AWAY RAY
I shot back over to Westport in the west of Ireland recently on a short working weekend, but met up with a group of lads including Kevin Crowley, Angling Inspector for the Western Regional Fisheries Board and Doug Priddy, a tackle shop owner from Westport, for a short afternoon’s shore fishing near Killary.

We were after rays and when I got there Kevin and crew had already got a couple of small thornbacks caught and released.

I set up with clipped down pennel rig and baited with a frozen mackerel and squid cocktail. I started catching dogs, dogs and more dogs.

I switched to a standard 3-hook flapper with small size 2 Kamasan B940 Aberdeen’s and cut down on the size of the bait. The depth was about 50ft out at about 100yds and the tide flooding, so I deliberately fished to a slack line to get all three baits on the seabed to maximise the scent trail. I started catching small coalies, then whiting, but thankfully less dogs.

Instead of casting to the same spot all the time I tried dropping in shorter and covering the arc in front of me and found a sandy slope dropping in towards me at about 80yds. This held loads of whiting, but I knew if the thornbacks were still around they’d be at the base of this slope.

About two hours before high water I saw a gentle shudder on the rod tip which I left. A few seconds later the rod tip nodded, then after a short pause the rod tip pulled round. I lifted in to some weight and the fish kited in the tide and jagged the rod tip down. It proved to be a thornie somewhere between 4 and 5lbs, which after a quick photo winged its way back down in to the depths. It took a small strip of mackerel!

I’ve often found that smaller baits will avoid the dogs a little and will also often take rays better than typical big baits used by the majority of anglers. It’s worth remembering this when you’re after rays and not catching. Also the three baits spread wider than a single bait give a wide scent trail so it covers more ground.

SUMMER STAYS LATE & COD ARRIVE EARLY
I predicted way back in an early summer (I know, we never had one) blog that the summer species would stay late and that’s pretty much what’s happening with trigger fish only recently starting to show from some shore marks and golden grey mullet still being caught too, plus late bream which seem reluctant to leave the inshore waters.

What’s equally interesting is that there are fair numbers of cod showing in several areas. The South Wales shore saw fish of 10lbs and 18lbs caught back in September, which is very early, but I’m also hearing that cod are coming off other South Wales marks as well including Cardiff Foreshore and Goldcliff with fish between 2 and 4lbs reported.

It’s the same off the southeast of England with codling showing amongst summer species from several areas including, Chesil in Dorset, Dungeness, Kent and the Essex marks, also off the East Anglian beaches codling, mainly 2lb fish with the odd 4 to 6lber caught, appeared early and some anglers report catches of six or seven codling already in a session.

I think we’ll see really good general fishing now just about everywhere for the next couple of months, providing we don’t have a really early and prolonged cold snap. If we do the summer fish will move out almost immediately leaving just the typical winter species.

I also think that for the really big bass November and early December will prove to be the better period for producing the lunkers, rather than the traditional October period. Make the most of it, it’ll be the best fishing off the whole year!

SCOTTISH SWORDFISH NOT SO SURPRISING
I’m amazed at the shock in the general press re the swordfish being caught in a lobster fleet in the River Forth some 20 miles from the sea near Alloa. Non angling press are good at picking up a fishing story and making a right old mess of it with real facts totally disregarded.

Granted being so far up river is unusual but swordfish in British waters are rare but not unduly so, and in fact may be more common than we realise. Swordfish worldwide are not common anywhere generally anyway.

I remember seeing swordfish in the hold of a Norwegian long-liner that came in to Killybegs in Donegal over 20-years ago, two of them in fact, and a friend of mine and charter skipper Tom Honeyman from Achill Island in Co Mayo also rang one evening to tell me he’d found a juvenile swordfish dead on the beach and still fresh back in the mid 90’s.

Swordfish have also been recorded all around the UK coast, off Orkney and the Faroes, also off the Norwegian coast on a fairly regular basis. They are ocean wanderers so it’s not that much of a surprise!

Oh…and the press got the name wrong as well quoting it as a Razorbill Swordfish or a Marlin Swordfish, it’s actually a Broadbill Swordfish!

Apparently the captor of the broadbill gutted the fish. It would have been interesting to see what the stomach contained and then we could have at least verified if the fish was feeding or had fed recently. Inevitably such vital details are often forgotten when a fish of note is inadvertently caught and not examined scientifically.

The link with these fish washed ashore and found in estuaries is that they are all juveniles and it appears that these fish get disorientated in prolonged bad weather and wash ashore, much like dolphins and porpoise can. Some sort of illness may also be responsible even though the fish look fairly fresh. The majority of these fish also tend to be found during the early autumn period when, guess what, our sea temperatures peak at their highest!

What makes them appear rare is that, thank god, they spend the day in very deep water and normal commercial fishing techniques will not catch them generally, neither will anglers as no one is fishing deep dropped squid at night with light sticks which is a highly successful technique overseas, nor working big deadbaits down deep.

That said I do know of one angler who has just rigged a new boat with swordfish, tuna and big sharks in mind and is looking to the ground west of The Scilly Isles for his first experimental trips. It will be interesting to see how he gets on!