An excellent days angling for #NIFSA federation members on board the Lady Karen skippered by Paul Graham, himself a NIFSA affiliated charter skipper and federation member. If you are looking for Tope this year make sure you contact Paul Graham for trips out in the Lady Karen or NIFSA affiliated skipper and federation member Sean Mc Kay onboard the Lady Lynda.
Karl McCullough takes up the story of how today’s events unfolded.
Smashing day out on the tope with Paul Graham onboard Lady Karen Charters. Myself Andrew Ferguson Drew Hendry David Nesbitt Dean Azzabi and big kingsy headed out in search of some toothy critters and were not disappointed! Started off slow with bait a bit hard to come by but with enough to get started, headed to the tope grounds. We didnt have long to wait with andrew Ferguson's ratchet screaming off and a short fight ensued... it would have been a longer fight if he had have tied his knots properly! 😳😂 next up was the skipper himself with a nice hook up and gracefully handed the rod over to deano 😏😂 2 fish and going strong. The next hook up was drew Hendry who until 2 weeks ago, biggest fish was a 20cm flounder, he landed a 4lb thornie at the swilly and this week lifted into a mid to late 20lb tope, impressively he didnt flap with his 1st real hard fighting fish and showed his name sake how it should be done 😛. Deano had another few then it was Andrew's turn to finally get to hold his 1st tope! Another fish in the 20s and his smile says it all. Things went a little quiet for a while and I was maintaining that I was saving the best fish for last 🙄. Dee was the next one to do a bit of wrestling and fought the biggest fish so far to the boat, an impressive 136cm fish and with time running out was looking good for the biggest fish pool. Last knockings seen andrew lift into another fish beside me at the back of the boat and determined not to go home empty handed u told him I was leaving my line down to catch the mate of his fish 😂 it worked and we had a double hook up! Again, andrew got another real good looking fish upto the boat before his line gave way again, this time the line felt frayed. I still had my fish on and watched as my line shot across the water away from the boat, we joked, "it looks like it's going to jump".... IT JUMPED! 😂 unfortunately it ended up wrapped in the line and sitting in the racing current was like dragging in a big bag through the tide... I already had my fun with the fight beforehand and luckily my rubbing leader done the intended job and a nice fish at 151cm estimated in the conversion charts at 35lb was to the boat. New p.b for myself and the most tope I've seen in a single day yet, I lost count but was I to double figures! Great day out and already booked again for september for a bash at the females!
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