The Species Hunt

Having arrived late on the Friday night to Ballydavid, which is about 10km from Dingle Co. Kerry, seven of the UCCAC members stayed with Se'n O' Connor at his B&B, which almost sits on the pier in the village. Se'n owns Tigh TP's, which is a fine pub adjoining the B&B and a restaurant which adds up to an extremely comfortable arrangement!

We had booked the accommodation and boat trip with Se'n 3 weeks previous after our last outing with him, which as usual was a great day's fishing where the craic was mighty. Having initially booked the boat for the Saturday, we had heard that Sunday would be a better day from a weather point of view, and so we decided to do a bit of shore fishing around the Dingle peninsula on the Saturday. The Dingle peninsula offers a huge amount of choice to the shore angler, not to mention being a Mecca for Bass anglers!

We fished Kilcummin, on the Tralee side of the Connor Pass, over low water during which time the beach is said to be at it's best for Bass fishing. We had a beautiful surf, slack winds and unfortunately, lots of floating weed. 2 hours of weed and no fish was enough to send us back to Dingle to the rear of the Scellig hotel. Here, fishing from a rock platform into a channel that fills Dingle harbour, we had several fine Thornback ray, from an area we fished from the boat during a previous trip to Dingle. Some of our members fished Brandon creek later that evening, and had a fine 3-Bearded Rockling, plus some fine Sandeel for the following day's boat trip.

At 9:00 on the Sunday morning, with two more members having arrived, 9 of us boarded An Tiaracht for our attempt at the species record, which currently stands at 25 species brought to a boat in a single day. This was our fourth outing with Se'n; previous trips proved to be invaluable in planning this trip, for our best shot at breaking the record. With enough tackle on board to set up a cottage industry, we set out from Ballydavid pier in Smerwick. We spent the first part of the beautiful clear, calm morning inside the bay to get our first few species to the boat. The idea was to try and get some of the pelagic species to the boat straight away, anchor up over a sandy patch near some rocks, still within the bay for some Flats and Conger, with the chance of a Ray turning up. We would then steam out to drift in deep waters for Shark and a number of other species before returning closer to land to a mark known as the Green fields which produces a large variety of species. We found the mackerel slow enough to come aboard, but we found enough of them eventually to get the bait situation looking healthy. Immediately our luck was looking good: - along with the Mackerel, we also had plenty Pilchard, Herring, Sandeel and Scad.

We moved to a mark still inside Smerwick harbour and anchored up. On board we were fortunate to have a wide selection of baits. Earlier in the week a number of us had collected mussels inside Cork harbour along with some excellent King Ragworm and Lugworm. These had been stored in Aeroboard-style cooler boxes and they kept perfectly. With a box of fresh peeler crab, some squid and the fresh fish-bait, (including the previous night's Sandeel!) we were well prepared. A variety of terminal tackle was sent to the mixed-ground bottom, to maximise our target range. We quickly had some fine Dabs and Flounder. I had dropped a baited pirk to the bottom, and must have dropped the bait right next to a Conger, which was the fastest eel I have ever caught; he was soon aboard and released. An unusual catch next; a Lesser Weever came over the gunwale, he was carefully and quickly despatched! We waited at this mark for about half an hour before we notched up another species: - Se'n assured us that the Dogfish wouldn't be long moving in, and sure enough, we had one�. After waiting about a half-hour, we thought it was typical, you can't avoid the dogs most of the time! No Rays were caught at that mark and we decided to move out and drift a rock/broken ground mark before heading out for the blues as well as having a look at what was on the bottom.

The rocky mark just outside Smerwick produced fine Cuckoo Wrasse, two of which were close to specimen weight, as well as Pollack, Coalfish, Ling, Pouting, Ballans and Poor Cod. The Pollack & Coalies came to a variety of baits including rubber eels and baited feathers, while the Ling, Poor Cod and Pouting came to baited feathers. The Wrasse were taken on King Rag and Lugworm baits. By the time we began to get repeat catches of earlier species, we decided to move out to drift for the Blues. At this stage our tally was looking promising: 17 species, and it wasn't midday yet!

We began to make some rubbydubby as we steamed out 2 miles to drift in ~ 300 feet of water north of Smerwick to try for some Blue Shark. We took it in turns to mince up the mackerel we had cut into cubes, and added plenty of bran to the mixing bin to absorb the juices. Having filled a couple of onion sacks at the mark, we put 2 lines out at different depths for the Blues. One trace had a 2m-wire trace with a 10/0 Viking hook carrying a full, slit mackerel bait. This was fished about 30 feet under the surface and only about 20 - 30m from the boat, with a balloon sitting on the surface. The other shark trace was of similar design, only fished deeper, a similar distance from the boat. The two us with the shark lines took a rest and sat back and enjoyed our lunch in the sunshine, whilst the other anglers on the boat were sending various traces to the bottom. We were fishing in about 300 feet of water, and so, those fishing with mono found bite detection quite difficult, whereas those with braid had an easier time of it. Immediately fish started coming aboard with plenty of Red Gurnard, Whiting, Spurdog and others that we had caught earlier; the species count was improving rapidly!

Within and hour of the rubby-dubby going in the water, some of the bottom-fishing anglers noticed that occasionally, their retrieving catches were getting heavy for a few seconds and then going fairly light again. Some Whiting that came up to the boat were showing signs of attack from a fairly large predator; some of them were bitten in half. The bite marks were consistent with perhaps a Tope or another smallish Shark.

The Spurdogs were now coming to the boat thick and fast and we decided it was time to change the shark baits. I took in my shark bait, changed the mackerel, and dropped the bait over the back of the boat and waited a bit for the drift to carry off the bait. I was tying a balloon onto the mainline so that the bait would be slightly deeper than it had been the last time, when the top of the Penn rod folded over. Luckily the reel drag was still set correctly and the fish peeled line from the reel diving very deeply just west of the boat. The other rods on board all came in order to prevent tangles while the fish was running. We were in no doubt now as to what was attacking the smaller fish on their way up earlier; a combination of rubby-dubby and a lot of fish coming to the boat had drawn a Shark.

The fish ran for about 5 minutes after I had initially struck him and set the hook and put up a fantastic fight. After about ten minutes, we began to see the shape and colour of a young Blue Shark coming towards the boat. The wire trace appeared and Se'n hand-lined the shark to the gate at the rear of the boat and brought the fish aboard. It was an un-tagged Blue of about 25-30lb in weight, not a monster by any means, but a Blue nonetheless, and being my first I was delighted. We retrieved the hook, with no damage being done to the fish, measured and tagged him, there was a brief photo-call and we sent him on his way within 2 minutes of his coming aboard. A fantastic experience!

With a Blue added to our tally, at about 3pm, we began steaming back in towards a mark known as the Green Fields, which lies fairly close to the foot of Mount Brandon. It's a fine sheltered mark with mixed ground beneath the surface, so drifted it for the remainder of the afternoon with the hope of picking up some of the species we had hoped to get but had thus far eluded us. Haddock were the first species that arrived here, and were welcome, as we hadn't seen any on board yet. What followed were more Red Gurnards and some Ling and Pollack. The fishing was by no means poor at this mark, far from it in fact, but everything we caught here, we had caught earlier at the other marks.

With 6pm approaching we decided to call it a day, with 23 species under our belts, we were quite impressed with our day's fishing! We had hoped to bag Tub and Grey Gurnards as well as a Garfish and maybe some Bass and Rays which would have taken us over the 25 mark, but it wasn't to be!

Our attempt was greatly aided by the fine weather on that day, and so, we'll leave our next attempt until Summer 2001. However the key to our coming so close to the record was undoubtedly Se'n's knowledge of the marks and his enthusiasm for gaining the record, which would truly have been a feather in his cap. Se'n is an excellent, knowledgeable, hard-working skipper, the like of which is very rare to find anywhere. Record hunting aside, that trip was the best day's boat fishing any of us have had, from many points of view including comfort, vast variety of fish, and the ease and speed of getting to some excellent marks. An Tiaracht is a fine, large steel boat carrying a licence for 12 anglers, for which there is plenty of room. Se'n's B&B, pub, restaurant and general location only add to the joy of fishing out of Smerwick.