David's end peg

Well it’s about time for an update! I haven’t updated in over a month simply because I had to put my fishing on hold with my first child due at the start of February. Baby Robbie was born on Sunday 12th February 2012 and whilst i’d been very good at looking after Lauren and helping her throughout the week I was ‘told’ that I had to go fishing because I deserved it so who could argue with that!

So, Round 10 was up today and having got three ‘0’ pointers and a ‘3’ pointer, I’d have to score section wins or 5 pointers at the lowest over the last 4 matches to have a chance of finishing the league on a high.

I wasn’t really prepared for todays match but I was looking forward to it when I started off down the road at 7.45am this morning after very little sleep last night having been on night duty for Robbie.

The draw took place in Derrylin and the sections in today for 25 anglers were:

Kilmore River (between Lisnaskea & Derrylin)

Ballyconnell Lock No.1

Ballyconnell Harbour

Bellanaleck Marina

Forum Backchannel (Enniskillen)

So there was quite a few miles between each of the sections. Driving down the road this morning it was registering -2 degrees at the lowest but went up to 1 degree by the time I reached Derrylin. It was the first frost in a while so it was bound to affect the fishing. It was time for me to draw and I pulled out ‘B6’ which meant I was off to Bellanaleck Marina. I waited around the draw to see if I could find out anything about my peg or the Marina as i’d never fished it before. Tony Kersley said he didn’t fancy my peg as the last 2 matches were won off peg 1 with peg 2 having the next best weight both times. Although maybe Tony was leading me on again after he told me he had 17 fish at round 6 when he really only had 3! A few other anglers said the same thing so my confidence wasn’t high but I was looking forward to a days fishing and hoping the frost would upset a few things.

In my section today:

1.  John Brown

2.  Linden Read

3.  Simon Huhthwaite

4.  Jack Tisdall

5.  Jordan Hall

6.  David Herron

Down to the Marina and there were alot of boats parked up with a few within reachable pole distance but still open water for all of us to fish into. The depth was shallow, 4-4.5ft in all the pegs. We noticed a few fish topping well out about 30m towards the other side of the moorings so everyone was setting up the waggler as it had produced the goods quite often in this area. I never brought the rod holdall so it was a pole only attack for me and Jordan on peg 5. John Brown on peg 1 even drove home to get his waggler rod because he knew it would play a part.

With this in mind I made an immediate decision to fish at 14.5m to get as far out as I could into open water. I plumbed up to find 4ft of water and plumbing around for features I found a 6” drop off going into the deeper channel before starting to shallow up again going a further 1 yard to the left. There was quite a bit of tow/flow and my 0.4g Auchy wasn’t going to stand up to much so I also set up a 0.75g Cralusso Torpedo for holding back 5” overdepth, a 1g Trabucco R1 for holding back and running through 2” overdepth and I kept my 0.4g Auchy up for fishing on the drop. My aim was to lower in my rig at the top of the drop off and let the tow put it over the ledge and run the length of the deeper channel in front of me before gradually shallowing up again. This was was all at 14.5m out in the middle of open water in front of me.

I plumbed up at 11.5m tight up against the end of a mooring between boats to find 3.5ft of water which there was considerably less tow than out further. I fished a 0.8g Auchy 2” overdepth.

Groundbait:

Half a bag of VDE Secret

Half a bag of VDE Special

Half a bag of VDE Black Leem

Sprinkling of VDE Aniseed additive

Bait:

1/2 pint of mixed fluro Pinkie

1/2 pint of Red Maggot

1/2 pint of Caster

1 Slice of Bread for punch

Small tin of Dynamite Hemp

All in:

I went out to 11.5m and cuped in half a cup of hemp tight up against the mooring between 2 boats. This was my backup line. I went out to 14.5m and cupped in 3 clementine sized balls containing a pinch of hemp and a dozen casters and a dozen pinkies. I was also going to flick out half a dozen casters now and again to fall though the flowing water and hopefully get the fish moving around a bit.

First drop in with the 1g R1 rig, I had a bite running it through over the groundbait and connected with a 1oz Roach on fluro pinkie. Next put in I had another indication and after a few more Roach holding it back and running it through 6” at a time I decided to step up to single red maggot. I started to get a few bigger roach around 3-4oz, 2-3 in a row and then back to the 1oz Roach. This was on and off thoughout the first hour and I ended the hour mark on 40 Roach all on single red maggot with no more top up feed.

On the hour mark the bites stopped. I swapped rigs to find out where the fish had gone but there was no indications on the other rigs so I decided to top up with 1 ball. I caught my 41st fish about 10 minutes into the 2nd hour and this 2nd hour proved to be a tough hour with only 15 fish coming to the net but it was starting to pick up again towards the start of the 3rd hour. A large boat came into the marina and started to manoeuvre in the middle of my swim to park up to the right in front of me. I thought this would have killed my swim but I had an indication 4-5 minutes later and caught on and off slowly.

Some anglers were struggling on the pole, and Linden was catching well on the waggler along with John on Peg 1. Jordan had a slow first hour but then started to put fish in the net slow and steady netting most fish which were bumping his weight up.

My 3rd hour slowed again and the fish totally disappeared even after topping up with 2 more balls and spraying a few casters on and off in an attempt to get nearby fish to start feeding. Another boat owner decided to take his boat out and reversed it into the middle of my swim before rotating 180 degrees to get out of the marina. This couldn’t have helped my swim and no more indications for a while proved this. 1 hour later and he was back again to park up for the day before making a commotion in the middle of my swim. Towards the end of my 4th hour my swim was devoid of life so I topped up again with 2 balls and got up for a walk to see how well pegs 1 and 2 were catching on the waggler. At this point pegs 1-4 were all on the waggler catching the odd Roach, whilst Linden seemed to be doing better with 10 small Roach on the waggler within 15 minutes before it slowed off.

I went back to my peg for the last hour and still there were no indications on my flat float rig or my R1 rig that I’d caught all my fish on. The fish had to be there somewhere so I started to alter my 0.8g Auchy rig and finally got a definite bite running it through 6” off bottom. 3 put in’s and three 2-3oz Roach went into the net before it went dead again. Over the last hour I put 10 fish in the net to end up with 80 in total. Jordan was catching steady on the pole during this last hour and was probably catching faster than anyone else.

I packed up after a very enjoyable day and great weather aswell and started the weighin at peg 1. John had a good start to the match but slowed up. He caught all on the waggler and weighed in 2Kilo 620g. Linden was next and also had most of his fish on the waggler and weighed in 3Kilo 700g. Simon was next up and registered 2Kilo 600g, only 20g behind John and the worst was that Simon went to swing a 3oz Roach and it dropped off which would have got him an extra point of 2. Jack was up next and just pipped John and Simon with a weight of 2Kilo 680g but not before Jordan beat Jack with a weight of 3Kilo 400g odd. I was last up and liked to think that i’d have more than 3Kilo but I didn’t know how much more. 4Kilo 960g left me 40g short of 5Kilo but enough to win my section and when the results were emailed though that evening I found out that I had also managed 3rd overall on the day which is always a bonus!

A great day fishing & weather wise and another step to keeping my hopes alive of respectable finish in the league but I need to get another 3 section wins in the last 3 rounds to have a hope of a top 2 finish. I was almost for forgetting about any sort of placing in the league after missing a few matches but after todays result i’m going to make a point of getting to the last 3 matches and see where I can finish up with my 4 droppers.

Round 11 in 2 weeks time. Venue TBC.