Hands Up

Tarts !!!!

After last weeks try at stick float fishing we were both keen to give it another try. So after a few PM's on fishingtalkireland.com and a very high river we decided on a new venue for us, B'town.
I had it in my head that I wanted to fish a feeder on the river, Rob was going all out on the stick.
The poles were left at home, it was going to be a rods only day, or so we thought.
Our good friend and all round nut job Gary Kearney joined us for the day.
Arrived at 08.00 and after a call to check where we should be, we initially set up at the end of the canalised stretch just before the lock and opposite a weir. It's quite wide so I decided to stick with my plan of fishing the feeder and went about getting set up. Rob and Gary were both fishing floats, Rob on a Drennan Stick Float and Gary on just about every different float you can imagine.

Rob was off and running and had a good roach quite quickly, I then had a couple on the feeder and all's looking promising. Almost out of nowhere theres a wind blowing back up the canal and the two lads on the float can't get anything like decent presentation. A hard flow right to left and a hard wind left to right, all went very quiet. We had a quick chat and moved back up the canal towards the town.
A few hundred yards and it's all very different, nice and sheltered with a constant, surprisingly fast tow.

All nice and comfy

I had chucked a 7Mtr whip in the car and I decided to set that up rather than the feeder. This led me to another small prob in that I had only brought relatively light rigs with me, 1.5grm was just way off the mark for what was needed but I figured I'd give it a go. A 1grm Olivette and 4 droppers were more often than not bunched against the hooklength knot in an attempt to get the hook down. It worked to some degree in so far as the fish counter said 33 when we packed up. The two lads weren't geting a lot but stuck at it, or went to the shop or "had a go" on my box.

Baggin !!!!

I was definitely getting more bites the more I fed, so each run through was accompanied by at least two pults of either mags or hemp. Dace, dace and more dace, lots of missed bites and lots of

Grrrrrrs and Aaggghhhhhhs but on what was a very pleasant day weatherwise, I wouldnt have been anywhere else.

Robs turn !!!!

So, a pleasant enough day doing what we love but just not doing it very well. At least we know whats required next time and there will be a next time.

I can hear my old Headmaster, "could do better"