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.....