Tope Smoker
Member
- Joined
- May 25, 2022
- Messages
- 30
- Reaction score
- 137
- Points
- 33
- Location
- Northern Ireland
- Favourite Fishing
- Boat
I am now in my early 60s and have fished since the mid 70s. My dad and i fished out of a 16ft clinker built boat with a 5hp seagull engine. It wasnt fast but it always got us there. Our tackle box consisted of half a dozen 3 feather cod traces ( they were far better quality back then, far more feathers on them) and half a dozen home made pirks probably bout 14 ounce, and a selection of swivels. We had no fish finders or gps back then, our reference points were taken off prominent points on the land. Im guessing most of our cod fishing was in bout 200ft of water. We always went past our marks and drifted over them on the tide and very seldom did we fail to hit the cod. We went to bottom and came up bout 5 or 6 turns of the reel and pirked away, it was always a great feeling hitting into a decent cod, back then the average was bout 8,9 or 10lb. When pirking we were plagued by sand eels getting foul hooked and we had to reel in to take it off the hook and go back down again. Once my dad was on his way down and he hadnt even hit the bottom when his rod started to nod. Those dam sand eels he said. Engaging the reel he started to retrieve some line and his rod bent over. He reeled in with 3 cod on, top 1 bout 4lb, middle 1 bout 10lb and bottom 1 bout 4lb and as i said he hadnt even hit the bottom. My point here is if this simple rig worked back then it will still work now. I dont understand all these new terms for different rigs etc but maybe some day i will learn them.