Baitfish Poll

[JimH]

I'm interested to know if anglers when they are fishing see the often expressed term 'baitfish' in the water.

Theres a little poll on the top right hand side of www.probassfisher.com

Personally i seldom if ever see any 'baitfish' except when chased by mackerel - but thats just me!

many thanks for any votes or indeed replys to this thread

jim

[shamoo0804]

As you say Jim, see lots of sprats when the macks are in, but rarely anything else.

I can remember as a kid seeing lots of sandeel shoals around the sandy coves of cornwall and devon, when on summer holidays......dont seem to see them here for some reason though.

[Al]

See plenty of sandeel around howth and dunlaoighre in the summer, last summer was packed with sandeel in dunlaoighre harbour when myself and mb3 were there. Also launce on Killiney beach caught on feathers

[doggie3131]

have seen baitfish,sprats and sandeel mostly,all summer long on the west coast even when little or no mackerel were around,we saw them up to late october,then nothing since.

[pete the plug]

Hi Jim,
My local mark is mainly rocks and boulders wich are generally covered by weed and barnicles (rossbeigh, Kerry is as near as I am prepared to tell ).
On many occasions whilst wading onto the odd sandy patch Ihave seen small turbot swimming away (boy can they shift!!)
A few times I have been surrounded by what must be millions of sandeels.
The area also contains small pollack,nothing over 6 inches and have at times seen small shoals of tiny pollack.
But the biggest surprise has to be wrasse, these I discovered last summer. Every year some French guys come to fish here( all tenryu's sammy's and other lovely toys) after they pack up fishing they use small nets to poke around the weed for shrimp and prawns to go with the fish they have caught.Whilst they were doing this and we were chatting they were sifting and throwing back crabs.....most of which were softies!!!!!!
On the few occasions that I bait fish softies are my no.1 bait. poking about with a small scoop net did produce a few softies,
but also hundreds of small wrasse.
This is in ankle deep water at low tide.
Hope this is of some help Jim.......................and I hope all you others get a load of softies!!!!!!

[hugo]

From late spring, plenty of shrimp and small fish of various kinds in the weedy margins up here.
Launce quite a common bycatch from the boat in summer, especially in Lacken Bay.
Sandeels aplenty off the beaches in season, from mid-March on I'll be keeping a daily check on one favourite spot where diving birds signal things are really underway again.

[scrob]

Last summer I was pollack fishing around the rocks between Port na Blagh and Marble Hill, suddenly the surface of the water started broiling alive with bait fish jumping out of the water being herded by large pollack. It was unreal, the water was just alive with the wee feckers.

Got a cracking 4lb pollack out of it though hehe

[JimH]

guys

Many thanks for the replies - and many thanks for taking the time on the poll. Your descriptions of what you are seeing is really helpful too.

This is the story - I quite regularly hear and read advice on various forums etc in relation to fly fishing for bass - the advice is to when possible 'Match the hatch' baitfish scenario - but my basic problem for other anglers in relation to this is that (according to the poll so far) only 50% of us see baitfish at any time - and a lot of it relates to sandeels - i might try and enlarge the poll to size and type

what then is the default fly choice - ?

again many thanks

[scrob]

I would have thought anything silver and sparkly would do the job, at the end of the day sea fish seem a lot less fussy when it comes to lures than their freshwater counterparts so I don't know if it's quite as beneficial to "match the hatch" so to speak? I'd have my money on something sandeel or sprat looking, can't see it going too far wrong.

[JimH]

Just a quick note to say thanks if you used the poll and for the replies - I will add another poll tomorrow when the current one runs to an end - regarding type colour and shape of 'fodder' or 'bait' fish that anglers see - plus locations

It would be really helpful if you have polled in the first sample to poll again in the second

Its interesting to see that almost 50% of anglers see bait fish often and 50% seldom or rarely

bendy
from jim

[evan699]

I've fished fenit pier in kerry a few times and always see large shoals of sandeels parading up and down between the pilings, aghada and ballycotton pier in cork sees huge shoals of sprats scattering around. In another mark i know in cork there are huge shoals of sand eel and they're fairly accessable on the low tide. Cobh sees shoals of herring in the summer too.

[Pat]

I'll just add my tuppence worth.....I reckon I get in about the same number of boat sessions in as I do shore sessions. On most boat sessions I will come across baitfish, and vast shoals at times. On shore sessions I rarely seem them, eventhough, many times I'm covering the same ground. I reckon its more to do with the angle at which you are looking thru the water. Oft times afloat you're looking directly down at the fish; from the shore you're more often looking at a 45 degree angle. Your ability to make out small baitfish in the latter situation is greatly impaired, even with polaroids. Having said that I had one session last year with two Uk lads from the shore when the bass were 'busting' thru the baitfish. The lads had never before seen that in Ireland, eventhough, they're seasoned campaigners and remarked that they had only previously seen it with 'stripers' in the States....and boy what a session we had. We'd over 40 fish between us, many on surface plugs .

[corbyeire]

in the summer time i see many shoals of sandeel when fishing off piers during settled spells - last year they seemed to hang around lough atalia for months

then the macks were in after the bait fish for about 3 weeks beaching them everywhere - outside of these periods very rarely see any