We’ve just enjoyed a great couple days afloat catching and tagging smoothhound with Wobby Shark Savers 69 landed in total, with a good quantity of doubles and the best going 19lb. Glorious sunshine and calm seas added to a fun filled time catching, tagging and releasing.
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Over the years we have helped out with many tagging schemes, helping record a wide range of data for the likes of spurs, hounds, huss and tope. Laura from Wobby Shark Savers joins us regularly tagging spurdogs, tope, smoothhound huss and rays. Following cancellations over the last couple years with Covid we have new tagging dates planned for 2022. 13th April 2022 14th April 2022 15th June 202216th June 2022 For April dates we aim to research Spurdogs and bull huss along with other species of sharks and rays! For June dates we aim to tag starry smoothhounds along with other species […]
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We return to Holyhead this coming April, amongst the numerous species to be caught we will also see some large packs of spurdog with a good few pack tope too. The spurdog is a popular specie to catch during early spring, putting up a spirited fight with sizes regularly into the mid teens with a few breaking records at 20lb plus. Although packs move through most of the year, spurdog fishing generally kicks off around March time for big specimens with the best fishing to be had the following two months. Plenty of spurdogs are still around right through to […]
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Enjoyable day afloat yesterday for our first trip of 2019 from Holyhead. Despite a bitterly cold east wind we had a good mixed bag inshore and spurdogs making an appearance in Holyhead Deep. Today we were also joined by Laura from Wobby Shark Savers with a plan to tag and release all the spurs caught to assist in various scientific studies. Fortunately the first spurdog fell to Marine Biology student Portia Harris, who was keen to take part in this tagging exercise. The exercise involves measuring and weighing of the spurdogs in the hope of recapture and then new information […]
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Over the years we have helped out with many tagging schemes, helping record a wide range of data for the likes of spurs, hounds, huss and tope. Laura from Wobby Shark Savers joins us regularly tagging spurdogs, tope, smoothhound huss and rays. She’ll be returning again in 2019, with the first trips April 10th & 11th to continue her hard work. If you’d like to join in on a general fishing day to include time fishing for spurdogs for tagging please message or email
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Great Fun recently with Laura from Wobby Shark Savers, catching weighing and tagging smoothhounds. A good few caught and released after the data collection More photos in Gallery 231
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In 2008 and following years we were heavily involved with the University College Dublin (UCD) Ph.D researcher Edward Farrell in his study of Starry Smoothhounds. Eds research was studying the seasonal migration of smoothhounds but also to show that Starry Smoothounds only and not the Common Smoothhound visited the UK and surrounding waters. Ed had an article published in the ICES (International Council for the Exploration of the Sea) Journal of Marine Science in January 2009 showing his findings on Starry & Common hounds. Thanks to Jim Midgley for the above photos In a nutshell, not one Common Smoothhound was […]
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