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TIGGER stayed on mooring all winter. A few early wreck finding trips proved successfull with the usual catch, Some Plaice were caught in Dursey sound at the beginning of April along with some fine condition dabs.

Quite a few Cod and Codling caught in Late March and early April, nothing big, best about 8lb.

MAY - AUGUST 2007

Boat fishing from the Castletownbere on the Beara peninsula has been improving in recent weeks and most bookings have been fulfilled due to the weather being not to bad. We had decided to try our chances at Blue Shark fishing on the 9th & 10th June because the surface water temperature was at 15 degrees celcius, with no luck, we understand that the first Irish Blue was caught a few days later!!!! well done Jan.

We have had plentiful Haddock recently with the best so far at 5lb 8oz caught by Michael Wrenne from near Limerick on the 15th June . There have been some whiting in the 2- 2lb 8oz range as well. There are plenty of Ling now on the reefs and wrecks, most are in the 10lb -20lb range, however a wrecking trip with a group from Manchester & Suffolk UK produced two crackers, one at 27lb 11oz caught by David Wesley from Newmarket in Suffolk and one at 29lb 11oz caught by the skipper!!!! Conger have started to wake up a bit now on the reefs, best so far estimated at about 30lb caught by Liam Wrenne from Abbeyfeale, Co Limerick

We have caught quite a few Dabs and Plaice recently as well as some nice Cod and Codling, we have seen more Cod on the ground this year than the last six years. Best Plaice so far is 2lb 12oz caught by Danny Riley. The group from Manchester & Suffolk also shore fished during their stay with us and caught two notable Ballan Wrasse, one at 5lb 8oz caught by Gary Knowles and one at 5lb 2oz caught by David Knowles. Gary will claim his specimen but David won't because he forgot the camera!!!

On the 20th June in fairly poor weather three types of Ray were caught by Bob Groves and his party from the UK. The three species were Thornbackk Ray, Spotted Ray and a suprise Cuckoo Ray.

Fishing aboard Tigger operating out of Castletownbere, a group of lads from Scotland and UK had some good sport with Blue sharks recently during four days fishing. A total of 13 Blues were Tagged and released. Trevor Newton had the largest at 77lb.

Colin Thornley had 3 shark at 47lb, 50lb and 62lb and also hooked a wreck fish at 6.5lb.

Peter Lynn had 3 shark also at 27lb, 63lb and 67lb.

It was interesting to note that the average size seemed smaller than at this same time last year. We are also involved in taking Skin samples from each shark for DNA testing to see if our sharks all come from the same Genetic group or not.

An 0400 start on Friday 10th August saw members of the South Western regional fisheries board and friends heading out to try and catch the elusive Albacore Tuna. We started trolling five lures at about 23 miles out at about 0600 heading out towards some wrecks at 30 miles. After two hours of trolling we decided to fish a wreck on the first of the flood tide. This produced some fine fish with the best, a Ling for Patrick Buck at 32lb 7oz. Five more Ling between 20lb and 24lb were landed. Three specimen Pollack were also caught, Daniel Moore had two at 13lb 5oz and 12lb 4oz and John Angles with one at 12lb 2oz.

We trolled for Tuna on the way back in for about an hour with no success although a Fulmar caught in one of the lines provided a brief moment of excitement!!!

A shark fishing trip on Sunday 12th August provided only one Blue Shark that came of at the side of the boat, estimated at 65lb and one specimen Garfish was caught at 2.31lb.

With the weather forecast not great for the coming week, prospects don't look great but with an improvement expected next weekend hopefully we might get some more Shark.

SEPTEMBER - DECEMBER 2007

On the 27th & 28th August we took out a group of assorted journalists from France & the UK, one day shark fishing, one day wreck fishing.

We had two small sharks on the first day with Phillipe Duchesne from france catching his first ever Blue shark at 45lb. Paul Casey from the UK also had his first ever Blue shark weighing in at 30lb.

The next day on the wrecks, Michael Hennessey had the largest Ling at 24lb, Eamon Power from Dublin had a specimen Pollack at 13lb followed by another specimen Pollack at 13lb 8oz caught by Paul Casey from the UK.

A group of 5 led by Paul Humpries (YamYam) from the midlands, UK fished for Blue Shark for 5 days in the 1st week of September and had 11 Blues with some notable ones at 82lb & 89lb and a cracker at 136lb caught by Malcolm Ginifer on the 4th September.

On the 12th September 2 guys from the UK Fished for Blue Shark and had 4 between them, with the biggest at 85lb. A great bonus for them was a specimen 3lb 8oz Whiting caught by Matt Smith.

Shore fishing has also been good with reports of two cracking Grey Mullet caught, one in Castletownbere harbour estimated at about 8lb and one near Eyeries village at just over 7lb. There have been several trigger fish caught recently, Robert Bailey, John Bailey and his son Sean had seven in one outing recently and i even had two myself last weekend!!!!

Between four rods in two hours at the west end of the beara peninsula, over 60 Trigger Fish were caught and released, best was 2 3/4lb

The final wreck trip of 2007 produced three specimen fish, one Pollack of 13lb for Michael Hennessey, a 27lb Ling for Ian Mulligan and a cracking 43lb Ling for Eamonn Power. This Ling was the largest in 2007 caught in Ireland.

The end of September saw the first three Bass caught from the shore, all on plug and a steady run of Bass from then to x-mas culminated in two bass of 7lb and 6lb being caught by yours truly!! Roll on 2008.