Portballintrae Specimen Plaice (old pic from 5 or 6 yrs ago)

[dave316]

For Mother's Day my wife was making a photo album as a gift for my mother and she found a photo of a Plaice I caught a few years back at Portballintrae. In the photo my dad is holding it (he was going to send it to Sea Angler magazine and pretend it was caught at Fisherman's Quay, Carrickfergus to see the crowds flock for a laugh) as I sent the fish up to them for there were 6 people living there and it was too much for me and the mrs to eat. I just sprayed over his face as I wouldn't be into putting photos of myself on the internet and I doubt he would either. I thought I would post it as it would be very rare to see a Plaice of even 3lb these days and i'm sure, being as interested in fish as everyone is here, you might like to see it. I think when I checked back 5-6yrs ago the estimated age of the fish was somewhere around 30yrs old, possibly. Just a pity that I never took photos of my catches over the years and that one of my best fish has someone else holding it though I recently got a camera phone so have no excuse now. Pity i'm not likely to catch one like this again and my previous bests were all around 3 and a half pounds.
Anyway it was caught from the rocks and I was using ragworm on light gear on a trace with a 1oz ball weight which was moving in the current. The fish was weighed at 6lb 4oz and time of year was late May or early June and it was an extremely memorable day on the whole. My mate had earlier caught a 4lb Bass, there were pods of dolphins and the sea was most definitely alive. There were about 3 or 4 species of gurnard, sandeels, Pollack, Coalies, Flatties and a few other species literally everywhere and the gurnard were even taking spinners. We even saw plenty of Salmon below our feet. The photo doesn't really do it justice at all btw and I put it here as I don't know if it's acceptable really in the specimen section on site. Hopefully no'one thinks i'm showing off as I seek no fame and no'one here will ever know who I am anyway. This is a photo taken of a photo found by luck, thankyou.

[saving private brian]

now thats what i call a plaice,,ive been looking for ones of those for years,,,,,

[cathalger]

Incredible fish Dave, sounds like the kind of day you only dream of. Thanks for sharing that.

[samo]

Cracking fish man. its been years since i had a decent plaice but never had one that size.

[Davy Murdoch]

Holy feck
The north coast used to throw up plaice of this size very regular but sadly its a thing of the past

I`ve seen them over 5lb while fishing the Causeway bank but never this big!!

Alot of my old pic`s have been lost over the years but now i never leave home without my camera...Tho im quite fussy on which fish i put in my album

Cant beat a trip down memory lane
Well done great fish

[dave316]

Yes we used to catch quite a few big plaice in the 3-4lb bracket at cushendall and one day my dad got 3 in a row 4-5lbs off dalriada. Usually you were guaranteed a bag of 2lbers. Back in the day ballycarry bridge was great for big flounders. I was actually saddened to see a 2lb plaice here recently named as club record. It's terrible to see the difference in a relatively small amount of time.

[cathalger]

Dave, I saw the kind of plaice you are talking about being caught at Dalriada when I was a kid. Used to just go and watch the fishermen on a Sat or after school. They were awesome fish.

We may well have met in the past? My question however is, why are they not there any more? You must have given this some thought seeing that youve seen the decline and how fast it happened. Is it simply due to commercial over fishing, do we as anglers have a hand in it or is it something else entirely?? Its such a shame.

[dave316]

Like I said before, I may be wrong though Cathal, it takes something like 30yrs for them to reach that size. I'm not sure but would guess they follow the same migratory paths each year and would be intercepted by trawlers at multiple points on that path so what would be the odds making it to that sort of age? The only good thing is there does still seem to usually be plenty of juveniles each year and I do still catch the odd good one at times, though it did used to be possible to reliably catch one for each family members dinner the next day. I also used to love heading out at 4am to catch, almost guaranteed at known marks, big flounders and bring them back to grill with just plenty of butter and salt/pepper served with plain loaf and tea for everyones breakfast, mmm sometimes simplest is best. I guess 2005/6 wasn't that long ago to be completely irrelevant so you never know if you're lucky to be in the right place at the right time, but there don't seem to be many large Plaice pics in particular going about in recent years that i've noticed.

[chuckaroo]

i have caught hundreds of plaice from Dalriada over the last few years but cant remember the last one, if any, that was actually big enough to keep! its a sad story that the ones that size have all but disappeared. heart-breaking.
thanks for he photo tho, cracking fish. maybe one of these days..... i'll pray in earnest! i hope to hell they can recover.

[Bassmania]

What a craking fish ....... and all the other species too..... You don't tend to here of a multitude of quality fish been caught/spotted nowadays, not on the west coast anyway.

It was a forgotten fish only for the photo! Well done.

[billy the fish]

Bloody hell!! Wish those days were back. Nice post mate.

[nicki d]

great fish mate, and its very sad we dont get them like that now

[cathalger]

Like I said before, I may be wrong though Cathal, it takes something like 30yrs for them to reach that size. I'm not sure but would guess they follow the same migratory paths each year and would be intercepted by trawlers at multiple points on that path so what would be the odds making it to that sort of age? The only good thing is there does still seem to usually be plenty of juveniles each year and I do still catch the odd good one at times, though it did used to be possible to reliably catch one for each family members dinner the next day. I also used to love heading out at 4am to catch, almost guaranteed at known marks, big flounders and bring them back to grill with just plenty of butter and salt/pepper served with plain loaf and tea for everyones breakfast, mmm sometimes simplest is best. I guess 2005/6 wasn't that long ago to be completely irrelevant so you never know if you're lucky to be in the right place at the right time, but there don't seem to be many large Plaice pics in particular going about in recent years that i've noticed.

Dave yeah it would prob take a long time to get to the size of the cracker you got there, I have an old book called 'Fishes', one with plates and info, you know the type. I think it says plaice take 7 years in our waters to get to reproductive age and further north, closer to Arctic it may be 9 yrs. Not sure just how accurate this info is, its nearly 30 yrs old. Thinkin about it more today, as Charlie (and you also) quite rightly say, its not that theyre absent, plenty of juveniles but those big ones 3-5lb are only a dream now off the shore, round here anyway. Could lack of feeding explain the apparent absence of the larger fish that used to be common enough? A change in the food chain?

Yeah flounders, think I prefer them to plaice for eating but hard to get one big enough also.

If only things would swing back round again but we might never see it.

[bingham]

what a cracking fish shame they are a thing of the past!

[mickm]

a fish to dream of thanks for sharing mate, super fish