It’s the time of year when anglers thoughts turn to the season ahead, better weather and good fishing. Charter skippers up and down the coast are busy preparing their boats for the coming season, carrying out essential maintenance, making upgrades, and getting ready for safety inspections. The Marine Survey Office carries out inspections on all passenger vessels, so when you book a registered charter boat, you can be safe in the knowledge that it is a good boat in top condition.

Two Westcoast skippers busy getting ready for the start of their season are Clare’s Luke Aston, and Connemara man John Fleming. Luke skippers the Clare Dragoon out of Carrigaholt/Kilrush, and the now 20 year old boat is due her licence inspection this spring. So the hull is getting some TLC at the moment to have her looking great, and be ready to welcome Luke’s guests when she gets back on the water.

The Clare Dragoon shows off her sleek lines out of the water

Luke is looking forward to welcoming back many returning guests, and some new ones too, for fish both large and small.

A bit further north, John Fleming has been out potting for much of the winter in Galway Bay and surrounds, but now he is looking forward to getting back out with a boatload of anglers and seeing some good fish coming over the rails.

The Brazen Hussy II, a great boat to fish from.

John’s season will get going around St. Patrick’s Day.

“We will be starting off targeting the spring run of whitefish, and then soon after targeting spurdog. We will be at whitefish all season form start to finish.
Tope fishing will start around mid/late May.
Then of course the porbeagle will start around mid June until mid August.
We will once again be putting on squid trips from September to November.
We will also be running half day and evening mackerel trips June, July and August

Best of luck, fair winds and tight lines to all our charter skippers this season!

Go fishing…

Clare Dragoon

Clare Dragoon is a LOCHIN 366 powered by 650HP engine, skippered by Luke Aston and operating out of Carrigaholt Co. Clare…

I have some offers up on my web site www.fishandstay.com and if anybody is interested in putting a trip together please do get in touch. Also I Twitter from the boat on @fishandstay and try to update my face book page www.facebook.com/CarrigaholtSeaAngling fairly often!To experience some of the best deep sea fishing available in Ireland contact Luke.
Telephone: +353 65 9058209 or +353 87 6367544
Email: lukeaston@eircom.net Web: www.fishandstay.com

Brazen Hussy II

To book fishing with John aboard the Brazen Hussy II, give him a call on 087 7571320

A regular day is between 9am- 6pm from either Rossaveal, Spiddal or Galway depending on species being sought after. Fishing on the inshore reefs for pollock, cod, ling, wrasse, conger eel and mackerel can be reached in 10 minutes from departure, while our offshore reef marks are within 45 minutes of departure. Our ground fishing for tope, spurdog, ray, bullhuss, turbot, plaice and the giant common skate can all be reached within the hour which ensures the most amount of time is spent fishing.
The shark season usually starts at the end of June and runs into late October, this is the ultimate angling adrenaline rush with these hard fighting blue and porbeagle sharks all being tagged and released safely.
Package deals available

Address: Baile an tSagairt, Spiddal, Co. Galway.
Telephone: +353 (0)87 7571320
Facebook: www.facebook.com/BlueSharkAngling

Blue Shark Angling Galway,
Phone John Fleming : +353 (0)87 7571320