The event was more about fundraising than fishing and I am sure that none of the lads who attended had expected much in the way of fish. We havent had any reports back yet of how much money was raised but there is already talk of next years event which will be aimed more at anglers in the form of a pegged competition, fishing into darkness.  Because the sponsors are mainly from Galway and the RNLI station is the Galway one we are restricted to fishing locations and would like to use Salthill again.

Special thanks to all who contributed to the raffle table with special thanks to the following for their contributions

Daire Lynch Art
Tuam Shopping Centre
Galway Bay Fishing
Corrib Tackle
Townhouse bar and restaurant
Duncan Browne
Conor Mountaine

It was a good turn out from the club members with an opportunity to meet up, some for the first time with others in the club.  The banter was mighty and many tales were told with fish increasing in size with each re-telling.  As for fishing itself there was very little happening.  I do not want to claim it but I landed the first ‘fish’ with this magnificent sand goby who surprisingly swam away strongly after this ordeal.

And everyone told me that 4/0s were too big for competitions. I wonder if it was the goby that had eaten the whole live razor that was on this bait??

Some of the lads stayed on later into the turn of the tide and were picking  up flounder.   Other lads who had traveled from the North and Mayo headed of to a Clare beach mark for the evening tide where their luck changed and they landed bass, coalies, whiting and flounder.

Conor trying to throw the most disgusting bait I have ever seen as far as possible. I think the bait must have still been in his bucket from the last outing.

Once again thank you to all who took part and I look forward to meeting up with you all again in the not too distant future.

Just as a little observation on human nature: What is it that forces walkers to kick the wall when they have walked along the sea-front? I have seen people almost climb over my rods in Lehinch to reach the brickwork at the end of their goal and now I have witnessed women with babies in buggies careering around children on bicycles just to tap on the masonry. What great sense of achievement drives the need to bounce toe off brick? It’s not like the walk is over or the marathon finished, I presume for most it is just the mid-way point and can only conclude that a rebound effect bouys them backwards on their return leg like the tumble-turn of an Olympic swimmer

I met up with Joe a few hours later, armed with buckets of fresh lug , razor and good intentions.  The wind was still there, but now it was a headwind and about 35 mph which reduced the total duration of the session to around an hour.  The combination of wind and big tide making it near impossible to hold bottom.  Even on the retrieve once the lead was in the surge I could not wind fast enough to keep up with it.

Back at home the fresh bait was sorted out into damaged worms and good worms. Rather than prepare them for tanking I just wrapped them with their purged sand in some dry newspaper and them in the bait fridge.  Rods and reels were laid out to dry.

Thursday came round and the weather was good, the webcam was showing nice waves, not a white-out of surging foam, a quick check on the worms, they were perfect and finally tide time, which was good. Left with no choice(in my head) I had to go and after 40 minutes in the van I was setting up my rods.

Pulley pennel rigs. 4/0s on one rod and 2/0s on the other.  The water was still very dirty so big baits were the way forward. I tried a single sandeel with a strip of mackerel just to see but I settled on the multi-wormed strings of big lug and live razor on the other. I have noticed that I seem to do well on the broken worms.  I believe this is because there is lots of opportunity for scent to dissipate. I always start with the broken worms as they will not keep well in the fridge.

The rods were sitting nicely in the stand and when a gentle drop back showed I picked up and struck, winding down to meet the now slack line. Fish on but very little weight. I was pleased to land a plump schoolie.  Anyone know when they stop being classed as schoolies and just become ‘small’? it would be interesting to hear what other people think. I have my owns thoughts but will hold them back for now.  Anyway this one was a borderline keeper or slightly smaller but it was lightly hooked through the top lip and released easily even if its entry into the water wasn’t as gentle as I would usually try for, the waves chasing me back up the steps as I dropped it into the onrushing tide.

Soon after re-baiting the second rod rattled and then relaxed again. It looked like a flounder tapping at it and sure enough it was one of the smallest flounders I have caught, fitting snugly into the palm of my hand

A tip eye malfunction made me pack away the second rod. It didnt break so much as just fell apart. when ever I am sending away for tackle I always forget the replacement Fuji eyes because I have made do with the generic replacements I can obtain locally.

I found it easier fishing with the single rod due to the nature of the mark I was fishing on. Unusually I could see at least two other anglers fishing of to my left obviously taking advantage of the good weather. I was told by a walker that one of them had caught a couple of small bass.

After a similar gentle slack line another small bass came to the big lugworm baits, again nicely hooked and easily released

As the tide dropped away a third bass was landed, this one much smaller and a definite schoolie.  I didnt even see the bite and he reeled in like a small lump of weed.  Before the water left the steps a slightly better flounder took the lug and 4/0s. The flounder was very fortunate that it is not May already otherwise his fate would have been an 8/0 hook and wire trace instead of being slipped back into the sea.

I could see the digital thermometer on O’Looneys pub as I loaded the van and at nine O’clock at night in the second week of January it was reading 10 degrees, what is going on with the weather?? does it have a nasty shock in store for us or do we have a mild year in front of us.

With conditions improving and the weather settled the water will be fining down, anybody local with the chance of getting out tonight would probably do very well on the steps of Lehinch over high water.

An enjoyable session over, I just wonder if I saved enough worms for Saturdays RNLI fundraiser at Salthill

First trip of the New Year was a spur of the moment thing. I had originally planned to go out Tuesday night to one of the local Bass marks, which I will still do, but as the wind had died down I did not want to waste the opportunity and headed out to a local mark armed with some frozen mackerel and a few fresh lug I picked up on the way.

The near hurricane force wind had left the small beach littered with debris of all manner and the water was filthy and weed strewn. I managed to fish for around three hours over the low water period, undisturbed by human, bird or fish. The once teaming water was a barren sea of sludge picked at by the occasional gull drifting inland.  I was happy just to be out after the Christmas confinement.

One of the reasons for this mornings  trip was to try a rig which had recently been shown to me by ‘Doctorfishgood’ from Freedom fishing forum. I don’t think that exclusive or elite quite describes us but we have a limited membership loosely bound together by sea angling and having a giggle. Sheep and potatoes are often mentioned in equal quantities to the spouting of the resident tackle tart.

I have on numerous occasions spoken of the virtues of the simple running lead and its many variations. For some people one of the drawbacks is that it is not as such a self-hooking rig in that if you are fishing some kind of freespool system or with loosened drag the fish can pick up the bait and run without lifting the lead and hooking itself(in theory). This has now been addressed by the lads on the Bristol Channel by using what can best be described as a ‘Semi-captive’ lead.  A slider is allowed to run between two swivels on the shockleader so the fish can run with the bait but then is stopped by the second swivel and stop bead.

I think I have mentioned it before but for fishing I always use clear rig body, leader and hooklength and black beads, I personally believe it does make a difference but for the illustrations coloured lines and beads make things easier.

So I  tied the rig and tried it this morning but either it is absolutely useless or as I suspect there were no takers of my mackerel bait. Immediately I set about ways of altering the rig to suit my needs and requirements. The first thing I though of was that the second swivel was simply there to stop the lead running but presented another possible weak point at the knots and something else to snag.  So I replaced the upper swivel with a powergum stop knot

The next problem was two-fold, firstly as it was the rig wasnt a distance casting rig.  To get round this I replaced the slider with a swivel and put a length of rigbody down to the lead making it a running paternoster.  By making this a similar or shorter length to the hooklength it is now possible to clip the baited hooklength to the lead making it more aerodynamic during the cast.  When fishing over rough ground this tail can become a weaklink with the aid of a casting clip.

I think this rig could come into its own when fishing for conger or ray.  The images are only a guide and could be tied with pennel hooks , wire traces or heavy mono depending on you preference.  I will give it a go over the summer months and it never hurts to have an alternative to the pulley rig or the long and low in you rig wallet.

Galway Buccaneers will be hosting their charity fund-raiser for the RNLI on the weekend of 14th January. Please come and show your support both for the new club and for the RNLI. You never know when you may need them!!

Anyone considering writing a blog themselves could get no better start than the WordPress Templates. It is so incredibly easy to gain a free blog and start spouting your thoughts, images, experiences or just plain ranting. If  people do not like what you write they wont read it, but hey what have you lost?? I started because I needed to learn to type but then I started to enjoy what I was doing and how I was doing it.  Taking photos, even on a cheap little camera has become part of my fishing ritual and my box feels empty without the camera curled up in a tea-towel, one that has usually held a reel or I have wiped my hands on.  The silly thing is I have a soft camera case in the box but habit over-rides its use when I am auto-pilot.  I hate missing opportunity’s such as when my good friend and work colleague John Keen caught a big mullet from the shore on a 3/0 hook and single lugworm and I had no memory card in the camera.

As for writing, talk from the heart, speak of what you know or what you see.  My ramblings are my own, I never claim they are the right way or the best way they are simple experiences which have or have not worked. The rigs that I use have been shown to me by others and adapted to meet my needs

Here is the report from WordPress.

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 11,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

And does the New Year look any better?

Apparently not. For at least the next seven days when wind and rain join forces to put the final nails in the coffin of my enthusiasm for winter fishing in Clare.  It isn’t that I wont go, for the compulsion to seek the solitude of the shoreline still runs deep within me. I will be out there the first decent opportunity I get. The urgency to dig and to hit the right tide at the right time has just bled out of me, with every planed trip being cancelled due to the weather or worse, driving to the marks and finding them unfishable.  Each disappointment has left a cut in my once unstoppable urge to fish.   Things may get that bad that I could be forced to hunt for flounder around the estuary with the hope of an odd bass thrown in.  If I am lucky there may be a winter run of pollack in North Clare.

I can only gaze at the clouds skating on slate skies and dream of the cod of the Severn Estuary and remember two-pound whiting which once were a nuisance in Jackson’s Bay.

I missed the chance of the May pollack due to lack of mobility, which brings me to think on just what kind of a year has past.  Looking back through images I have taken January started with a small schoolie while out on the 2nd with Joe and ended up twelve months later with a similar fish alone in the dark.

January  and February were typically slow with a handful of bass to show for my efforts and March I went to hospital to get fixed but came out more damaged than I went in!!

But March was the beginning of some good fishing.  With many thanks to Joe for picking me up and carrying my gear I managed to fish with my leg in plaster and later on hobbling on crutches start landing some decent fish and by May we were back down on the Shannon and catching rays againMackerel remained an enigma for us again. The season seemed very short and for much of the time we were alone on the hotspots.  The regular horde of barbarians turned away by days of disappointment and thankfully litter was not quite as prominent on the rocks at Ballyvaughan as in years gone by.  The usual nests of snapped rods, birdnests of horribly thick mono and eastern European larger cans still dotted the otherwise reasonable landscape.

Tiny white, silver or black baitcatches at distance seemed to account for most of the fish we landed. Although I cannot remember any good days there must have been some as my baitfreezer still has a healthy population of cleaned and filleted mackerel or does that bare testament to the lack of fishable days this winter?

It was sort of a plan that my reduced mobility would keep me to one general area which I would fish at all times in all weathers and tide states.  This plan seemed to work and by June both Joe and I had landed double figure huss, something we were to get so blasé about that we stopped weighing big huss. But still no tope had shown themselves despite them turning up at other similar marks. I Knew they were there as I had a close encounter with a pup the year before.

Then one day out on my own I hooked and landed my first Irish shore caught tope, Not a big fish but a great fight and I had proved people wrong who scoffed at me

After a couple of disappointments Joe managed his first Still on crutches I headed back for a couple of weeks to South Wales in search of smooth hounds but if it wasn’t for my mate Bone I wouldn’t have seen a fish. good to be back but the fishing was forgettable to say the least.

At the end of July on a spur of the moment change of venue I ran into what turned out to be a fish of a lifetime when I landed a 38lb tope from the shores of North Clare.  I am not sure who was most shocked Me, Joe or the swimmers who watched me drag the ‘shark’ from where they were swimming.

For the rest of the ‘summer’ I fell in love with lures again.  Not in the manner of some who spend thousands of pounds on rods, reels and bits of plastic but more with the stuff I use for pollacking and a few Japanese lures. Much to my annoyance the most constantly successful lure in my box was not a high-tech soft bait or well designed hard lure but a nasty piece of metal with a blue stripe!! I did manage a few bass off the surface and I was instantly ‘hooked’ and can see why so many people are obsessed with this branch of the sport.

And that was all that happened last year. I wonder how other people got on? Was it a good year for you or are you out chasing cod now instead of seeing in 2012 in a flood of good company and strong alcohol??

What are your aspirations for 2012 and is there something you want to achieve? a new species, personal bests, trips abroad or just enjoy your fishing again?  For me, I want a big stingray and a bigger tope before I sadly have to leave Ireland later this year.

Good luck to you all, have a happy new year and may you all meet the goals you set yourself.  Thank you for reading and continuing to join me in my fishing journey through the County of Clare

HAPPY NEW YEAR !

As I read back through my posts for the last year the one dominant issue seems to be the weather and in particular wind.  I cannot remember a year when more trips have been cancelled due to poor conditions and from the lads I am in touch with in the West of England and Wales it has been much the same there with the exception that they did have a summer.

In a brief respite from the wind I dug Worm Monday. I am sure I have mentioned it many times before but in my experience winter fishing in Clare leaves much to be desired. If anyone thinks otherwise I would be pleased to hear from them with just what they are catching and where.

I dont understand why cod appear not to come in and feed on the coast of Clare or are we just not fishing for them?? the lads pick up codling on the Galway side of the bay but to be honest I have never heard of a decent sized fish being landed. Which leaves us with only bass and flounder to keep us on the shore.

By the time I had finished digging the wind had turned, picked up strength and brought rain with it.

So the worms stayed in the fridge until Thursday night. I did not do anything to preserve them, just put them in a small bucket with some damp newspaper. I did not even sort out the damaged ones. Much to my surprise they were all still in perfect condition and the Razors I had thrown on top of them were still live as well.

So I headed off west under cover of darkness and spent a few hours with two rods and pulley pennels trying worm, mackerel, razor and squid. the sea was no way near as calm as it had looked on the webcam when I checked it earlier in the day and a six once grip would not hold position and was being swept slowly to the left.  This was not a major problem with the exception of the one time it appeared as a slack line bite.

The weather again closed in until the wind was almost lifting the rods off the tripod and I decided to call it a night.  I did manage one small bass which was quickly returned.I was sure that more fish would have shown after days of strong winds and rain but it was not to be.

For now I will keep watching the weather and make do with reading the fortunes of  the cod catchers in the UK

By some lapse of memory and judgement Fanore was my chosen location.  Conditions were looking perfect, but looks as so often are deceptive.  Surfers were enjoying the rip from the small river whose mouth I had hoped to fish. There appears to be very little in the way of a food chain at Fanore and flocks of gulls pick through what ever washes from the mountains at this point. The river is full of small sea-trout, many of whom must end their days in the cavernous mouths of bass hunting the rips. Within half an hour of setting up further towards the rocks the last of the surfers slid from the sea in the dwindling light and I moved positions closer to the centre of the beach.

Lug , squid and sandeel were the baits for the evening presented on pennel pulley rigs and running leads.  And so I set my snares…and waited…and waited…changed baits…… changed areas fished and waited. The sun got bored and slid off for the night and in its place wind and rain vied for their place to torment me. when the tide turned it brought with it those small surging waves that may pose very little danger but can run fifty yards up the beach and wash an unsuspecting tackle box away.

Although I wear a headlamp I like to fish in the dark and watch small snap-lights using the light only for re-baiting and the likes but the tide had left scour holes on its earlier retreat and a small stumble in one of these dips was enough to put enough pressure on my ankle for me to realise I really wasn’t enjoying the evening.

I have been criticised in the past for mentioning marks by their names but anyone who lives within fishing distance of Fanore already knows of its existence and to be honest if you read my last years reports of the time I put in to Fanore and the amount of fish I took off it I would be surprised if even people who lived within walking distance of it spent much time there. It either fishes or it doesn’t. I believe that the bass are feeding on sandeel and when the sandeel aren’t there neither are the bass.

Five days later and struggling with seasonally affected enthusiasm disorder it took a call from Joe to get me out on the beach again.  I get this lull at this time every year when I know that a good session could mean a handful of dogfish, a few flounder or a bass or two.

But there was a chance of a bend in the rod and more importantly for me to try Joe’s new lure set-up.

Predictably he was late.   When I plan to go out with my wife I always tell her we need to be somewhere an hour before the actual time and that way we are usually only half an hour late.  That never works with Joe, like the mackerel he arrives when he arrives.  By the time we arrived at the mark it was already an hour into the fill.  Joe tackled up his new Grauvell lure rod and selected a ‘Maria chase’ before striking almost instant disaster when the lure and leader parted company from the shiny new braid on his reel.  Fish-less, the now inanimate piece of plastic sailed slowly towards the open sea in a cloud of language which was so profound I had to go home and look some of the words  up.

When I should have been setting I my own rods and getting a bait in the water I instead rummage through Joes lure box to see if I could find anything new and came across more plastic from the Maria stable

When I did get set I opted again for a pennel pulley baited with sandeel and a running paternoster rig baited with a joey mackerel mounted on a 6/0 varivas big mouth hook.

It wasnt too long before  a nod on the rod and a few springbacks showed that something had picked up the joey.  Not much weight and no kicking but it turned out to be a small huss, which was encouraging because where there are small huss there could be big huss. But there weren’t.  There were more dogfish but that is all that showed. As the tide filled we were pushed further up the beach and the bites dried up.  While it is always nice to get a bend in the rod hauling dogfish wasn’t the flame I needed to re-ignite my passion that keeps me out in wind and rain. I will dig Tuesday and head out West for some easy on the leg fishing from the promenade at Lehinch later in the week.

I took Joe’s new rod for a wander along the shoreline and found it to be a lovely rod to cast, light as a feather and easy to make the lures twitch and dance. It would have been even nicer if I was able to draw a bass to it!

I think my blog is doing ok despite very little input for the last few months I still average around twelve hundred views a month which I think is great considering how few of you that I have ever met or fished with…….but something is starting to piss me off.

If you want me to share a link with you or endorse your product please have the decency to read at least a couple of pages that I have written to see where I am coming from and what my blog is about.

I was very pleased recently that Graham Hill left me a comment wanting to swap links as I believe that people who read my blog would enjoy reading Graham’s bassing experiences and obtain a view of cutting edge lure fishing technology and bass fishing in the UK and Ireland.   All the links I post I feel are relevant, the other blogs linked I read and enjoy, all the services are ones that I use.  There are a few lads who mainly fish lures who I follow and enjoy.  Danny has just caught a lovely double figure bass on the lure and always comes up with an entertaining read.  Another successful angler and blogger is Rockhunter, by many peoples standards a newcomer to angling but enthusiastic and well able to land some nice fish

However I will not advertise a North American boat yard, any site that specialises in boat spares and especially for those builders of baitboats who try to sneak advertising in as a comment …no thanks, it’s not my thing, it isn’t relative.  If I was interested I would have said yes, I don’t need half a dozen emails asking me if I received you previous emails,I don’t do boats, nothing bigger than a surfboard, nothing smaller than a ferry. It’s not for me . No thanks.

Anyone with a shore angling related link would be welcome.

Back to the fishing. Friday night, although a small tide is looking promising for launching a few worms from the shores of Fanore so anyone at a loose end would be welcome to join me for a few hours.

Staring in the direction of the Burren, I know it is there I just cannot see it for the constant poor weather, I wonder how the talismans of summer are fairing on their journey, struggling against the same winds that are keeping me off the shores.

There where I’m sure a few good days in October in fact I remember them well.   For a start  the two days I lay under the Landrover getting covered in grease and filth changing all the suspension for something a little more robust.  The long-lost exhaust which now litters some remote part of the country has been replaced  with some stainless steel parts so at the end of each journey my eyes are no longer red from carbon monoxide poisoning and I no longer have to drive with the window open.  It was not a conscious malicious act of littering I just noticed it wasn’t there one day.

Reports from around the county reflect the conditions and catches are not helping to lift the spirits of those who brave the weather. While many of our counterparts in the UK and other parts of Ireland are looking forward to the promise of  winter codding Clare holds very little to entice us away from a warm hearth. A few flounder and bass up until Christmas and then if we are lucky there will be a run of pollack. I hope I am wrong but in years gone by there has been very little to show for a lot of time put in. Maybe the cod are there, I just haven’t found them yet. the lads from Galway pick them up but from what I have heard a keeper would be a rare thing.

Watching Jamie Oliver on the telly on one such wind and rain-swept night encouraged me to get out and dig a few shellfish. I like Jamie’s cooking, once you get past the mockney thing he actually cooks food that you can do at home, stuff you can feed the family with rather than a lot of the noncy stuff many chefs produce.  I understand the concept of fine dining but it isn’t for me.  I refuse to eat somewhere  that makes you want to get a burger two hours later because you are still hungry.

So fork in hand I waded across shallow gullies to reach the razor banks disturbing scooting flounder as I walked,  lifting clouds of feeding gulls that were picking in the shallows. I couldn’t see what they were feeding on but I guess it was maggots from the rotting weed.

Trying to do too many things at once I spent too little time digging but got enough razors, calms and cockles for a nice pasta dish.  I notice a large amount of sea potato’s but no sandeels during digging. While I was there dug a couple of dozen worms just in case.

I had already missed low water and decided to fish for a few hours at a nearby mark. I was blighted by indecision as I had intended to fish two rods with baits but as I was setting up silver flashes in the shallows tempted me to leave the unbaited rod to idle on the tripod. Splashy rises all around me but nothing I could tempt with the contents of my lure box.  After sitting still for a while it became clear that I would have had more chance floating a piece of bread as the flashes revealed themselves, ‘flicking’ against the weed covered rocks. I have seen this behaviour before in freshwater barbel and chub and have heard two different theories. firstly the fish is trying to dislodge parasites from its flanks and secondly it is an attempt to dislodge food. Either way it alerts us to the presence of fish.

With the tide rapidly rising I finished setting up the bait rod having no luck with the lures and within five minutes of it being in the water the frozen mackerel was picked up by a scavenging dog-fish.  A couple more dogs and a small huss all took the frozen mackerel before I was pushed back to the rocks which at this stage are still too uncomfortable for me to stand on.

Although I took lots of photos there were none within context that I feel anyone would be interested in looking at.  A while ago when I was considering advertising as a shore guide I asked a well-known guide in the UK what he does if his clients don’t catch fish.  He replied people are happy if you teach them something they didn’t know or show them something new.  So with that in mind I hope to find something of interest to write about. For those who are new to fishing I am planning a series of bait presentation articles.  I wanted to take pictures on the beach but the long shadows and the lack of three hands prevented me from the step by step instructions.  Of all the things I write the simplest are the most popular. For others all I can offer is continuing tales of  marks tried and hopefully fish caught.

I have also become more actively involved with the club I mentioned in a previous post.  Galway Buccaneers SAC . Yes me, the person who struggles daily to talk to people. I have agreed to act as Public Relations Officer and will give it my best shot.

The first event for us will be a fundraiser for the RNLI. The intended date for this event is the 10th December 2011 and will be held on Salthill.  When the details are finalised I will publish them here.  For now this is the flyer I intend to go with.Speaking of charity when working on a layout for the flyer I posted on possibly the largest sea fishing forum asking if anyone had a photo of a beach match fishing scene that they could let me have.  Of all the people who looked at the post only one person offered any help and that was by private message.  I wonder just how many people involved in forums are there purely for what they can get out of them without offering anything back in return?  How many people cannot be bothered to reply just because they have seen the question posted before? Unless we are very careful  and are willing to give of ourselves recreational sea fishing could die out within a few generations.

Most of my recent trips have been local, just a few hours here and there looking for bass in out-of-the-way places. Even though I don’t want to use them I am having more and more success with metal lures. The format of each session remains the same, weather permitting, I select the mark and start off with the surface lures, if they are unsuccessful I move on to the soft plastics, which I still haven’t caught a bass on but I will sooner or later when I travel back out to the areas which hold more fish. Most of the marks I am fishing are shallow so shallow runners and sub-surfaces are next and then only when all else fails the door handles are last on my list.

The sad thing is they work, as much as I don’t want to get to the stage where I use them they are fish-takers, even if it is only mackerel. I am finding however that I am losing more fish than I am landing and I know they are bass. Looking back over the last couple of months photos I have notice that most of the bass that I have landed have taken the middle of the body treble rather than the tail end as if they are slashing sideways as the lure passes rather than chasing and this could be consistent with the recent patterns, a bang on the lure then a few head shakes and the fish is away. Maybe I need some smaller metal lures? Or maybe it’s a judgement and I should stick it out with the other methods.

Although I much prefer working the mag poppers the chug bug was good enough to fool a hungry gull which tried to pick it up today.