Little n often

And that's not just referring to the feeding regime.
Last weekend saw us back in Kildare and heading for a repeat visit to last weeks venue.
On arrival we were greeted by a horrible wind blowing waves up the canal in the opposite direction to the flow and a quick look had us deciding on a change of venue to somewhere we hoped would be a bit more sheltered. A couple of miles back to the town, a quick phone call for the access code and we were soon setting up just one swim,  in what we hoped would be a good and more sheltered spot for a few bites.
The venue is well known for it's winter fishing and regularly throws up good bags of good silvers.
Everything we're doing for now is based around 4 hour sessions to CIPS rules and that's for Rob to get used to fishing that time frame.
We took a swim on the far side which was empty and got the pole set up to fish at 9M.
Four balls of Sensas Black Roach and Lake mixed 50 / 50 had a few handfulls of caster mixed in and were cupped in to kick it off. The wind was harder than we thought so a .75gr Tubertini float was chosen and sorted to a top 3 with no 4 elastic fitted. The first 20 minutes didn't see and awful lot happen so we made a few changes as one of the lads right opposite was catching well and we figured if he was we should be too.
A slightly heavier 1gr rig with the same float pattern was introduced, we shallowed up by a couple of inches
and the bites started coming. As soon as we started getting bites we began to feed one handed small balls after every fish and boy did that get them going. Very finicky but regular bites became the norm and allthough we were only getting small roach and dace they were regular and quick enough to keep us busy and happy.
If ever there was a demonstration of the importance of making changes there it was.

Tidy

The bites were coming on every put in at this stage but no sign of any decent stamp fish, perhaps we should have upped the feed and cupped in some more bigger balls but with everything going so well decided not to.
On a blustery day that occaisionally saw the pole being blown hard to the left and pulling the float out of position, it was enough to be getting bites and be able to keep things together.
At some stage we were joined by Ollie and The Carlow Mafia who elected not to fish but to sit and
discuss all matters fishing related. As ever we sorted out all angling problems while Rob kept swinging
roach and dace to hand.

And the crowd cheered on...

With a half hour to go he was on 70 fish and it was a case of ship out, feed one handed ball at the float,
bite, lift and ship back and swing to hand. Credit where it's due it was all very tidy and a decent four hour
practise session on a cold and blustery day ended with 81 fish in the keepnet, good job.
Quote of the day from amongst a load of possible winners goes to Rob, who in an instant answer to a
general question that was something like "whats the problem with match angling" answered "to many auld fellahs standing round talking shite and not actually fishing". nuff said........................

Back on the bank,

The last few months has seen very little happening on the fishing front for Team Kavo but we resolved to put that right this weekend and despite being short on some kit, i.e. we've only got one
pole between us we headed for The Barrow. We're slap bang in the middle of upgrading a lot of our kit, boxes, poles all being upgraded, so I was the designated driver and kit carrier for the day while Rob got to kick off our new year on his new (ish) Rive D36 of all things.
A call to one of the locals had us on the main river at 09.00 but after a biteless couple of hours we
opted for a move and that turned out to be a good call. We gave it a go with various rigs up to and including a 15gr Sensas Flat Float but there was nothing to show for it and happily we've learned to know when things aren't going to happen so we moved.
A couple of miles out the road and we're on one of the overflow canal stretches with time to see
what we could do. The last few weekends had seen a couple of knock ups with some decent winter weights so we were hopefull of getting amongst them.

Didn't take to long to get re set and a .75 comfortable top 3 was soon being plumbed up to the far bank. Bit of inside info was that all the fish were coming off the far bank with nothing getting caught down the track or on an inside line. Theres quite a flow on these canals so am assuming they are staying in the slightly calmer water. Three balls of grounbait were cupped in and from the off decent roach were happily taking 3 pinkies on an 18 hook. It's fair to say were well out of practise and our kit needs some attention but we stumbled along, thrashed a couple of rigs, adapted a couple more, and cursed not having heavier hooks / hooklengths. That said we were getting bites regularly enough and hardly a swinger amongst them, only one in fact, a wee dace.

Another netter,

The few hours flew past, I had a quick dabble myself but in the main it was Robs day and when we packed it in 35 fish, weighed 15lbs 10 ozs. Mainly roach but a couple of dace, skimmers and hybrids were also tempted.

Great Winter fishing,

Good to be back on the bank, all hail The Barrow system,

Getting Close now,

With just a week before the Junior Inter Provincial match and Rob on the Leinster team, we decided on a trip to the venue for a days practise. Inniscarra is a long haul for us, three and a half hours each way so a very early start was called for. That was the first problem we had, I overslept and it was 05.30 before we were on the road. 09.00 and we're parking the car hoping we've got the right place.
Down the hill through the field with the gear and a couple of hours later we're good to go/

Clean comfortable banks, pleanty of room behind and you could almost be on a commercial but we're not. It's the wild open expanse of the Inniscarra waterway. A beautifull spot with some superb fishing and we're there, giving it a go.

We had a plan leaving the house that we'd fish a four hour "match" to CIPS rules and then for a bit of extra enjoyment we'd get the feeder rods out and see what might happen. That was the plan but as is often the case it didn't quite happen.

Faith restored.........

With bait a plenty left over from Cork and with an eye on the Junior Canal Champs on Saturday, we swung up to Ferns for a few hours this afternoon. It was an excuse to get a canal head on and check
out rigs in preparation for Saturday.
After some very carefull plumbing up to try find clear patches in what is a weedy and very clear stretch,
we settled on three lines of attack.
A .6 Grm rig was set for skimmers down the track. This was kicked off with two small balls of  groundbait with choppy and caster mixed through. A .3 Grm rig three quarters across for roach was kicked off with a pole cup half full of hemp and caster. Last was a .4 Grm roach rig fished less than half way across, this was fed with soft balls of groundbait with pinkie mixed through.
Straight out to the Skimmer line and three quick roach are followed by two perch. On to the close line and again the roach are coming to a single red mag. Taking a few fish of both these lines and swopping back and forth had 20 odd roach in the bag in the first two hours. Not hectic but bites none the less and a few good roach too. A look onto the hemp and caster line after two hours produced a roach but it took to long so back to the other lines having fed all three again. Ten more roach off the two lines in the third hour had us laughing at the idea that he'd have more from a canal in four hours than he had had in four
hours on Inniscarra !!!!
A more serious look at the hemp and caster line for the last hour, had fish coming much better than the earlier look. Adding a pot to the tip of the no 1 section meant for more accurate feeding of a few grains of hemp and a few caster with each put in. If you fed on top of the float you got a bite and if you didn't feed you didn't get a bite. The four hours had whizzed past and exactly 40 fish were bagged, yes he'd caught more than Inniscarra and they weighed more. It's funny how this fishing lark goes sometimes.

So, rigs sorted for the weekend and a timely reminder of the importance of precision and
delicacy on a canal and I still havn't got fishing myself,

Just past Dripsey boy,

Having spent hours on Friday getting sorted we were in good shape to head to Cork early on Saturday for the second in the series of 6 NCFFI Intl Qualifers. Rob is fishing these for the experience and some of the proposed venues are amongst the best fisheries in the country, so the series is also an excuse to fish some of these places that we might not otherwise get to. Friday was spent tying rigs, mixing groundbait, tying hooklengths and generally getting ready. It's fair to say there was a high level of
excitement and expectation, it was after all the famous Inniscarra we were heading to. A water with a great reputation for good bags of quality fish.
05.30 hours and were on the road, with a three and a half hour drive ahead of us. After an uneventfull trip we arrived for the draw to be given the great news that all juniors were being given an "end peg".
Happy days and this in turn added to the expectation of a good day. Somewhere along the way that was changed for Rob and his Ireland team mate from last year, Aaron Hutchman. They were both placed mid section, Rob was on "The Garden Centre" stretch and after a look at the draw sheet it was nice to see Rob was pegged next to none other than venue expert and all round good guy, Shane Dunne.

Right lads, this is the way you tie it.......

Shane to his credit, had given us plenty of information regarding the venue and how to fish it. We'd also had good information from Cathal Hughes so we figured we were in good shape as the mountain of gear was lumped through the trees to his peg.  Thanks to both of them for the help and guidance it was really appreciated. Nothing to complicated was the order of the day and three top 4's were assembled with 2, 3 & 5 Grm rigs to be fished at 9M.
A 6M whip for a back up line was matched with 5 sections of a Trabucco Dream Team  jobby set up to fish to hand (we were expecting big things)

With 20 mins to spare before the 10 minute prebait time there was time for a chat with others and a quick pose.
The match was fished to CIPS rules so 10 mins before the all in it's time to feed the swims, 6 balls on the 9M line and three on the shorter one. Groundbait was Sensas Gros Gardons, Sensas Lake both Black and Black Crumb, caster, hemp and corn were added and chucked in about 2 foot short of the float to allow for the slope. At the all in it was straight on to the short line for a 10 minute look. With nothing doing, on went the 3 Grm rig and out to the 9m line. Straight aaway the float dips and roach on. Under the match rules feeding can only be done with balls made with one hand so it was a small ball at the float after every second fish. After the first hour Mark Theedom (Senior team manager) arrives behind us to see how things are going.  Rob has 18 roach, word is that those to his left have very little and two of the three lads to his right have similar. It's looking good, now keep the roach there and hopefully the skimmers will move in, they didn't. 

The guy to Robs right was in baggin mode and roach after roach came to his line as Robs dried up. Tried upping the feed in an attempt to get them back but it just wasn't happening. Different rigs were tried, lighter and heavier but they made little difference. Adding another section and going further out in the thought that they may have backed off, did bring bites back but they were slow and again only swinging roach.
A couple of hours in and the lads to Robs left are suddenly getting skimmers a plenty,

Getting amongst them now,

Rob and the lads to his right can only get roach, three swims in a row and not a skimmer between them. It's fair to say the stretch didn't fish particularly well and most anglers were dissapointed by the end. 16.30 hrs wasn't long coming around and the final count of 35 roach was enough to ensure a better score than the first round but a dissapointing final weight none the less. The final weigh sheets from the different sections showed that a lot of lads struggled and low weights were the order of the day. Dissapointed and frustrated at the lack of the
expected bigger fish, we headed back to the village for a catch up with lads from the other sections.
Rob dived into the chipper and shortly after, we were back on the road. As ever he's asleep within minutes and it's 3.5 hours driving to get home.
So thats the second of six qualifers done and the next one on The Shannon is in two weeks on June second.
Junior canal champs next weekend, it's all go at the minute for the young fellah. Will I ever get fishing again ?

Catch Up

It's been a funny few months with not a huge amount going on for me. Between a knackered right elbow which had me unable to lift a rod to Rob having various junior commitments I've not had a huge amount of actual fishing.In saying that we've been out and about as ever with some success and in fairness some poor days too.
Off the back of the Leinster Junior Team qualifiers we've been on Corrstown quite a few times. Pleasure days have produced bigger bags with the best going to Rob of 169 fish in 4 hours, that said his few match days havn't thrown up anything like that but around 50 to 60 has been an average. He hasn't had great success in the 2 qualifiers, coming 4th in both but thats enough to keep him in the mix and theres one more to go on the canal at Ferns Lock at the end of May.

169 roach for 16lb and ozs, nice

Getting on that team will see us in Cork at the end of June for the annual junior interprovinces match.

More for the experience of it all, Rob is having a go at fishing the NCFFI (float only) qualifiers for 2013 International Teams. We were on The Barrow a few weeks ago and although he didn't have his best days fishing a few fish were caught on what was a difficult day for a lot of serious anglers. Some of the venues being used have been on our "to do" list for a while now so it'll give us a chance to go and finally fish them. The second qualifier is on Inniscarra in Cork, one that we're really loking forward to and allthough Rob will be fishing along side some of the countries best match anglers it'll give him an opportunity to fish the place prior to the Inter Provinces match, which will help.

Mark and Vinnie to his right !!!!

Playing with the big boys now...

One of our clubs FTI AC,  has had a couple of monthly meetings which we've attended, Corrstown was good and very enjoyable but the more recent one on Scur wasn't great, with my dodgy elbow having me in such a mess that I couldn't lift the rod on the odd occaision when the tip did go round.

A cracking Perch for Mac

As ever with FTI AC gigs the social side is more important which was just aswell as the fishing itself was poor enough, we had very little to show for the effort but it never really matters.


Ollie never even wetted a line.....

A Different Angle

I'm in C&J Angling getting bait for the weekend and one of my favourite venues us throwing up
a few fish on the feeder but from the other end of the lake. Theres been a bit of bait going in during the week and a few lads fished it yesterday so up and at 'em. Bad news on the Sunday evening from
Joe, it fished poorly yesterday they struggled.

Oh Yeah, wheres my rod ?

We've arranged to meet Davy from FTI and as we set up and get sorted I'm unsure what might happen.
The wind had changed to a SW and theres more cloud then yesterday, I'm thinking we might be OK.

The word was skimmers and hybrids were coming out but no bream as yet. I decided to take no chances, Kamisan Animal in a size 16 to 4lb hooklength would tame any hybrid I figured.  I knew the area had been fished the day before with nothing much coming out so a bit of a teaser around how much bait to put out. I settled on 6 casts of a closed feeder with caster and choppies and then on went the hooklength. With little happening to three rods it became apparent early that we were going to struggle. I then had 4 wee skimmers on double red mags and thought maybe we might be on to something. The other two lads weren't having any better luck, it was slow.

Another roach going in the keepnet

The SW wind was off our backs and with the odd glimpse of morning sun it was pleasant enough, time for a cuppa. After a brew I decided to slow things down and clipped on a small feeder and a single red maggot. Not long after the tip bangs round and it's something better than a wee skimmer.

A couple of minutes later and a bream, yes an actual bream is gliding over the surface of the water into my landing net. Right then bugger that, bigger hook a 14 Kamizan Animal and big lump of worm on the hook, I'll have a few more of those please. No actually I won't,  an hour ish went by without a bite. Worm, mags, caster, pinkies  and various combinations of them were all tried. Out of the blue a couple of small slow pulls on the tip and before I knew it a new PB Bream of 4lb 4ozs is in the landing net.

4lbs 4 ozs

Not the biggest bream by any standards but my biggest.

Davy was packing up at this stage with little to show for an early start. Rob was getting a few roach having changed to a smaller feeder, a longer hooklength and no worm in the feeder. Not the bream he would have loved but bites nonetheless, he's finally christened the "New" Rod.

The same thing happened after the second bream, my swim went completely dead.

A very quiet hour or so went by after the second bream so we called it a day and started planning another trip, as we do.