David's end peg

My fishing has been cut down to once a fortnight now, no more 2 day weekends which the wife is glad to hear and that’s probably the reason why i’ve cut back a little to stop her nagging! :)

With no fishing for a change last weekend, it was time for Round 4 of the Float Only Winter League. Back again to the Rosslea lakes before they get the chance to freeze over or flood. One new section was put in this week - Gavins Lake - a few members of Erne Anglers went down and cut out pegs and erected pallet platforms during midweek. Gavins lake was now the favoured secion for a few anglers including myself after it’s form 2 years ago on during the winter league.

31 anglers turned up today and the sections in today were:

Gavins lake

Lyons Lake

Inver Lough (High Pegs)

Drumacritten Lake

Killyfole

At the draw I was hoping for an early peg on Gavins lake in the hope of getting into the overall but with the temperature 10 degrees this morning, most sections should fish reasonably well hopefully. I put my hand in and ‘I18’ came out. I was off to Inver for the first time in one of these winter league matches.

My section was proving to be a tough one today:

13.  Robert Buick

14.  Dave Slator

15.  John Taggart

16.  Jack Tisdall

17.  Tommy Dowd

18.  Myself

Last weekend during the erne anglers any method winter league, peg 16 won the overall with over 8Kilo, and with the weather not changing much during the course of the week, hopefully the big weights would continue.

Tactics:

Today I was going to opt for one pole line and that was it. I was advised to leave the slider rod in the holdall so I did. I plumbed up and had 12-13ft at 13m, at 14.5m it was 5” deeper and just gradually sloped off between 13m & 14.5m. It got slightly shallower the further I went left and slightly deeper by only 2” the further I went right. I stuck with 13m.

I was going to use the same plan of attack as I did on Drumacritten 2 weeks previous. There are supposibly a good stamp of bigger roach 4-6oz in Inver also so I decided to target them. I was going to fish over a bed of hemp again with little groundbait so I didn’t attract too many smaller 1oz Roach.

Bait:

0.5pt Pinkie, 0.5pt Red maggot, 0.5pt Caster, Large tin of dynamite hemp. I favour the smaller grained dynamite hemp over the larger superseed hemp for this particular tactic.

Groundbait:

I mixed up half a bag of VDE Secret and Superblack and added hald a bag of VDE Black Leem.

Rigs:

The usual rigs applied today: two 1.25g Sensas auchys set 2” & 4” off bottom with size 20 B511 on 0.08mm Diamond. My 3rd rig was a 1.5g Colmic Cosmo set 3” on deck with size 18 B511 to 0.10mm. All with olivette bulks set 400mm & 600mm away from the hook.

All In:

I went out with the cupping kit and deposited 2 full 250ml cups of hemp at 13m, I then went out with 2 balls of groundbait with no feed added just to attract a few initial fish. I started to flick out half a dozen casters with the catapult from the start and I kept this up for the duration of the match.

After 5 minutes fishing I had an early bite and connected with a nearly 2oz Roach. 20 minutes passed and I was still on 1 Roach. Tommy beside me was yet to get a bite while Jack & John were catching steady and on 10+ fish each. Robert & Dave were catching even quicker.

I went throughout the motions changing rigs and baits and eventually caught my 2nd 2oz Roach on the 3” overdepth rig. I got another indication so I thought there were a few roach there and switched back to my 2” off bottom rig. Nothing happened and then I switched to 4” off bottom. Still nothing so it was back to the 3” overdepth rig. Another bite resulted in a 1oz Roach but I started to put a few fish in the net. I knew if I keep flicking caster the fish would eventually move into my swim and settle over the hemp.

After 1 hour I was starting to catch but I still hadn’t 10 fish in the net whilst Jack was on 20 odd and John was on near 30. Robert & Dave were still catching faster and John admitted that Dave had twice as many as him. I was having doubts as where i’d finish in the section if this kept this up but I still had hope that the caster I was flicking in would attract a few more Roach and get them competing and draw their attention away from the Pike.

As I went to swing fish number 8 a double figure Pike had a lunge at it but missed thankfully. After the 1 hour mark I was starting to play catchup. I had figured out that the fish didn’t want the bait off bottom at all and I was getting a steady run of bites while Tommy was still struggling to catch.

After 2 hours I had managed to get my total up into the high 20’s low 30’s but I was starting to get a few netter roach up to 6oz. A 8-9oz roach even made an appearance. Things were starting to go well until it started to slow slightly after 2.5hrs. I hadn’t cupped in anything since the all in so I took a gamble to cup in half a cup of hemp in the hope that it didn’t kill the swim. There was a small 1oz Roach there straight away but it was a wait for 5-10 minutes before bites came back. Small roach 1-2oz started to come to the net and I began to think that I shouldn’t have cupped in but then a 5oz Roach made an appearance 20 minutes after i’d cupped in and then the odd bigger Roach started to settle over my swim.

The 3rd and 4th hour were steady again and I was happy with the stamp of fish I was catching compared to the 1-2oz I could see being caught further down. Jack then managed to catch a few big netter roach in quick sucession.

During the last hour the Pike were back, taking my netter roach on me which usually resulted in me playing the Pike for a minute or 2 before the hooklength giving way. Going into the last 15 minutes I was playing a good 8oz roach when it made an attempt to fight even harder and then it went solid. Another Pike which I played for 2 minutes in an attempt to get my big roach back but the hooklength give way. Next put in I had another roach around 6oz and the same thing happened. This time it was a smaller Pike and I played it for 2 minutes to try and get it’s head up. Once it neared the surface it let go of the roach. I went to net the Roach and the Pike had another go at it and swam straight into my landing net before it even had a chance to open it’s mouth. It was around 3lb 8oz and was quickly returned to the margins to my right. That was roach number 100 and I had time to catch 2 more roach before the final whistle to end up on 102 fish.

Jack admitted to 107 Roach, John had around 110 I think, Robert had 112 Roach and Dave Slator had 170 Roach. Tommy next to me never counted but caught steady enough during the last 3 hours and I guessed he had around 60-70.

Robert came down to me first with the scales. My 102 fish put 5Kilo 940g on the scales which I was happy enough with but knew i’d be well behind Dave Slator by the sound of things with 170 fish. Tommy was next and put 3.5Kilo on the scales. Jack was up next and his 107 Roach put 4Kilo 950g on the scales, that was a whole extra 1Kg behind me so my stamp of roach over the hemp must have worked. John Was next and put a high 3Kilo odd on the scales. Then it was Dave’s turn. His 170 fish were all small, around 1-2oz with no real bonus fish and the scales settled around 4.5kg. Robert was last up and his 112 Roach which put 3Kilo 700g odd on the scales. That was a section win for me which I didn’t see coming after the bad first hour I had but if you’ve confidence in a method and know that the fish will turn up sooner or later then it’s always worth keeping at it knowing that you can soon catch up with a better stamp of fish.

My 5Kilo 940g also managed me 2nd overall on the day with David Burleigh winning Gavins lake section with over 8 kilo.

Todays result see’s me move up one more place into 2nd in the league.

That’s it for another 2 weeks until Round 5.