David's end peg

No fishing again for me last weekend left me looking forward to Round 5 of the Float only Winter league. Back again to the Rosslea Lakes and another new section was introduced this week for Round 5 to replace the section on Killyfole. It was Quigley’s lake which is in beind Drumacritten. I’ve never fished it before but there was a chance that it could throw up a decent weight to get you in the overall.

5 Sections in for today:

Quigley’s Lake

Gavin’s Lake

Lyon’s Lake

Inver Lough (High)

Drumacritten Lake

I was in the shop picking up bait yesterday and was asked where I wanted to draw today and I said Gavins lake peg 3. So when I went up to draw this morning and pulled out ‘G8’, I was more than happy.

Another tough section today:

3.  A. McAleer

4.  Simon Huthwaite

5.  Tommy Dowd

6.  Neal Masurek

7.  Dave Slator

8.  Myself

I knew from the off that the Slider was going to play a part for me today, so for a change that was the first thing I set up before I took the pole out of the holdall. Plumbing about with the slider I settled at 38 turns in 15ft of water starting off at dead depth or close to it.

My slider for today was a 12+2g Sensas Pro Slider, bulk weight with a 5ft hooklength with No. 8 Stotz spread out every 300mm and a micro swivel for my last dropper. Size 16 B511 for double red maggot hookbait. My rod was a Shakespeare Mach 3 Power 13’6” teamed up with a Daiwa TDR 3012D with 4lb Trilene.

It was then time to get the pole out and I settled just over a sharp 6” drop off at 13.5m and fished at 14.5m in 12ft of water. Just 2 rigs went up today, 1.5g Colmic Cosmo for laying 3” overdepth and a 1.5g Sensas Auchy for fishing 2” off bottom.

I was going to take a gamble with the pole line. I know there’s a good stamp of Roach up to 1lb in Gavin’s Lake and you will catch them on the Pole in the deeper pegs. I was going with the same plan as I went with at Round 3 & 4, a bed of hemp with loosfeed caster over the top. I’ve never fished this method on this lake before but I was willing to take a gamble because I had confidence in my slider line.

Groundbait:

1Kg VDE Secret, 1Kg Black Crumb, 0.5Kg Sensas Black Gross Gardons and 1/3 bag of Damp Leem to add a bit more weight and to create a bit of a cloud in the bottom 4ft of my slider swim. I was going to use this same mix on the pole line but I only needed 1 ball to cup in at the start.

All in:

I went out to 14.5m with 2 full 250ml cups of hemp and then went back over it with 1 ball of groundbait. I then picked up the slider and catapulted out 6 small balls containing caster & hemp, hard enough to go straight to the bottom without breaking up.

I started off on the slider at dead depth. Dave Slator had a bite and a Roach straight away on the slider so I started to look for my first fish. Nothing was happening on the slider line so I started to change depths and came 6” off bottom. Still nothing so I decided to have a quick look on my Pole line. A few minutes passed on the 2” off bottom rig with no indications and things started to look like everything wasn’t going to plan. Neal was catching a few fish on the pole and had some netters already. Dave Slator was on the Slider and putting a few fish in the net. The other anglers I could see catching the odd small roach around 2oz.

I changed to the 3” on deck rig and it wasn’t long before I put my first fish in the net which was a 1oz perch. I started to get a few indications on the deck rig and put a few more small Perch until a Pike grabbed a Perch on me but let go after about 1 minute. A 4oz Roach turned up and I thought it was going to switch on. Dave Slator beside me was still on the Slider and catching the odd roach between 2-4oz. The bigger stamp of Roach never materialised for me on the pole line and I knew the small Perch I was catching would put me nowhere in the section. A big Pike had a go at my keepnet, around 12-15lb which I scared off with my landing net. 5 Minutes later it was back and was just sitting there at the end of my keepnet staring into it. I got the landing net and slowly moved it towards it’s head before it knew what was happening and swam off.

The first hour passed quickly and I was well behind so I picked up the Slider and played about with the depth until I found the fish 6” on deck running the slider rig through at the pace of the tow. I started to catch a few small Perch initially and then a few small Roach but then the stamp started to get bigger around 4oz. I was catapulting a small ball out on average every 15 minutes.

The Pike was back again, all I could see was this huge head at the bottom of my keepnet so I had another go at it with my mono mesh landing net. I lined it up with the pike’s head and it was obviously more interested in the Roach in my keepnet and then I scooped at it and unbelievably I got it in the landing net, or at least half of it. All hell broke loose and it nearly took the whole landing net out of my hands with the sheer power. Then the mono mesh give way and the Pike ripped a big hole in my landing net and escaped. It was around 15lb but hopefully it wouldn’t be back after it’s experience with my landing net.

I stayed on the slider for the last 4 hours of the match while still loosfeeding the pole line with caster incase the slider line died. It was steady for me for the rest of the match and my average fish on the slider line was about 3-4oz with the biggest around 9oz. Mainly Roach and Roach/Rudd hybrids and the odd small perch turned up every now and again. Double red maggot was doing the damage and I never changed much during the last 3 hours of the match. The other anglers I could see were catching the smaller 1-2oz Roach and Neal’s stamp on the pole disappeared and his pole line slowed throughout the day. Dave Slator fished the Slider all day and caught steady for most of the day. I lost count of my fish but I had less than 15 after the first hour and I ended up with 80-90, maybe more come the end of the match. I never lifted the pole line again cause I was happy with the rate I was catching on the slider.

Weigh in:

The scales came to me first and I put more than my target 5Kilo on them and it settled at 6Kilo 400g. Dave Slator was next up with 4Kilo 560g. It was tight between Dave and Neal with 300g being the difference and Neal weighing in 4Kilo 210g. Tommy weighed in 2.5Kilo, Simon wighed in 2.2Kilo and peg 3 which won the overall match at Round 4 weighed in 1.5Kilo.

I really enjoyed todays fishing, it’s not often that the Waggler rods see that much action.

That was the 3rd section win for me on the trot and it was a bonus to win the overall today also. Todays result also sees me move up one more place in the league to 1st overall.

A new landing net head is needed for Round 6 in 2 weeks time.