After already fished Innishcarra a few times in the year and hearing reports of it still fishing it tits off i set myself up for a good day of speed fishing (mistake No2) and in turn hoped for some quality bags of Roach with the odd Bream thrown in for good measure. I chose to fish Rooves Bay on the practise day as this had been the hardest of the sections during previous festivals with the Graveyard being the better. To put it no better way, the fishing there was shite ! At the draw the next morning no one wanted to pull Rooves out of the bag and thankfully i pulled a peg i had fished already earlier in the year on the Graveyard stretch, so going on previous experience and local reports i figured i would set up for catching around 250 fish in a 4hour period, this can be done in Cork usually with no problems at all.
I didn't pay much attention to my Slider line (mistake No3) as I'd set up my pole line at 10m with a 6m whip and then a 5m whip for when i got them in close. I didn't have a massive array of top kits available as i was using my new Browning Z12 and was waiting for top kits to arrive.
This didn't bother me too much as i just set up a few positive rigs at a full top 3 deep (mistake No4), the Z12 top 3 is the equivalence to a Daiwa top 4. What i should have done was to use my Daiwa G8 with a selection of top 5's set up so i could fish a 13m line at 5m deep and waited until all my sections had arrived before using the Z12, but being a new toy an all, i had to have a play...
After 30 seconds of the 'All in' i looked at Tommy Lawton and commented on how slow the fishing was, he agreed ! 4 hours on and i had caught fk all and finished a joint last in my section!
I leaned a massive lesson on this match and that was to NEVER assume anything......
Ok, Next trial was to be held on O'briensbridge, River Shannon, Co Clare.
To get a heads up on the venue myself, Ben Gingell and Danny Quinn thought we'd give it a go and see what could be caught, after doing a little job on the gate to convince it to open we drove to our chosen pegs, off loaded all our gear and quickly got the van back to the car park before anyone noticed. The water was crystal clear, deep as fk and not moving, after setting up and watching Ben not get a bite yet ( he had been fishing 20mins) i was about to have my first put in when Tommy Lawton appeared and informed me that we wouldn't catch as there are no fish here.... Shite!
5hrs in and not one bite between us ! it appeared that Tommy was right, the place was empty !! so my first thought was i need to get Bloodworm & Joker for this match coming up in about a weeks time and prepare to scratch for 'eyeballs' or the odd rogue Perch.
My second thought was that the way i had been fishing lately the place could be solid and my anti fish era i tend to give off must have been at full bore and it was just down to me..
My third thought was beer and golf..
Anyway, later in the week Gary and Ollie Doyle had a go on the venue with Bloodworm & Joker and after a bite less 4 hrs came to the conclusion that there was also no 'eyeballs' or Perch there.... SHITE!
So how do you gear up for catching nothing in 4 hrs ? it looked like if you could snare 1 fish it would probably win you your section, after tying up some silly light deep rigs and hooks from size 26 up and also finding out my normal supplier could not get me joker i was to say the least a little bit apprehensive that a fish would be caught...
The Friday before was the practise day and i didn't go down due to the fact i already knew how to blank so didn't see the point, as the day went on word had got back that there was going to be a venue change to a lake called Bridget's Lough and that lads were on it and catching a few roach and skimmers...
05:30am the alarm went off and i got up and set on my way down to O'briensbridge (the draw was still there) i had all sorts of thoughts going through my head on how to fish the lake most of the way down and came to the conclusion its probably a good thing not to make a plan just fish it as a normal Roach match and see what happens.
The venue was split into 2 sections, 1 to the far right and 1 to the far left, this left a large section in the middle open for the feeder anglers to come and practise which i thought was a bit wrong to be honest. After taking a walk along the whole stretch i really didn't fancy the left hand pegs as pegs 4-6 seemed a bit weedy for my liking, fishable but better of avoided if possible, Anyway i drew peg 5! and Rory Dunne drew peg 6, i had Gary Doyle to my left too.
I set up a few different rigs and 2 sliders, i had a Lilly bed out to my left at about 12m and a top 3 depth at 13m, i think i had about 12ft on the slider line, i cant remember now.
The 'All In' was called and i opted to cup just 2 balls in on the 13m line and a cup of chopped worm and caster to the edge of the Lillie's in hope i might snare one of the tench that are supposed to be in here.
I pinged out 6 balls at 35 turns to prime the slider so to speak and set about trying to catch a few fish, the slider didn't seem to be showing me any indication of fish so i came onto the 13m line with a 4x14 float with strung out shot and a caster as bait, first put in a nice Roach made an appearance then i hooked what must have been one of those tench as my No3 elastic just stretched out to the the weed bed on the right and pinged off, i cupped in another small ball and went out on the slider, this produced the rest of my catch through out the day as the pole line died a death, maybe i shouldn't have introduced the last ball...anyway the slider wasn't that great, the bite were few and far between and i had to wait for them, Rory was in the same boat, very few fish.. good thing was though, Rory upped the stakes from €1 to €2 for this match and i was glad to take it from him as i finished with 600g and he 500g (not exact weights but something like that)
I ended up 5th in the section with Mark Leonard winning with 2kg something on the pole, lets hope Muckno is a little bit more forgiving for me :-)
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