was what I caught this one on. Coincidently, the Irish record had been broken off Wicklow the week before we went out. Smoot-hound do not grow very large, the new record being 19 lbs. It must have put up a great fight and was returned safely, thanks to Kit Dunne’s operation and contacts in Wicklow, which meant that the fish was weighed ashore and then released alive. Then I got a decent knock on the rod tip and as I reeled in I could feel a heavy weight on the line. This was not a smooth-hound as they fight for every inch of line. By this time I had switched to a single hook trace baited with mackerel. I had to pull a large bullhuss all the way to the boat where Anthony kindly netted it. It was decent double figure huss and kept its mouth open all the time it was aboard. Unlike the lesser spotted dogfish, huss have a set of very sharp, albeit small, teeth. I was glad that we have a range of unhooking devices onboard to release fish as quickly as possible, so the T-bar was used to get this fine fish back as quickly as possible once the photos were taken. All the time we were at anchor, there were gulls all around us, screaming for scrapes from the bait-board. I had noticed a number of seabird bodies as we headed out, floating on the surface.
Anthony getting some mackerel.
Partly eaten remains of small gulls and auks like guillemots, which I presume, had been killed and eaten by the predatory greater black backed gulls. I have seen skuas in this same area before and they could also have been responsible. At about eight thirty we called it a day and after a quick cleanup we headed in, intending to try for a few mackerel as we passed ‘our’ spot. The trip involved travelling straight into the
setting sun as we were fishing off the East Coast. We stopped and soon had the feathers jigging in the sea. No sign of the mackerel until I looked around and once again saw ‘nervous water’ about five minutes away. This was definitely mackerel, as it covered a large area of the sea. We motored over and soon had a dozen or more mackerel added to our tally. A bonus was seeing two harbour porpoises swimming past only about twenty feet away from the boat. They were probably targeting the mackerel too. I discovered that the fish all had stomachs full of small sandeels later, when I gutted a few to eat, which I did after a quick run around to distribute some to friends. They were very sweet and tasty if I do say so myself. The first day and first fish of the season is always the best.
It was obvious that the fish had dined on sandeels earlier. 138
Autumn 2015 Countrysports and Country Life