Jim Clohessy of TopFisher.eu has been on the water shark hunting lately and covering wrecks, with some fine fish to show for it:

Thursday we had a nice shark session albeit it was a change of plan…. It was rather manky at first so we shelved a +20 trip and settled for a deep area around 12. We needn’t have worried. After a slow start the sharks came on heavy with the incoming tide.

Mackerel remain very patchy. It adds complications to planning trips as you could be an hour catching a dozen.

A good blue puts a bend in the rod

It was an incredibly quiet day in terms of dolphins and even birdlife. We did get a visit from the Inland Fisheries Ireland rib on a tuna patrol – unlicensed boats cannot troll for tuna.

Conditions did improve and our spin back to base was fine. All told it was a day of good fishing and great craic. Some big sharks out there.

Saturday was almost the perfect day… almost.

The forecast promised low winds. Low winds are great for motoring but less good for shark fishing where a decent drift suits best.

A beautiful morning at paddy’s point.
Skua is sitting well on the Extreme EXT1800SS trailer. It’s like a work of art

We launched from Paddy’s Point and began the usual quest for a few mackerel. Again they were very scarce. You really couldn’t try shark fishing without a prepared block of rubby dubby. Of course our plans included a visit to a wreck so we did need a few fresh mackerel for bait.

Calm as you like

We struggled and baled out with eight. The spin out was a perfect cruise. The Suzuki was pushing us along at 25knots for 4500 revs @ .8/.9 L per Nm. Very efficient.

We arrived at the wreck and after determining what drift was doing we proceeded to drop. To say the drift ended up frustrating was an understatement. It was well nigh impossible to repeat a drift consistently such was the was the way wind and tide were.

Still, I did get my single-hook wreck trace to the action area and each time I had a fairly decent ling. Andrew started on lures but soon discovered that wrecks can be tough mistresses. I found that myself even, losing gear in the first few runs. Andrew was fishing Dennett Jumbo Hockeyes and was managing some small whiting and pouting as well as decent ling. We kept some of these for bait.

We were waiting for a forecast breeze. It never came so we had to deploy our chum and make the most of it. It was incredible really. There seemed to be a queue of sharks… many came from underneath rather than coming in high. I guess our trail was sinking quickly in the slow drift.

I had modified some traces after swearing against circle hooks, so I was back to a barbless J hook. It was a dream for t-barring at the side of the boat compared to the circles.

On a small boat it is best to fight one shark at a time. We did get caught with a double hook up at one stage.

Eventually the bite was so consistent we just took it in turns… one bait at a time, one shark at a time. We caught as many sharks on whiting, pollack and pouting than we caught on mackerel.

I was fishing the ground as well for a while until the shark got so busy I couldn’t. It was rather disappointing. Mainly dogs. No haddock nor whiting. I wonder who the commercials will blame for that?

Jim changed to a multiplier setup for Saturday’s run, trying out a Kali Kunnan HOLO 20/30 rod. Great craic for a not so expensive rod.

We packed up before our chum block was gone… beat out!

We had a cracking run back to base. Andrew, an ex-175 driver, was blown away by the Suzuki 140BG. It really suits the 175 so well.

We had some filleting to do before Andrew had the long spin home. A superb trip that will be remembered for a long time for so many reasons.

See Jim’s Facebook Page for a full report and plenty of footage or check out TopFisher.eu for plenty of fishing and boat related tips, tricks and useful information.