Tope: a new obsession
James Norton shares why he has become besotted with tope fishing during the summer months
Issue 23 (Jul-Aug 2018) James Norton James Norton & friends
All through my fishing life I’ve been fortunate to know and learn from the right people. From as far back as I can remember, every summer I would return to Valentia Island, a second home for me and many other members of my family. Many days were spent on the commercial and angling boats, hauling pots and tangle nets along the cliffs of Culloo one day, then drifting for pollock and ling off the Blaskets the next. I became good friends with local ladeen Callum, whose father was commercially fishing for pollack and lobster at the time. Over the years I did many days out in the boat with Mel, aka Birdseye, and the knowledge and experience I gained in his company is still, to this day, invaluable to me, more than any book or magazine article I’ve ever read. He would have me out on his work days as well as just pleasure trips with Callum, fishing for the numerous species that live in the area.
We eventually set our sights on sharks, catching blues off the back of the Skelligs and eventually cracking the code with an offshore porbeagle. If might not have been a monster but we had set out that day knowing we had a chance, and we put ourselves in the right spot and the shark did the rest. I’ve been very lucky to have done all this without ever having to constantly hire charter boats on a single seat basis or for an entire private trip. I got to know the right man locally and took it all in. However, one species had eluded us throughout the years off Valentia and that was tope, so I needed to find the right man for this particular job as they weren’t a common catch down there.
It was around New Year 2015 when I landed on my feet once again and met another angling veteran Mark Heffernan. After pestering this literal fish magnet for ages to bring me out for an east coast tope, I finally got the message to be at the slipway for 8am in June of 2016. This was different terrain to what I was used to off Valentia; instead of rocky pinnacles in hundreds of feet of water with a big rolling swell, we were anchored up in a narrow sandy channel with a strong tidal flow, but a light wind blowing with the tide made for flat calm conditions. I think we hooked into no fewer than 11 tope that day, with several 40 and 50 pounds plus. We were ducking rods under and over each other as we had double hook-ups and takes just as the bait hit the bottom. It was my first ever days tope fishing and it just so happened to be a red letter day for the two of us. I did have to remind myself that although I reeled in some big tope on the day, I only did so because I was on the right boat with the right skipper. And so began my first seminars in Tope College!
I continued to join Mark fishing for tope for the rest of the season , and the one after that, and started gaining the knowledge needed to find, catch and release these incredible animals ; how to handle them in the boat and in the water and how to navigate the sea area in which they live, safely. There’s no point in learning how to catch any species if you don’t learn how to get there and back without getting into trouble. Good angling and good watercraft come hand in hand.
“There’s no point in learning how to catch any species if you don’t learn how to get there and back without getting into trouble. Good angling and good watercraft come hand in hand.”
I knew in order for me to make these journeys on my own some day, a proper boat was needed. A Vimar 465 was purchased with hard earned money just before winter in 2017, a cuddy boat with a clinker hull, very capable of fishing both large loughs (for pike) and inshore coastlines. I took the cuddy off initially as I’d planned a winters pike fishing first, and the cuddy didn’t serve a purpose yet. My intention was to fish for Esox lucius but end my season early, refit the cuddy and start preparing the boat for sea. I had a new GRP deck installed which made the boat a lot more spacious, and would come in handy for having to jump on any tope’s back and saddle it for unhooking. A lot of work was put into the trailer, making launch and recovery an ease on harsh slipways. Last but not least was to invest in proper tope gear and so a pair of Penn multi’s and a pair of 12/20lb class uptiders were added to the collection.
Everything was ready by May of this year (2018) but the reports suggested that the tope had not fully arrived by this time. The big day came on the 2nd of June. I was out the day before with Mark and we had the first tope of the year, five of them up to 38lbs. I got back to the slipway and checked the forecast for the following three days – light winds and a flood tide during midday, warm weather and good water clarity. Mark had other fishy related plans so now was my chance to put everything he’d taught me into practice and give it a go. The plan was to bring out a mate from the city (Niall) on the first day’s tope fishing and have Callum come up for the final two days to assist me in my quest.
Fresh mackerel from the slab were bought as it wasn’t practical to rely on hitting a shoal of mackerel out there straight away (is it ever these days). We motored out in heavy fog to the mark, dropped the hand-break below us and sent two half-mackerel down into the tidal trench whilst jigging for fresh ones. We didn’t have to wait long. The old make-a-coffee trick was deployed and before I had time to sweeten it up , my rod gave a good indication of a tope run, which is usually a violent knock on the rod tip then a steady emptying of line from the reel. A small male tope of around 15lbs was welcomed aboard soon after, no giant, but it was still my first ever solo caught tope. I’d finally done what I’d set out to do, two years in the making, and it wasn’t going to end there!
Half an hour later, just after unhooking a few mackerel that had passed through, Niall’s rod started gently knocking, as if it was a crab or a doggie having a pluck. I said to treat it like a tope anyway. As he lifted the rod to set the circle hook, just as line began slowly trickling out, the tope realised something was wrong and bolted off uptide and as far away from us as it could possibly get. A few minutes later, I finally got a wrap on her, a 50lb+ female in immaculate condition. A quick weigh, photos and release and she was off back down to patrol the sandy bottom. We ended the day with three fish, which made it a great day out, but there was more to come…
“As he lifted the rod to set the circle hook, just as line began slowly trickling out, the tope realised something was wrong and bolted off uptide and as far away from us as it could possibly get. A few minutes later, I finally got a wrap on her, a 50lb+ female in immaculate condition”
The following day we had yet another three fish including another ‘fifty’, this one going 54lb and giving Callum a bit of an arm ache. The fourth day was a complete blank which amazed us as there seemed to be a good run of tope around, but the lack of mackerel and the weaker tide probably ruined it for us. All in all, it was a complete success for me and for everyone involved.
After the days fishing on the third day, Callum and I went for a slap up meal and a feed of drink to pat each other on the back for the day we’d had. I was struck with a feeling déjà-vu, of being out on his father’s boat years before, totally green in the gills and thinking to myself then that this was a life I simply had to live; to be able to get up in the morning, choose a spot out on the sea, venture out there and do my own thing. As I knocked back the last of my pint I realised I was finally living it, so I ordered another pint to celebrate the realisation. I look forward to many more tope fishing and other species on the Vimar. For now though it’s time to start thinking about targeting big inshore porbeagles, which Mark has me in training for already!
James Norton