David's end peg

It’s that time of the year again when the Winter Leagues start and in my opinion the Erne Anglers Float Only Winter league is one of the best leagues out there. There’s a very high standard of anglers and usually a turnout of anywhere between 20-30 anglers every match. Anglers like Neal Mazurek, Nicky Harrison, John Potters, David Burleigh, Dave Slator, Simon Huthwaite, Jack Tisdall, Tony Kersley…to name only a few! It’s impossible to name them all but it’s only fair to say that it’ll be a hard fought league.

The venue(s) for round 1 were the Rosslea Lakes:

2x 6 peg sections on Killyfoal

2x 6 Peg Sections on Inver Lough

1x 6 Peg section on Lyons Lough

Due to some Pikers fishing the high numbers on Inver, that section was moved to Drumacritten Lake.

30 Anglers I think gathered around the car park at Lyons Lake for the draw, i’ve had a habit of waiting to the end of the draw to get my peg but this morning I decided to get in resonably early to avoid being late down to my peg. K1 came out of the draw bag and I was off to Killyfoal for the first time ever.

Pegs 1 & 2 were the two main jettys at the roadside car park, pegs 3, 4 & 5 were fishing from the bank down to the right and peg 6 was another jetty in the right corner of the lake. The other section on Killyfoal was directly opposite us and a fair old walk around to them pegs.

In my section today I had:

1.  Myself

2. Neal Masurek

3. Gus Greaves

4. John Brown

5. John Pollock

6. Jack Tisdall

I was told it was all long pole short lining so that was my plan of attack for today, no whips and if I’d time I was going to set up a big waggler for fishing out 30yds incase the peg was devoid of fish.

On the pole line I found 7ft at 11.5m and nearly 8ft at 13m. My top 2’s are only 8ft so I made the decision to fish at the top of the slope in 7ft of water at 11.5m. With the water being relatively shallow, I thought the fish  may want to venture up in the water at some stage during the day so I could stick on the 13m section and fish further off bottom if it came to that.

Rigs:

2x 1g Sensas Auchy’s went up plumbed 2” and 4” off bottom. 0.12mm mainline to 0.08mm hooklength, size 20 B511. Olivette bulk with 3 No.10 stotz as droppers spread 200mm apart.

1x 1g Colmic Cosmo set to dead depth, same lines and shotting as above.

1x Trabucco RED One set 3” overdepth to hold back against the tow. Olivette bulk with 1x No.10 dropper. Size 18 B511.

Groundbait:

I went for my usual safe small fish mix today - 1Kg VDE Special and 1Kg (half a bag) of VDE Black Damp leem. No additives.

Bait:

I had half a pint of Red Maggot, Pinkie, Caster and Hemp. Worms were also on standby but I wasn’t going to put any chop in.

It was going to be a tough section today with Neal beside me and Jack on the other End peg. I was deliberating wether to ball it at the start or cup in less. Jack had said that last year he drew Neal’s peg and won it while the angler on my peg struggled for the first half of the match but then bagged up in the last hour to catch up with Jack. I had 7ft of water while Neal had 12ft of water so it was hard to guess what would happen. I’d noticed a few fish surface on the pole line during my time setting up but Neal only saw a couple of fish top well out nowhere near his pole line. With this in mind I decided that I was going to cup in in an attempt not to spook any fish that were there.

At the all in, I cupped in 6 balls containing a handfull of Hemp, a dozen casters and a dozen pinkies. The balls would have broken up on impact with the bottom so there should have been a nice cloud in the bottom 4ft of my swim.

First put in with the 2” off bottom rig with single pinkie and it wasn’t long before I had my first bite and first Roach od the day around 2-3oz. The sunlight was playing havock with my float, even with my polarised sunglasses on. I couldn’t see the float and was having to fish 1ft to the right of my swim. After 10 minutes I had my first Pike on, and it was a proper one. Not moving much gradually swimming from left to right in the middle of my swim and it wasn’t feeling any resistance from my No. 6 elastic. After 3-4 minutes the hooklength give way and I don’t think the Pike even knew it was hooked. The sunlight reflecting was gradually making it’s way to the right but I put up with it and had a good first hour catching on the 2” off bottom rig catching on single maggot. Neal wasn’t catching as fast and I couldn’t see the anglers further up the section. The Pike were starting to have a go at every other fish I was bringing in, gladly there was no sign of the bigger one and the other Pike seemed to be around 3-4lb. After 45 minutes I had started to catapult in half a dozen casters every few minutes to get the roach competing for food and hopefully take their mind of the several lurking Pike.

The 2nd hour was much the same with the average roach 2-3oz and a few 4-6oz roach turning up inbetween. The clouds rolled in and stopped the sunlight reflecting on the water so the 2nd hour was a bit easier on the eyes but the wind was picking up slightly at this stage. At this point I changed my shotting from 2 droppers down to 1 dropper with the bulk now 400mm away from the hook. I decided to cup in again after 1.5hrs and cupped in 2 balls which didn’t seem to disturb the fish and they were there straight away again. During the 2nd hour Neal had a big fish on which I thought was a Pike but 5 minutes later he netted a huge Hybrid. I guessed that the Hybrid would add another 1.5Kilo to his weight which ment he was ahead of me.

After 2 hours I had just short of 60 fish. The last 2.5hours got very slow at stages. The fish just disappeared at one point leaving me biteless for 15-20 mintes trying all my rigs and cupping in another ball. Then I had one Roach holding back on the deck rig but no more. The fish started to come in 2-3 at a time but I couldn’t catch any more than this with in consecuitive chucks. Still loosfeeding caster I didn’t seem to draw in an numbers of fish. I went to swing a 3oz Roach and a tiny Pike about 7-8oz jumped clear of the water after it. I cupped in another ball in an attempt to speed thing up. The wind had picked up considerably and the fish just seemed to back off as the conditions changed. I caught on and off when the wind backed off for a couple of minutes at a time.

Going into the last hour I had racked up 80 odd fish and I started to catch steady again. Neal had been catching slow and steady for most of the day and I thought that his Hybrid was keeping him ahead of me. The fish then decided to disappear again for the last 15 minutes and I was stuck on a total of 99 fish come the all out.

Neal admitted to only 50 odd fish but I still thought he was ahead of me on weight. I packed up and then went down to my peg to get the scales and I realized that my keepnet had gone! No sign of it anywhere and I couldn’t see to the bottom of the 4ft of water in front of me. I ran to the car to get the chest waders and with a little help from Neal I was up to my chest in water and found my keepnet lying on the bottom and kicked it up with my feet. A disaster! Neal said there were still a few fish in it so at least i’d still get to weigh in and get some points. The net had sunk to the bottom and had been there for 10-15 minutes so I didin’t know how many fish had escaped.

The weigh in started at peg 6 and Jack admitted to a poor day catching on and off and put 5.5Kg on the scales. I thought if I had all of my fish they would have went around 5Kg so I though i’d be pushed well down the section. The next 3 pegs weighed in 2-4Kg each. Neal was next and put 7Kilo 650g on the scales to take the lead in the section. I was last up and surprisingly I put 7 Kilo 300g on the scales to take 2nd spot. I has happy enough but couldn’t help think how many fish escaped.

Top weight on the section opposite us was John Potters with 7.5Kg. Top weight on Lyons Lake was 6Kilo odd which included a 2.5lb Tench and Tony Kersley taking 2nd spot only 300g behind. Top weight on Inver Low was 8Kilo with Nick Howell taking 2nd spot with a high 7Kilo odd and Top weight on Drumacritten was 9Kilo which included 3 of their resident 1Kg+ Rudd with 8Kilo securing 2nd spot. Great weights from a mixture of lakes around the Rosslea area!

That’s round 1 over and 5pts isn’t a bad start but I think you need to be racking up 5 & 6pts every visit to be up there. Somehow I think with the standard of anglers every week, they’ll be taking points off each other so we’ll have to see how things pan out.

Lurgan Summer League 1 DAY FINAL is up next on Saturday at Loughgall I think. 9 Anglers made it though so it’ll be a good match and hopefully some prize money up for grabs.

Erne Anglers Winter League ROUND 2 is the following day so it’ll be a busy weekend for me.