Heather Dyett Memorial

The Ballyhaunis Angling Club held there first ever Memorial match in honour of veteran angler Bill Dyett's wife who sadly passed away earlier on in the year.
 Bill, is a long standing UK angler and now resides here in Ireland for the last 8 years, before moving over Bill and his wife (Heather) had frequented Counties Leitrim and Roscommon fishing as many venues as they could since the 70's travelling back and forth up to 6 times a year for the amazing fishing and scenery Ireland has to offer.
One of Heathers favourite venues to fish was the River Suck, Donamon, Co Roscommon. It was decided by Bill and myself that this would be a great place to hold the event as the access is brilliant and the large Popular trees on the far bank offer amazing shelter from the great summer weather we are getting at the minute!

The draw took place at 09:30 with fishing from 11:00am till 4:00pm, Section A was filled and section B only had 1 spare peg left in it so the match was looking to be a good one.
I chose not to set up the feeder rod today as i was confident that the resident roach could be tempted into feeding fairy easily on the pole line as i had about 4m of water in front of me at 13m , i mixed up a dark groundbait mix containing Browning Black Magic and VDE Black Secret, in this i had a handful of casters and hemp, with a pinch of fresh pinkies

Rigs for today was simple, i had a 1g Cralusso Alan with 4xNo 10 droppers spread out over 1m from a bulk of No8's to the hook on a  0.12mm  Browning Hybrid main line to a size 20 Tubertini hook on a 0.10mm hook length of the same line to a No3 Elastic.
I then had a slightly heavier 1.5g Alan Float with 3 No10 droppers spread out over 60cm from bulk to hook, using the same line and hooks as my first rig.
The last rig I had set up was a 2g double bulk rig, again it was a Cralusso Alan set up on a 0.14mm Browning Hybrid line, a size 18 Tubertini hook to an 0.12mm Hook length, shotting was an Olivette positioned 30cm from the hook with 3xNo10's pushed together just above the hook length knot (15cm Hook length) this will be used if it becomes a bagging match and need to get the bait down quicker

On the whistle I cupped in 3 hard orange sized balls and 1 softer ball at 13m, i laid the rig in up stream to allow my baited hook to to reach the bottom just over my initial feed area, first put in produced a Roach of 60g (2oz), this continued for about 4 hours cupping in 1 ball every 30 mins or so and loose feeding hemp and caster every put in, the last hour slowed up probably due to the couple of small jack pike that had decided to move in for some easy pickings :-)

Fishing wasn't up to its usual standards for the River Suck but every one caught fish and it was an enjoyable day had by all,

1. Leigh Maitland (Browning) - 6.700kg (Pole/Caster)
2. Shane Dunne (Ireland/Tubertini) - 2.600kg (Feeder/maggot)
3. Marcus Kirwan (Roscommon) - 2.240kg (Pole/Maggot)
4. Steven Dyett (The Host) - 2.200kg (Pole/Maggot

Ballyhaunis AC would like to thank Tooman Angling for the donation of 2 €50 voucher that was awarded to Steven Dyett and David Morris, Also a big thanks to Steve Dyett who travelled from England to fish and for providing the shield for the competition.

We are now taking names for the 2012/13 winter league, if anyone is interested or requires any further information please email Leigh@coarseandmatch.com

Match 5 'The Mudflats'

Needed a win on this match and previous experience on this venue told me the pole will out fish the feeder, I drew peg 15 just under the wires, it was 13m out to get into the actual river past the reeds, first of all I plumbed my feeder line and found at 25 turns I was just on the inside of the main flow and a 1.5oz glass tip was perfect and a 35g feeder held well, next to plumb up on the pole, I didn't see much point coming onto a 10 or 11m line due to the reeds so just settled on 13m, I put up a 1.5g Drennan Trio on 0.12mm Browning Hybrid main line with a size 18 Tubertini Series 2 hook attached to 0.10mm of the same hook length. Choice of elastic was a doubled 4 Preston original slip.

I always set my pole up at 13m with 1 top kit with what I plan to be my main rig up and plumb with this first, this will generally give you an idea on the water in front of you and you can set your other rigs up according to what you want them to do for that swim. i had about 1.5m of depth and there was a fair pull from the current which was good, i also chose to set up a 3g Cralusso Torpedo to hold bottom to present a stationary bait in the hope to pick up a bonus fish every now and then.
To be honest i didn't really think i would catch on the pole line as there was no real depth and the catches during the week were all on the feeder at 25-40 turns out.

On the whistle i cupped in 6 hard balls of Groundbait made up of VDE Black Secret, Supercup and 25% Black Leam to add some weight, in this i added some hemp a small handful of caster and some dead pinkies, looking up the bank on my section i noticed only 1 other had chose to feed a pole line.

After a few chucks with the feeder to get some food out i started getting the odd Roach, nothing of any size but i seemed to be the only one catching in the section, on every cast i pinged out 5 or 6 casters on the pole line in the hope that a few fish may move in, about 30 mins later and only a few fish in the net i decided to try the pole, i baited up with a single caster and 30 seconds later I'm in to a nice roach of about 150g, this continued through out the match with an average fish being around 100g, i continued to catch throughout the match only topping up my grounbait when the bites slowed down a bit.

I finished up winning the section and the overall match with 6.700kg, i tried the flat float on a few occasions but they seemed to want a moving bait on this day
I won't be fishing the next league match due to the 'All Ireland' in Killishandra


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