Quite large fish in the mouth of the Liffey by the Seán O'Casey Pedestrian Bridge

bobbysands81

I'm hoping someone might be able to help me with this.

At lunchtime today myself and two buddies were crossing the Seán O'Casey bridge, (after watching some lunatic drive the wrong way up the southside quays towards Matt Talbot Bridge!) and peering over the side of the bridge (to check were there any Cormorants hanging around) we noticed that there were several fish swimming around.

Now the fish were quite big, approx 2 foot long, and seemed lightish (though they may not have been) in colour. Anyone know what kind of fish they might be?

tricky D

Probably Grey Mullet.

Degsy

Yep more than likely they were Grey Mullet..they regularly swim up rivers during high tide to feed and can often shoal in large numbers.

They're also common in harbours and estuaries.

fryup

^^^^^^

do they go with chips?? can you eat them??

deaddonkey

mullet is a bit muddy tasting.

Fulton Crown

deaddonkey wrote: »

mullet is a bit muddy tasting.

Might have been lookin for rabbits......

Slydice

I saw a line of fish that looked like that in roughly the same part of the river a few years ago

I'd say it's just something they do

dubtom

Seen a few large fish jumping in the river just down from Beckett bridge over the last few days, a couple of lads said it was salmon making their way up the river to spawn, I have no idea if that's true.

Degsy

dubtom wrote: »

Seen a few large fish jumping in the river just down from Beckett bridge over the last few days, a couple of lads said it was salmon making their way up the river to spawn, I have no idea if that's true.

Its unlikely..salmon do run at this time of the year but would only be jumping further upstream,in shollwer water in order to surmount obstacles like weirs etc.

Most probably what you saw were mullet again,they can jump clear of the water and can be 3 or 4 lbs in weight so look pretty impressive when they jump.

Dyr

Grey Mullet In the liffey? Did someone throw Brendan Kilkenny off O'Connell Bridge?

mikemac

Same in Galway by Lough Atalia

I used to look down on them from the railway bridge and figured they were salmon
Happens on the Corrib alright, lots of fishermen around and the salmon jump the weir

But after reading the angling forum, more knowledgable people then confirmed they are mullet.
As said, common around harbours. Galway has loads of them, they're quite big

Degsy

these fish dont bite at nothing....

You CAN catch them if you're carefull.

Firstly they're very hook and tackle shy..you need light line and small hooks and teh bait needs to obscure the hook.

Secondly what are they feeding on? In harbours they'lll be used to be feeding on offal from fishing boats so use that as bait(small pieces)...chuck plenty of guts etc into the water to attract them.

In estuaries they're most likely feeding on small worms,shrimps,crabs etc and can be caught on these baits.
Bread will take them too if you groundbait for a number of days untill they get used to eating it..agian the hook needs to be small and embedded in the bread.

When i was younger i used to harpoon them from a slipway in clontarf..once you make a hit you need to get after the fish quick because they're surprisingly strong and will chuck the point out by thrashing around!

Toby Take a Bow

I think I saw them around the Capel Street bridge around low tide one morning. I was very surprised to see anything living in the Liffey at all. They must've cleaned it up. Lots of swans on the Liffey where there weren't (or I didn't notice them) before.

tricky D

They also hang around the wooden bridge to the Bull Island.

Dyr

Toby Take a Bow wrote: »

I think I saw them around the Capel Street bridge around low tide one morning. I was very surprised to see anything living in the Liffey at all. They must've cleaned it up. Lots of swans on the Liffey where there weren't (or I didn't notice them) before.

I can remember seeing em around heuston station or the halfpenny bridge in the 80s