19 replies to this topic

[rodi]

Question for you West coasters.

Hake. They rise to the surface most nights following herring up and down.
How high/close to the surface will they go? Whats the highest anyone has ever had them??

Information would be verymuch appreciated

[Marcus1608]

Spanairds seem to reckon they stay hard to the bottom, theyre complaining that theyr no gettin any hake because the rays bream are takin the hooks afore they fall to the bottom because the bream sit a bit higher off the bottom. So they say anyway dont know wt the craic really is.

[bfsanders]

a know the pair trawlers get some big hauls of them in the norwegian sector and theyll be well down aswell although they are high standing nets wouldnt be no nore than 10fm from the bottom id think,,,probally wrong again thou,lol

[sylvestor]

When there were two or three hake about in the Clyde and North Channel we would vary our headline height to where we saw the most marks.  we have fished in 90 fathoms of water with a headline height of 50 fathoms, we have also caught hake very hard on the bottom but most of the time we were seeing marks of hake 1 or 2 fathom off the bottom.  you could also see individual fish entering you net on the net monitor

[rodi]

Thanks for a super response. Sad to say, your experience is like mine own years ago. Used to catch them daytime down deep, hard on the mud(Irish sea). Used a thing called Vinge or Wing trawl then. remember those?

Anyway, my problem now is to catch a small quantity alive. IE: Close to surface or they get a ruddy embolism on the way up.  I do know that a fw years back tjhe Cornishmen were fishing them with gill nets off the Chickens with a lot of success. Fished them out by all acounts. That means 5 fathoms from surface maybe.

I do know that they follow the herring which follow the calanus up to the surface at night. Soo..the wee buggers must be up there some of the time and not always buggeirin around in dah mud. I am thinking of designing a floatin trap for tjhis..10m 10m by 10m..Chinese style job. Maybe two. One with a light on it.
the other not. These big traps do work well...assuming the hake will go there and that bait can be found to make go in.

Any more commewnts would be very welcome.

Sylvestor....That headline monitor..was it cable or a scanmar?

[sylvestor]

Rodi , It was a Koden net monitor that we used, no cable just the old paravane and bomb on the headline . some of the newer Kodens had water temp which was used by some to try temp for a run of fish instead of depth.Furuno net monitors came on the scene laterly and i had a cable monitor linked to a Furuno sounder the last time i was at the pelagic which was 1998/99.

[rodi]

AAAhh..Right. Never had any Koden kit at all. I asked because those Scanmar h line sensors, if i remember rigt, used to transmit to the boaty at about 90kcs but measured to seabed at 40 kcs. I dont know if they ever developed the screens to show fish marks as well as HL height....not easy to what with the pausing of thje sginals. But, bloody handy if it could be made to work.

I suppose, in my case, the thing will be to try one or two gill nets on the surface or hiung at 3 to 9 fathoms, say...and then see if any hake turn up. Then, if they do, try a trap to get them alive. A gill net would probably get them alive too but their skins are so ruddy soft and easily scarred the fish would probably all end up with white spot or summat. Trouble with gillnets on this game is that one runs a good risk of having a net full of greedy mps and spurdogs..with not a hake to be seen,.

[sylvestor]

Why dont you try a small line weighted and balled to fish at different depths add on a few sealights and it might do the trick . Lines were  used for years in the Clyde to fish for Hake with great success.

[rodi]

Sylvestor..I had not thought of that. My experience with long lines years ago was so horrible I must have instinctively discounted all hook ideas...aversion therapy stuff!! But, thats a good cheap answer. I had thought of lights, as I said but have never used them. I ll look into that and see where to source them. Clyde is a good choice of grounds..assuming the hakes are a "hakeing" there. Al;l i need to do is get the gear together and find a small boaty to charter that can do the biz.
Rodi

[bfsanders]

think sylvestor hit the nail on the head there rodi think id give the lines a bash can soon suss out whiuch depth there at after that,,lets know how you get on

[sylvestor]

I would give Fincutter a call ,he might be able to tell you if there was a chat Hake about the River or Largs Channel .He also has a wealth of knowledge of fishing for hake .Another place worth trying is Loch Fyne. The River and Loch Fyne would give you good sheter to try whatever method you choose.

[rodi]

Thank you both most kindly fr that. Yup. Clyde it is. Hoooks it is.....Largs and thereabouts it is... Thats all a lot better than hammering up and down the North Channel in winter or even Spring..when  its often even worse.
I will ask Finncutter to look at this dialogue and see what he thinks.

Rodi

[restlesswave]

gill netted hake between the 100-200 fathom line on the edge of the shelf, west/north west ireland-out there march/april/may the fish took the bottom in daylight-a lot of the boats would haul in the dark as the fish rose a bit in the darkness. also seen a few hake in the salmon drift nets in the summer-but they were only a few. at different times the hake seem to be at different depths off the bottom-the spanish liners will add buoyancy to their lines accordingly-all those wee green floats that come in singly or in pairs on the west coast are lost from the long lines. if you could get hold of a spanish line skipper he would be fit to tell you all you`ll ever need to know about the behaviour of hake-they are masters at it.

[rodi]

Thanks. I know a few in ondarooa and Zumaia..are those the ports your spaniards come from?? Interesting about the salmon nets..didnt know that. (Dont know a lot of things!). 200 fathoms!! Crikey. I ve seen them at 50 but no more than that because I never tried more. Your are dead right about the varied behavior.
In May JUne they chase herring like mad and even on a full moon, the herring come right up to the surface. I assume the Hakes go for them then too. But, as the herring get fat, full of spawn and slow they get nervous about the moon and stay tight on the bottom. You seem to get more hake then, i recall. Then the herring clear off to the stony ground to spawn and  the hake never seemed to be around then. But...I ve seen the danes (tank boats) with big shots of them mixed in with pelagic in the RSW. You ll never credit it but these danes didnt seem to think the hake mattered..even though they had severeal thousand quids worth.

Smacking my lips. Hake and chips . Hell its wonderful. Did you know Sir Francis Drake brought that back to Uk after the sack of Cadiz which is how it all started. The spaniards told me that.

I ve got to get my hake near the surface so they dont have decompression probs and stay alive!!

[Bob.YTS Skipper]

Rodi we had a lad from the FRS in Aberdeen out with us a couple of years ago and he was talking about making a cage trap to catch Hake alive.He was a diver and ex fisherman,Jim Mair was his name but i never heard if he carried it through.He was a friendly lad and being an ex fisherman im sure he would help you if he could.

[rodi]

I ll follow that up. Know a few there. A trap solution has appeal because if it works, it is so ruddy easy.
Made a giant one about 30 years ago ..like those big pots for King crab on that Yank fishing drama program on TV. It was for crabs and lobbies..bottom gear....but i was v amazed at the cod and lythe it caught.
Thanks.. Rodi

[Marcus1608]

Interesting stuff. A trap would definetly be interesting if it worked. ive thought about cutting "fingers" out of a plastic 5 gallon drum and putting them facing inwards round a creel eye so fish could squeeze in but not swim out. Why do you need them alive anyway rodi?

[rodi]

Marcus,  the big trap I made years ago had a classic hard eye or ring eye...no fingers or non return gadgets. And it did catch codling, pollack etc. Of course, I have no idea of how many it caught and then lost!
It was very heavy and therefore, when in 15 fathoms, pretty stormproof. It was very nice going out after days of earning nothing and finding that this bit of kit has been working away doing it's stuff. Thre would be nigh a square yard of crabs on the floor of it too..and they didnt all rip each other to shreds either.
The idea of getting the hake live is to breed fry.

[mactheboat]

We used to get them,caught by the teeth,in herring drift nets at the IOM.

[rodi]

Mac..Thats interesting. I assume you are talking west side west of e and F etc ..May june..before the herring moved to the Warts, Langness.
We used to put half nets out for herring in PSM Bay (bait)  but none of us recall ever seeing a hake in them. That is not surprising..far too shallow and wrong ground, I spose.

Do you recall who the two drifters were that still fished herring w of Peel in the early seventies??? Scotch boats they were and braw too..

Last question? When you got the hake in the drift nets..what were the light levels like.? Moon., half moon, cloudy?

Thanks for your help...Rodi