David's end peg

After 15 rounds the top 10 anglers in the league qualified for the 1 day final. No surprises when the venue announced was Loughgall. I had missed 5 league matches and 4 of them were on Loughgall but what I would have learn’t at these matches would have got thrown out the window with todays weather conditions.

Pegs 16 - 26 were in today after last weeks league match produced probably one of the fairer sections/matches this year with 2nd - 6th overall only seperated by 200g. Jason winning last weeks match with a Bream on the feeder for 3Kilo odd.

Todays pay out ranged from £105 for 1st Overall right down to £15 for last place. There was also an extra £10 pool on the morning.

The wind was wild this morning and the section we were going to fish would have the wind blowing right down into us which would make the fishing very uncomfortable. I found myself one of the last to draw as usual with both ends pegs already gone, it was peg 21 or 23 for myself & Johnny. There was no advantage with either peg so it didn’t bother me which one I ended up with and then I drew peg 23.

There were a few anglers down practising during the week and for 2 days end peg 25 was fished so I couldn’t help think that this peg would have a good advantage, especially with Paul McBride on it. Jason Lunt also drew the same peg he practised on the day before. The water level on Loughgall was up a good 1ft so that might change the fishing.

Tactics for today:

Before todays weather changed my plans I was going to plumb up anywhere up to 14.5m to find the flattest spot in my peg as I think it’s cruical on Loughgall. This would have been my main line and I was also going to set up a short feeder line using a small feeder and fishing around 20-25 turns. This was a tactic that I used years ago on loughgall and worked for the roach before the fishing started to change.

The wind almost scrapped any pole line and I had to think for a while wether to bother with it or not. The feeder rod went up first. Drennan 11.6ft Medium Feeder with a 2.5oz carbon tip and a sidewinder. A short 9ft mono leader, 20g small Tony Burke Feeder and a 0.08 hooklength to a size 20 B511.

Groundbait for my feeder line was a simple 1kg of VDE Superblack put through a pinkie riddle, no feed added and I was going to fish single floating maggot. I plumbed up and settled with 8 seconds at 21 turns.

Next up was the pole line. The weather was giving the wind to ease off around 3pm so I figured that I could catch a few fish during the last hour if the wind backed off. Unfortunately the wind never backed off and the rain started half way through the match and never stopped.

I set up 1 rig, a 2.5g Trabucco Red One on a top 3 in nearly 14ft of water at 8m. I still hadn’t got to the bottom of the ledge and I wasn’t confident fishing down the main slope. I plumbed up with 3” on deck at 8m and then when I pushed out to 8.5m i’d be 3” off bottom.

Groundbait for the Pole line was last weeks leftover VDE Special & Damp Leam with 0.5kg of VDE Secret added to it.

Fishing was from 11am - 4pm today so at the all in I cupped in 3 balls @ 8m containing a good pinch of hemp in each ball. I then started on the feeder @ 21 turns with single floating maggot filling the feeder with Superblack with no feed. First chuck I had a positive bite and my first Roach around 1oz. The next few chucks brought more bites and more small roach. I kept this up for the first hour until I stopped getting bites after 30-40 minutes but still came back with a smashed maggot. I had 10 roach on the feeder after the first hour including a bonus 3-4oz’er. Everyone else was struggling with 4 small roach the most anyone else had. Paul was first out with the pole on the end peg and he went out with a 3g flat float. He caught nearly straight away so it was time for me to have a look also.

The tow on the pole line was unbelievable, 1 minute and the float would have ran nearly 3m through the swim. First put in and I got a definate bite runing it through. I wasn’t long until I had my first roach on the pole around 1oz fishing at 8.5m off bottom with single maggot.

I stayed on the pole for the 2nd hour and was getting positive bites either over the groundbait or else 4ft down to the left. I had no need to top up with another 2 balls until the start of the 3rd hour. This brought an instant response but it was short lived and the bites slowed. I still managed to catch slow going into the 4th hour and then I decided to have another look on my feeder line. 3 Chucks and 3 fish but it was taking longer and 2 of the fish were small skimmers which were only half the weight of the average 1oz roach. Back onto the pole and I had a few more but couldn’t catch any quicker than I had been going. I cupped in 1 more ball but this didn’t get the responce I was looking apart from the 2-3 fish that were there straight away.

At this stage there was one clear leader in the match, the bank runner mentioned that Jason had a proper bream, then 10 minutes later he had 2… over the next couple of hours his tally was up to 7 Bream putting the rest of us to shame. He fished the same line he had fished yesterday clipped up at the same spot.

Everyone else was fishing for 2nd spot so I kept pluggin away on the pole in the windy conditions. I fished the remainder of the match on the pole while everyone else was swapping between the feeder and pole on the lookout for a bonus Bream. By the end of the match, Jason was the only angler to have had any Bream so it was a fight for 2nd place. I ended up on 84 Roach and as far as I could see around me it was the most anyone had.

Paul was first to weigh in on peg 25 and his catch brought the scales round to 1Kilo 500g odd. Steve Wright was next and put 1Kilo 50g on the scales. I was next up and my 84 small fish put 1Kilo 930g on the scales. Geoff was next with 400g and then Johnny with 1Kg 400g odd. I didn’t hear the rest of the weights until Jason weighed in 10Kg odd for an impressive overall win. After we packed up it was up to the club house for the presentation. Jason won the overall and I managed to secure 2nd overall on the day which got me £35 in the pools this morning and an extra £95 in the final prize fund. Happy days! Gordy Clayton was 3rd on end peg 16 with 1kg 700g odd.

Tomorrow it’s off to the 2nd round of the Float Only winter league on the Rosslea lakes. Lets hope the wind eases off a bit or we could be in trouble on some of the sections.