Thou shalt have a fishy on a little dishy thou shalt have a fishy when the boat comes in (Angling - General)

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Product:	Angling - General
Date:	31/01/02 (44 review reads)
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Advantages: Tasty

Disadvantages: Worms

Ours is a large rowing boat with an outboard motor attached. Our crew consists of myself, my wife, my brother and our kids. We fish in a little place called Bray, Co. Wicklow, off the east coast of Ireland, mainly during the summer season, from May to September.

Our fishing grounds are between Dalkey Island and Bray Head, or off the shores of Greystones. Although the waters between Dalkey Island and Bray Head have under-currents, which can be very dangerous, especially if the sea is rough, it is usually between these two points that we set our lines.

These long lines have a hundred hooks, each hook being baited with lug-worm, rag-worm, soft crab or mussel. This bait my brother and I procure when the tide is out. The worms we dig from the sand, lug-worm at Blackrock, rag-worm at Pigeon House. The soft crab and mussel we find in the seaweed.

With our lines coiled in the bottom of the boat, we motor out to a suitable distance, from which we pay out the lines, letting the boat drift gently until all have slipped over the side. We know the extent of each line by the marking of buoys at each end. At fifty yard intervals along the lines are lead sinkers to keep them from drifting.

This operation is carried out either at night when the lines are left until morning, or in the morning when the lines are left until night.

The types of fish we are accustomed to catch in these waters vary, the usual ones being pollock, cod, flounders, plaice with an occasional dogfish, but sometimes we have visitors such as sting-ray, bream, salmon and we once caught a 500ft sea-serpent, but that one got away ;-)

As well as setting the long lines we also cast nets, and these produce surprises, for in them we are likely to catch basking sharks, young porpoises as well as the odd mullet and conger eel, to which we all dance round the boat singing tra-la-la-la-la conger.

As the fish are taken from the hooks we clean them at once, though
not for sale as that would take the pleasure from our hobby. We give some to friends, eat lots ourselves and the rest we give to the keeper of the boat, a cripple, who has no other employment.

Off the coast of Greystones we sometimes set lobster pots, baited with bread or crabs or oysters, fixed with sinkers and marked with a buoy - a thick round of cork with a stick in the middle. We used to use a boy, but he wasn't happy about it. We once caught an edible crab whose clippers were as big as my head.

Taking it all round, sea fishing is a wonderful hobby and I enjoy every minute of it. It is carefree and the joy of catching fish is something I just cannot communicate in words. Unfortunately I shall miss these joys this summer as I have turned to breeding rabbits - but that is another story.

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