David's end peg

The Irish Team Qualifiers have finished up for the year and after a good result for me it’s now time to concentrate on the Float Only Winter league.

Round 3 took place on the Roslea lakes again. The water levels were back down to normal after all the rain before Round 2 but the frost had arrived for Round 3. -2 degrees down the road this morning.

The usual sections were in this morning:

Inver Low

Inver High

Lyons

Drumacritten

Killyfole

I was hoping for a draw somewhere different than Drumacritten where I was last time, so when I drew ‘D1’ I wasn’t that amused. Back to Drumacritten, hopefully to get it right this time and improve on my section 3rd last time.

In my section today I had for company:

1.  Myself

2.  B. Gilmore

3.  John Taggart

4.  Brian Huthwaite

5.  Tony Kersley

6.  Paul Eyers

Peg 3 on the point was the favourite peg again today because it’s the deepest and with the frost this morning the fish may have resorted to the deeper water, that is if the rest of the pegs aren’t deep enough already! Robert Buick was on my peg last round and managed 3Kilo off it for 4th in the Section. I wasn’t exactly confident but I was going to change my plan of attack today from what i’d learnt last round.

Plan of attack:

Hemp. I was going to cup in 1 ball of groundbait to draw in some fish early and then I was going to cup in a bed of hemp in an attempt to target the slightly bigger stamp of roach and not attract in as many smaller Roach. I was then going to loosfeed caster and top up with half a cup of Hemp whenever I felt that I needed to.

Groundbait:

I didn’t really need much, so I opted for last weeks left over VDE Secret, Superblack, Special and Leem.

Bait:

1pt pinkie, 0.5pt Red maggot, 0.5pt Caster, Large tin of hemp.

Rigs:

I plumbed up at 13m and 14.5m but there was only 2” of a variation so I opted for 13m.

I plumbed up to find 4ft shallower than peg 4 two weeks ago. I got away with a top 3 in 15ft of water. 2g Colmic Cosmo for laying 3” on deck, 1.5g Colmic Cosmo for fishing 2” off bottom, 1.5g Sensas Auchy for fishing 4” off bottom. Usual line diameters to size 18 and 20 B511’s.

I was going to set up the slider also but at 10.25am it was decided for a 10.30am all in and it was a mad rush to replumb and get bait sorted. The slider never came out of the holdall.

All in:

The all in was called while I was still sorting bait but it wasn’t long before I cupped in my 1 ball of groundbait followed by 2 full 250ml cups of hemp and a pinch of caster. I started to loosfeed caster from the start.

First put in with single pinkie 2” off bottom, the float slid under and the first 1oz Roach of the day was landed. Next put in another bite and another small roach. I was expecting a few small roach initially that would have been attracted in by the groundbait but they kept coming and eventually increased in size to 2oz.

After 20-30 minutes I changed from single pinkie to single maggot and my catch rate stayed much the same but with the odd bigger roach around 3-4oz now coming to the net. At the 1 hour stage I had 30 fish in the net and I was catching Roach from 1-4oz steady. I continued to flick half a dozen casters out every couple of minutes which seemed to get a response from the slightly bigger Roach. The 2 angler to my right who I could see weren’t catching very much at all and I couldn’t see the other 3 angler around the point but I had heard that Paul on the other end peg was catching.

At the 2 hour mark I was on 70 fish, 40 of them came in the 2nd hour and again they ranged from 1-5oz all on single maggot 2” off bottom. Near the end of the 2nd hour I went to net a 4oz Roach when the hook pulled and the rig ended up in a birds nest around the tip of the pole. I had to resort to the 4” off bottom Auchy rig and soon altered it back to 2” off bottom to catch faster again. This change of rig also meant that i went form a No.3 elastic to a No. 4 which left it easier to swing the 2oz fish. After 2 hours I felt it was time to top up with half a cup of hemp.

The fish were there again, initially the smaller 1oz Roach but the 3rd hour turned out to be my best hour. Only 30 fish came within this hour but I managed to catch 2-3 Roach around 6-8oz in quick sucession, twice during this time and also a bonus Roach around 14oz if not 1lb. The bigger fish seemed to be slightly to the right of my swim. After 3 hours I was on 100 fish.

There was a small ripple on the lake at this stage and the sunlight reflecting on it made it impossible to see the float so I had to gradually move to the right of my swim away from the sunlight. After 3.5hrs I decided to cup in again with half a cup of hemp.

The 4th hour slowed a bit and I only managed 25 fish during this hour to end up with 125 going into the last hour. I wanted to get the fish back as noone else I could see was catching very much and a Pike chasing small roach in the corner next to me was getting closer and closer to my swim. I decided to cup in a small ball of groundbait and half a cup of hemp to at least get the small roach back.

During the last hour I managed to catch another 16 fish but got another burst of 4-8oz netter Roach during the last half hour. I ended up on 142 Roach come the all out. I knew I was well ahead of the anglers that I could see but still didn’t know if Tony Kersley or Paul Eyers had caught.

I was first to weigh in and my 142 Roach went slightly more than what I had hoped for, 6Kilo 850g. Peg 2 weighed in 2Kilo 130g, Peg 3 weighed in 1Kg 950g, Peg 4 weighed in 1kg 500g, Tony was next with 2kg 640g and then it was going to be tight between myself and paul from what Tony guessed. Paul caught steady all day and put 5kg 340g on the scales to give me the section win i’d been hoping for.

Later on that evening I found out that I had managed 2nd overall on the day too which was a bonus. Neal Masurek won the overall today on Lyons peg 10 with pretty much the same weight he had 2 weeks ago off the same peg to win the overall. Neal is top of the league with 3 section wins. Great match today and i’m still learning how to figure out how to fish Drumacritten a bit better. Roll on round 4.

Round 4 in a fortnights time.