Post by jlPost by Mr_MarkhamYou know, I really wasn't expecting this thread to turn out to be
about mackerel fishing...
And I would like to know what "off Limavady" means. Limavady is 10 miles
from Lough Foyle where I doubt very much if you would catch mackeral. He
maybe mistook Limavady for Portrush ;-)
Easily done, what with the Promenade, the salt water and all those shops
selling nothing.
Jochen
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Limavady and the Roe Valley
http://www.jochenlueg.freeuk.com
The reality is, as any Hebridean could tell you, that mackerel swim in
schools and the usual bait is what we call a dibble, a line with eight
hooks, each hook with a feather tied to it. If you hit a school, you
can often throw the hooks in and immediately start pulling the line
in, with a mackerel caught on each hook.
Or at least you could until the Russians and the Spanish started
fishing the Atlantic like vacuum cleaners.
The reason is that the Spanish, unlike most Europeans, eat fish
several times a week, while the Russians will keep everything that
swims into their nets. One of the great moments of the Canadian Navy
was when it escorted Spanish fishing vessels off the Grand Banks of
Newfoundland and warned them not to come back. For some weeks,
fishermen as far away as Cornwall were flying Canadian flags as a
tribute to the Canadian Navy for doing what should have been done
years ago. Indeed, one of the conditions of Spain joining the Common
Market was that their fishing boats keep out of the North Sea, and
nobody is thrilled to see Spanish boats appearing in their waters.
And just to let you know what's happening out there, in Japan a record
price of $1,000 was recently paid for a tuna; a species which is not
likely to see the 22nd century, given the current rate of
exploitation. The discovery that the tuna in the Mediterranean were
not local, but American tuna which go there to breed, meant that world
estimates of the tuna stock had to be halved. I love tuna, especially
albacore, which makes perfect sushi, but every time I eat it, I feel
guilty. And no wonder - I once bought a whole albacore tuna for $4
from some American fishermen, way back when the supply seemed
limitless. There is some hope from Mexico of all places, where the
authorities enclosed a group of small islands to create a tuna
breeding area, but about which I have heard little since.
I must say that to see a school of tuna moving through the water is
something to behold. If panicked by a predator like killer whales/
orcas, they can reach speeds of 70 miles an hour; streamlined missiles
hurtling through the water. The good news is that if you fall
overboard while killer whales are around, there is no record of a
human ever being killed by one. Indeed, killer whales often
investigate scuba divers, but always move off as soon as they have
identified them as humans. We were out in a canoe one day and were
soaked by a killer whale which breached close to us and when we got
ashore, an Indian who had been watching us said casually that being
splashed by an orca leaping into the air was considered very lucky by
his people. When we asked why, he said because being splashed means
it didn't land in your canoe. I thought that was an excellent if
somewhat obvious point.
My wife once managed to touch an orca, which suddenly expelled air
from its blowhole and sprayed her. We drove home with all the car
windows open as she reeked of dead fish, while the children made
unhelpful remarks like "Wow! Mummy really stinks!" Orcas have
appalling halitosis.
Nothing however beat the day that I watched an estimated 240 plus
orcas herding shoals of salmon between two islands and driving them
into a bay filled with female orcas and their calves. Once the circle
around the salmon was closed, an incredible orgy of feeding started
which lasted well over an hour, during which every imaginable predator
showed up, from seals to seagulls, feeding off the scraps. I saw at
least two seagulls misjudge their dive and become part of an orca
meal, while the seals whipped past at high speed with bits of salmon,
doing their best to avoid becoming part of the meal. A park ranger
nearby said that the whales represented almost all the orcas on the
west coast and that he had read about this form of cooperative hunting
but had never witnessed it and remarked that we were never likely to
see such a sight again.