in response to large numbers of dead fish but these restrictions have been lifted on Tuesday. The situation is being closely monitored by the Marine Institute and Donegal County Council who are both keeping the public informed as the situation progresses on their websites. Mortalities of marine organisms have also been reported from the Sligo and Mayo coastal regions.

Local sea anglers have reported low fish catches along the Donegal coast, and in some areas a complete absence of any fish. This is due to the bloom which fish will avoid when they can. Lobster and Prawn fishermen have also reported very poor catches in the Donegal area. Oyster farms in Donegal also were reported to have suffered losses of up to 80% of stocks in some areas.

Mr Silke explained “The bloom affects species that live on or near the sea bed so we are seeing flatfish, lugworms and some shellfish getting washed up on the beaches. It is a natural bloom which we have seen it to occur in several places over the years. It is believed that it originates offshore as a natural part of its summer life cycle, and gets concentrated up against the coast with tidal and coastal currents.”

Some indications that the bloom may be moving back out to sea were observed in the latest satellite images and modelling data, however cell counts of samples analysed in the Marine Institute today show that the bloom is still of the same density in the Donegal and Sligo regions as it was last week, but increased levels were reported in Galway Bay.

The Marine Institute’s monitoring programme will continue to sample and monitor the bloom and post updates on our website at marine.ie and on local radio.

ENDS

Fished Limeburner yesterday – nothing – null – nano – niet – zero – 2 hours and not a single fish other than Mackeral – could not believe it!!!
2 hours on the inshore reefs – 13 Pollack – surprising. 2 hours on the sand, 2 Thornback Rays and 1 Turbot.

Today – Tope fishing – 12 runs

Tomorrow – wrecks – update to follow. Few Pollack, 1 Ling few Coalfish on wrecks. Deep Limeburner grounds had several Whiting.

All in all fishing poor.

Lots of Mackeral around.

Speaking to a diver who was diving last week at Saint John’s Point in south Donegal. He found hundreds of dead Sea Urchins and around 20 dead Red Gurnards on the bottom. Any other fish he saw were “gulping”.
Yesterday he was diving on the Limeburner rock and saw a large Thornback Ray and a Tub Gurnard sitting on the rock around the 5 metre mark.
However, the top 8 metres of water are now clear and the plankton is thinning because divers are getting some ambient light on the bottom.

Start of the end?

Fishing remains very poor. Divers recently report that the water is clear for the top 6 meters or so, then very heavy plankton to 30 meters. One diver stated that the zooplankton seemed to be moving up from 20-30 meters to eat the phytoplankton in the upper layers. At any rate the plankton is so thick that although the water beneath 50 meters is crystal clear, there is absolutely no light – complete darkness. Divers also report fish on wrecks as being very lethargic.

The Rosguill fished wrecks yesterday and had some fish – really not great. The deep limeburner grounds fished OK for Whiting, Gurnards etc. Today we fished Tory – very poor – reef Pollack only a couple fish. Sand atrocious.

First time ever I witnessed a 3 pound or so Brill swim past the Rosguill around 10 centimeters under the surface. I can only guess why it was there. I reckon that there is so little oxygen on the seabed that fish have no energy or as in the case of this Brill move to the surface to breath. They certainly have no desire to feed. This is guesswork.

When will it end? The thick phytoplankton will be there until it dies or is eaten. Prognosis for the next few weeks is not good. After that is anyone’s guess.