Corkagh Park.........

Some years ago in the bad old, dark days of my carping, I tried to fish this place but decided it was too
long a walk from the car park to the lake and decided to give it a miss. I promised myself a return visit but never thought it'd be with a pole, seatbox and associated kit. Driving into the same car park today I had the same thought but was accompanied this time by Sherpa Rob, so it was game on.
Well kind of, we left the gear in the car and went for the walk, got to the lakes, had a chat with the
lad who runs the place and he told us how to get to a better closer car park and this we duly did.

On a day when Spring really was in the air, we thought we might have a go for the resident carp.
So out with the Carp pole, a newly acquired Maver Abyss fitted with no14 Maver Latex. We had picked up two of these at the recent Angling Expo so it was really a case of any chance to try one of them out.          The rig was a Preston White 4 x 12 float, Mainline and hooklength were both Preston Reflo Powerline at, 17 & 13mm. and hook a size 14 Preston PR21.

Go on then, go beep !!!

Yeah the Expo, enjoyed my day out there. Met so many people, seemed I spent most of the day saying hello, hows things, you been fishing? Great to see so many good friends. The show itself seemed short on anything different, very much same old, same old. One good thing that happened at the Expo, was Rob filling in a ticket for a free draw. If he was lucky enough , first prize was a years membership in guess where !! 
Yep, Corkagh Park and that was another reason why we were there today, jammy little git only went and won it. He thinks it's great but I have to spend 20 euro for a day ticket any time he wants to go on his free ticket !!!!!!!! HHHHmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

I wasn't fishing so we were all sorted and set up in record quick time, the suns up, nice SW wind blowing, we've got all sorts of pellets, paste, corn and mags, can't fail.
Plumbed up at 9.5 mtrs and theres a decent depth of about 4 feet, closer in just on the edge of the reeds
was about 2 feet and those were the two lines to be attacked.
I'll not bore with the details of trying every hook bait, combination of hookbait, up in the water, over depth,
dead bottom but suffice to say the resident carp just weren't interested.
Spring was in the air today but thats it, it's only spring and very early into it too. Actually way to early......

Lovely Spring Day....

It's a pleasant enough place that spot, swims are all well spaced out and very well built wooden
platforms. A lot of passers by and air traffic to and from Baldonnel mean it's not a spot for peacefull fishing.
In saying that I reckon we'll have a few more days out there over the year but when the weather
gets better, eh ?????



Story Bud ?



Back on The Boards

It's geting close to me over doing this spot but when theres fish there, well you've just got to
give it a go. With that in mind, arrangements were made for me and my pal Steveo to have a few hours
out for a but of fun. Invites were sent out to a few others but come the witching hour there was only myself and Steveo at the agreed meeting point at stupid o clock last Saturday.
Armed with my trusty whips and this time a properly set up waggler, they didn't stand a chance.

We arrived about a half an hour before dawn and set about setting up, three trips from car to swim and the mountain of gear is in situ. Sorted the 6m whip out first, though the plan was to fish the waggler more than the whip in the hope of bigger fish. Last couple of trips up here had seen anyone who fished the faster running water get less but bigger fish and that was what I was after today.

We mixed up the groundbait, a bag of VDE roach mix, can't remember the name, a bag of Sensas Lake
and a about a third of a bag of Sensas River mix to help give it a bit of weight / stickiness.
A bit limited on bait as I hadn't sorted any caster so, Red & White Mags were the main attack.
The plan was to get a few in the bag on the whip line and then have a go with the wag. Steveo had a similar idea but he was going to have a go with the feeder gear.


Unlike previous visits here I decided to kick off with a good bed of feed on the whip line so out went 4
orange sized balls of groundbait with a good helping of hemp mixed in.
I'd chosen a 1.5grm Tubertini float fished in to about 8 foot of water. It was really pushing through from left to right further out but close in it wasn't particularly fast, though strangely enough there was times when the flow went in completely the opposite direction. Steveo was first to notice it, when he asked me why would his float be going against the flow, my obvious response was "thats usually because you have a fish on" and sure enough he lifted into yet another hand sized roach.
Bites for me were allmost non existant for the first half hour, I decided that was due to the big initial feed and kept at it. Sure enough the bites did come though they were difficult to read with the slowest dipping of the float being a bite. Getting the timing right was the trick and though I'd hit them all some resulted in a swinger
and some not. It was busy enough but too many missed fish had me behind Steveo I reckoned, so time for a few bigger fish and out with the waggler.
I'm no expert at fishing running water and the next half hour or so reminded me of that. I did have a couple of fish off that line but not enough to warrant staying on it and as I watched Steveo swining away on his whip line I decided to put the waggler away and settle back down on the whip line. I had kept feeding with small
balls of groundbait with hemp in it so the fish were still there and a bit more obliging then earlier.
I'd adjusted a bit this time round and started off a few inches off the bottom with catapult in hand.
Every cast had a few mags or a pouchfull of hemp in on top of it and that seemed to get me a decent
run of fish. Steveo had switched over to his feeder gear and true to form wasn't catching as many fish
as I was. He was fishing about three quarters across with a cage feeder which I tried to get him to change but he wasn't having it. Personally I'd have gone with a closed feeder to be happier that my bait was getting down. I'd have thought that using a cage feed would have a certain amount of the bait getting pushed out by the current before it hit bottom, I suppose it's one of those things that you think is right but often don;t get to prove or disprove. To be fair he had a few fish on this line but I was definitely catching more and felt like I was catching up again.
We kept at it for a couple more hours, bites were slow enough but at least there was bites.
The sun came out to play for a while at about midday and it was lovely sitting with the sun on my back
and the fish playing ball. Spring has arrived I thought, it's actually warm and for the first time in months I could actually see my maggots wriggling round in the bait tubs.

Theres allways a weigh in, even on a pleasure session so having packed away some of the gear we puleed the keepnets in to see what we had. I was figuring on about 8lbs for when Steveo weighed 13lbs I was
looking at a right kicking. I don't know, I bring him to these places, mix his groundbait, tie his rigs,
sort his bait and then he beats me. I pulled up mine and was happy enough with what I saw, plenty of
fish but too many small ones saw the scales go round to 11.5 lbs which surprised me completely.

I'm not sure how long the fish hang around this area but while they are there I'd recomend
a days fishing up there, it's great stuff...........

Team Kavo on The Boards

A week after my solo trip to The Boards and Team Kavo are up at stupid o clock. It sems that the younger member of the team has the same bug, no problem getting him up for fishing. If only he'd get up as easily
from Monday to Friday.
Two sets of gear are loaded up the night before, we're on the road in the dark and bucketing rain but
Team Kavo couldn't be happier, we're off fishing, happy days. It's been a while since Rob got out and
we're both really looking forward to a good day. Recent weather might effect things, a lot of rain during the past week was bound to have it really pushing through which might make things awkward. On the plus side
it should put some colour in the water which is never a bad thing.
Two sets of gear are quickly set up, the water level is higher than the previous week, there is extra colour
in the water though you can still see bait for a couple of feet as it sinks in the water but it doesn't seem to be
flowing any quicker. Robs using a 6m whip and I've a 7m with the foat rod in the rod bag for later on.
I wanted to be sure I had a few fish in the net before I tried the stick float, which I had promised myself
I'd do. Again I went with Gros Gardons as a groundbait but added a half bag of river mix to help it
bind a bit more. In truth I'm not convinced that I needed to do that, as it turned out I had more fish
when loose feeding and fishing up in the water.
Rigs were similar to the previous week, though from the off we were using Kamasan B611's so no issues with hooks straightening. Rob went with a Garbo 1.5grm float, I was thinkig about the very shy bites from the previous week so went with a slightly lighter 1grm float. After 10 or 15 mins I knew the 1gr was to light
but stupidly kept using it as the bites were again very hard to read.

We were both into fish from the off though and good swingable roach were coming to hand very regularly.
Rob was fishing on bottom and using a lot more groundbait than I was, I on the other hand had quickly started coming up in the water and was loose feeding caster and hemp. Seemed to me that I was getting more bites so I kept at it and they kept obliging.
Now those of you that know us will know that we never have a day out without something happening and today was no different. After losing a fish and the rig wrapping around my whip it was time for a break
and a cup of coffee. I figured I was ahead of Rob so it was time to get the float rod out and try my hand at
running a stick float through the faster water. Back to the swim and out with the float road only to discover theres no reel attached to it !!!! There goes that plan, back to the whip. I tied on a new rig with a heavier      2 grm float and the fish were still there.
We'd had a good 4 hours at this stage and when Rob pulled out of a fish and thrashed  the rig that had been doing well for him, we were nearing the end of the session.
We started breaking down and putting the mountain of gear away and carting it all to the car, the weigh in was looming. As we're packing away both of us noticed the quite guy who had been fishing to our left.
Up came his keep net and he emptied the contents in to the bucket he had been sitting on all day !!!!
We wandered up to him to make sure he wasn't about to walk off with them and sure enough he was.
He claimed not to know, I don't know if he was being honest with us but he emptied them back in and went on his way.
Back to business and up came our keepnets, 12lb 10oz for the auld fellah and 10lb 8ozs for the young fellah.
I can drive home without getting slagged and all is well.

Another cracking day, despite the lousy weather we had fish throughout the 5 hours that we fished and had we really gone at it I'm sure we could have had an awful lot more. Fishing up in the water and regular loose feeding seemed to be the best option for the day. One thing to pass on for anyone looking to but suitable good outdoor clothing. Rob was wearing a newly acquired Sunridge outfit. Coat, B n B thats on sale in several different tackle shops. I think it sells at129.00 which is good value if it does everything the manufacturer claims. When you buy it you get a pair of Sunridge boots thrown in making it even better value. |I managed to convince the lads in C&J Angling that it'd be better if they gave us the new Sunridge thermal gear rather than the boots and it's fair to say that both outfits are really really good. The Thermals really do keep you warm and after sitting out in the rain for 5 hours he was bone dry when the suit came off.

Really good gear, really good value, might get a set for myself.

Hitting The Boards............

No I havn't joined the local musical society lol, I've had a couple of pleasure sessions on
The Boards in Belturbet and a real pleasure they both were too. The first saw me head off on my own at stupid o clock in the morning to get a swim I had been told about. What is it with us anglers that we'll get up at ridiculous times of the day ? Some form of untreatable madness perhaps but boy am I glad that I've
got it. I've allways enjoyed arriving at a venue when it's still dark and watching the world wake up.
My pleasure fishing days give me these opportunities and sights like these remind me why I'm glad I've
got the fishing bug.

Arriving before it got light at this venue is fine as there is light from the street lights, so getting gear from car to swim is fine and getting everything ready
is quite easy. The parking is good and very close by, a great facility and one that seems to allways fish well in winter time. A couple of short trips and all the gear is in my chosen swim and it's time to get serious. Hang on, it's a pleasure session, I'll have a coffee first and watch the sun come up. It did come up as you can see from the photos, it's all lovely to see but despite the glorious sunshine it's blummin freezin and a bright day with no wind isn't generally condusive to good fishing. Coffee done and once again I've managed to have a coffee without a smoke, giving up smokes after 30 odd years is not an easy thing to do. First coffee with a smoke by the water at first light has been part of the gig for a long time, it's weird not having that smoke now.

Right then down to business, Roach are going to be the most common bite so "Gros Gardons" is the chosen
groundbait for the day, as ever thats mixed and left to settle while the hardware is sorted.
I'd brought my feeder gear and a 7m whip and had planned to spend time on both methods, as it went
I didn't. The feeder gear was setup but never picked up, as the whip just kept throwing up fish and I just
couldn't put it down. On the far side of the river it runs very fast but up to about half way across it runs
quite slowly. Plumbing up with the whip gave me depths between 6 and 9 foot so I started with a
Garbo 1.5grm Float. Rigs were tied up using Preston 4lb mainline to Kamasan pretied hooklengths,
a size 18 B511 to 1lb 8oz line. I changed the hooklength after a few fish as it became apparent quite quickly that B511 hooks are not made for swinging Roach. After my fourth fish the hook opened out so into the my
hooklength box and I opted for a Kamasan B611 to 2lb 12oz line. Much better and no more opened hooks.
It seemed that no matter what I did I could catch, Fishing over depth using small balls of groundbait laced with caster and hemp produced really hard to read, very shy bites. Coming up in the water and loosfeeding
also produced but the bites were easier to read.  At somewhere around 2 feet off the bottom the bites
were not so quick in coming but easiest to see. I spent a lot of time at that depth and ran the float through the swim getting bites at the same spot regularly enough to keep doing it.
One of the good things about pleasure fishing  is you can stop at anytime and have a coffee or a chat with fellow anglers. During the morning the boards filled up with several other anglers and talking to them gave me some thoughts for future visits.  A guy to my right fished a waggler all day and was busy enough to warrant doing it though I definitely out caught him. I chatted to a guy up to my left who fished a stick float in the faster water and allthough he wasn't getting as many bites the stamp of fish was much better than mine.
He had some right good proper roach and I decided I'd have a go at that on my next visit.
After a break which consisted of several coffees and no smokes I was back on the whip line and the fish
were still happy to oblige me. By 2o clock it was time to pack up and have a look at what was in the keepnet. A couple of trips back to the car and some of the gear mountain is packed away, one of the lads
took a photo for me of the final bag and I finished up putting the rest of th gear away.

Time then for a walk along the boards and a chat some very friendly guys, the guy fishing the stick float
was good at it and it's something I've never done so the chance to spend time watching him was welcome.
It's a skill I'm really keen to master and hopefully this will be the year to do just that.
The day ended with a reminder of why I enjoy it all so much and even with my less than top
of the range camera I think you'll get the idea,