Greystones 2 Jan + identification help pls!

[padraig]

Hi folks,
Arrived at southbeach shortly before 5pm, targeting sundown and high tide at 6pmish. No wind. Quite cold but kept my fingertips. Really was a beautiful evening. 2 others set up, 1 further south of me, 1 north at the marina came down and joined on the beach when he saw the marina was crowded and there were whiting on the south beach.

I fished with a small bit of lug, rag and crab. 2 hook flappers.

Whiting kept tipping away at the lug, and infound it hard to tell when they were hooked (I need to troubleshoot my set up, I think). But I brought in 3 whiting on half small crab tipped with lug. Nothing swallowed the rag really, some of it disappeared.

No weed until about 9pm or so, small bit then.

Really was pleasant.

The bigger fish - could anyone help me identify it? (rookie here!), it's grey with less silver side than the whiting and a white belly. Less teeth. Sort of grey black. Weighs 340 grams, so about 3/4 of a pound or so I think...
I caught this fish on a whole frozen crab, cut almost in half to lengthen it, wrapped well... tried too see if a bigger more solid bait m8ght attract something bigger... which it did I guess, but nothing else took similar after this

I think I will go back down to and past wicklow town next time... I think I would like to try a pennel rig, give myself more time and use 2 rods, single baits on pennel, as I felt the whiting had me scrambling like a loon most of the 3+ hour session. Great fun though... lost a few while reeling in too...

Cheers lads

[Caz-Galway]

Coalfish

[padraig]

Thanks Caz, used to seeing them smaller in Dublin Bay
Brill, thanks for that

[Teegerstk]

Nice session - I always found it hard to detect when whiting are on the feed. Maybe braid might increase bite sensitivity?

[johnwest]

Nice report Padraig, keep them coming! It is indeed a coalfish, often confused with the similar pollack which has a curved lateral line, see attached pics, while the coalfish has a straight lateral line.