This year saw Munster host the annual Interprovincials on the River Shannon in O’Briens Bridge, Co Clare. Ulster didn’t field a team this year for one reason or another but in reality it was probably due to the fear of the Connaught team.
The draw took place in the car park of the rowing course with 2 sections up on the dam (pegs 1-6) and the remaining 8 on the rowing course (pegs 7-30) each mini section was one man from each province (3) so all you had to do was beat two fella’s for your section win and a point.
Word had it that the dam section wasn’t the place you wanted to be as it hadn’t fished well during the previous weeks, so after a chat it was decided that Gary and Ollie Doyle were venue experts as they had fished it once a few years back, i put myself forward for end peg 7 which was the up stream peg and the nearest to where we was parked. This turned out to be a wise move on my part as the last section was so far away i think the time zones changed……
Peg 7 turned out to be even nearer than i thought so i had all my gear carried down in a matter of minutes while the others trundled off fully loaded or pushing trolleys, i did start to feel a little guilty, but this soon passed and a was setting up my platform just at the edge of the river parallel to the bank, on goes the box and once everything is level the keep net, feeder arm and side trays all go on followed by my roost kit. i’ve got into the habit of doing this in this order every time i go out, it might seem a trivial thing to do but after a while it becomes second nature and you can set it up in minutes, next i sort out my bait, 2 pints of caster, 1 pint of red maggots, 1/2 pint of pinkie and 2 pints of hemp, i have 2.5kg of worm left over from the World Pairs so i take a good handful out and fill a 2 pint tub incase i need to chop a few.
Word up the bank was no fish were caught on the feeder all week by the Leinster lads and that 4kg would be a very good weight and hard got on the pole line. A quick chuck around with a 28g bomb found me a nice count of ten at 35 turns 9 at 30 and 9 at 40 (on a Black Magic Burner 640 reel, 99cm retrieval) so decided to fish the one line in the deeper part of the river.
Plumbing up the pole revealed top 6 at 13m and top 5 at 11m, i decided on the 11m line as its a bit of a better depth for catching small fish quicker, i also set up a 5m whip incase it was solid and i could get them in close.
Floats were simple, a 1g Cralusso Alan on 0.14mm Browning Hybrid line to a 18 serie 2 hook on a 15cm 0.12mm Cenex Hooklength. this rig consisted of an olivete and 3 No10 droppers spread out for a slower rate of fall. This was coupled with a double 3 solid elastic.
The next rig was a 2g Cralusso Alan on 0.16mm mainline with a 16 Serie 2 hook on 0.14mm hooklength, an olivette and 2 No8 droppers at 15cm intervals to a doubled 5 solid elastic
My groundbait mix for both my feeder line and pole line was a mix of Champions Choice Grand Slam, Champions Choice Gardons and Dutch Dangler Mad Roach all made by Browning and some brown crumb to bulk it out, i
On the whistle i cupped 6 balls in at 11m, 2 down the middle and 4 in a circle roughly 50cm from the center to spread it out a bit, mixed in was a handful of hemp and 1/2 a handful of casters to hopefully kick the swim off.
A look to the right, 2 pegs down saw Munster angler Martin Keating catching a few fish 6m to hand while i was still cupping in balls, i was tempted to follow suit but decided to get 10 good feeder fulls of food out at 35 turns, 10 chucks later with a baited hook and still not a bite, Martin was on 9 fish to my none, i dropped in on the pole and had 2 run throughs, no bites..Sean Brereton on peg 8 also still had no fish. the next chuck on the feeder i decided to put in a good pinch of finely chopped worm and then my first bite, then another and another all on double maggot, i then tried 3 maggots on the hook and got a few bigger fish, if the bite didn’t come within 20 seconds of the feeder hitting the bottom you wasn’t getting a touch, the fish wasn’t coming one a chuck but i had to keep casting in and out to get bites, a quick shout down to Martin and he was only on 12, i was on 10, Sean was on 2. A few hours passed and i was up to 40 and Martin was still on 12, and Sean on 5.
I then decided to cup in 2 worm rich balls on the pole to see if i could maybe get a few fish with a hour to go, a few more chucks on the feeder gave me 4 more fish and a bit of time for the pole swim to come alive (i hope) on the second run through i had a nice Roach and they came steadily for about 30 min giving me an extra 18 fish by the final whistle.
A total of 62 fish for 7kg was a very welcome victory and top weight out on the whole rowing course section. out of the 8 sections on this stretch Connaught won 7 giving us a clear lead going into day 2…
Day 2
Everything was the same setup for day 2, nothing to change not even the depths of the rigs which was a result, the only thing thing i did different today was start on my inside line after seeing Martin catch early on yesterday, this turned out to be invaluable as i had 28 fish in as many minutes for over 2kg and that was pretty much it for the day, after 5 hrs of torture i had 32 fish for 2.3kg , the leinster lad had gone home and the munster fella only had 2 fish so another clear point in the bag and a very well earned victory for Connaught :-)
Next year we host the event so fingers crossed the cup stays in the west :-)
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