Luke Aston – on board the Clare Dragoon – is enjoying the fine weather and the excellent fishing at the moment. Luke has taken the temperature of the Sea to be, at 19.5’C, as warm as he has seen it.
Despite the mackerel and the Pollack fishing not being great at the moment – the rest of the general deep fishing has been steady with quite a few Ling about. We have also been getting some fine Whiting, Haddock and Red Gurnard. Cod are like hens teeth here though!
However, the highlight of the fishing over the last while has undoubtedly been the Tope fishing. Luke says that they had a couple of sessions of 2 to 3 hours when we have had up to 15 fish on the boat and almost the same number of missed runs. The best fish was a 49lb female Tope of 171cm in length and we had up to 3 coming to the boat together…great fun!
Sea anglers enjoying their Tope fishing Off the West Coast of Clare – Photos by Luke Aston onboard Clare Dragoon…….
Report by: Ken O’Neill
Fisheries Assistant Inspector
Inland Fisheries Ireland, Limerick
