Match 3, BAC Winter League, Alberts Loch

Due to high water levels all over the place this weeks match pushed us onto Albert Loch Co Roscommon, it’s not a venue we like to use for league matches in general as it can be very peggy and there is always the chance of clashing with other clubs that also use the water, but the way the weather is at the moment it looks like we could be back there again for match 4….

17 of us lined up in the normal orderly fashion eager to get our lucky draw hand into the bag, my hand goes in and out came end peg 1, although its an end peg it really isn't where i fancied to be honest, its the furthest point from where the marina meets the river, it would be the shallowest peg on the match stretch and i had no boats directly across from me to act as cover.

Like a mirror

On the plus side, i have a end peg, i have a easy cast of a waggler to the far bank and the option of casting a small cage feeder to my right if things begin to get tough and im just picking off fish here and there. We had a small bit of a recci here mid week just to see if there was fish present and there was, both ends seemed to fish very well so a positive attack was to be my approach today.

Bait

• 2kg Champion Choice Etang
• 2kg Champion Choice Gardon
• 1lt Caster
• 0.5lt Red Maggot
• 0.5lt Pinkie
• 0.5lt Dead Reds

Look at the quality of the bait!

Plan

• Fish just 2 lines on the pole one at 7 sections (12m) and one at 4 sections (5m) of a Z12
• Feed 5 particle rich balls on the inside and 3 on the far line
• Catapult mini sausage shaped low particle groundbait balls onto the waggler line every now and then

Setup was pretty simple as always

•  4g Cralusso Pro-Match Waggler on 0.16mm
• 0.5g Cralusso Helena on 0.14mm (double bulked)
• 4x12 Preston Chianti on 0.12mm (strung out shot)
• 0.5g Pencil Style float on 0.12mm (tapered shot from mid depth)

Plumbing up the swim gave me about 1.5m at 7 sections, this seemed to be the deepest part of my peg, i went out to 8 sections for a look and it shallowed up buy about 15cm so i opted for the deeper part for my far line, working your back at half meter intervals will give you an idea of the contours of your peg and my 4 section line is approximately 1.2m there is no prominent shelf just a gradual gradient towards me. back onto my far line for sec, i take a look both to my right and left and it appears to be slightly shallower each side but this isn't true as such as its a different line that i'm plumbing, even though there both 7 sections out, this is because your are creating a arc when moving from your mid point.

So if you decide to fish to your left or right its easier to add on a butt section and fish inline with your main catch area and save having to either adjust your floats or have separate rigs set up on the day but today i wasn't going to fish off to the side because i was sure i could work between my front lines and keep fish coming for the 4hr duration.

Plumbing the waggler was a waste of time, i had just under 1m in depth in the bay and weed so i dont think this will come into play during the day so would be better to concentrated on a feeder line if needed, this consisted of a 3.3m Stillwater Rod, 0.08mm braid, 6m 0.24mm leader, a 20g 4 hole cage feeder to 0.12mm hooklength to a 20 serie 18 hook.

My feeder line will be towards the boat with the red strip..

Joys of a end peg

The all in was called and i cupped 5 balls on the inside and 3 on the far line. i then dropped in my lightest rig in close with double pinkie on a size 18 Drennan Carbon Match to 0.10mm Cenex line, the float dips almost straight away to a small Rudd, 14 fish come to this line fairly quick but these are small fish, not really weight builders prob 40 to the kilo jobbies, I drop onto my far line and get a similar run of the same fish, I tried maggot and caster on both lines to try and tempt some better fish but really struggled to get a bite on bigger baits, loose feeding over the top seemed to put the fish I was catching off.
 It didn't matter what rig i layed in all i could catch was dinky fish and these were now coming in dribs and drabs my only option now was to try the feeder, a few chucks and i get a small but large in comparison hybrid easily worth 7-8 of my pole caught fish, next chuck i get another! i think this could be the way forward and then out of nowhere the fella who owed the boat with the red stripe has come to clean it, inside and out and that killed my peg stone dead both pole and feeder..

He finally left with about 40 mins to go and i'm probably sitting 4th in my 5 man section with about 40 fish, all i can do to catch very small rudd is a drop in a golf ball sized ball of neat groundbait every 10 fish and i manage to put together 35 more fish in the time remaining between my 2 lines, thankfully this pulled me up to second in my section with 2.100kg and a valuable 2 points nowhere near the winning weight of 5.5kg from Dara Finnigan on the opposite end peg.

A tough 2.1kg!

Conclusion

• Alberts can be very iffy at times, there was no way 5kg in my peg probably could have pushed it for 3kg if i just fished for those small fish from the start, either way it was the same result.
• Next time i will feed a negative line out to the right incase the same thing happens again (leam and a sieved groundbait)
• I should have just stayed on my inside line for the duration and tiddler bashed.
• My elastics was too heavy, single 5's and doubled 3's, both pulled the fish splashing on the surface, something i try to avoid.

I have recently set up midweek matches on this venue which is great, it gives you the option to get to know a place and try things out and the fact you know where you will be going each week has such an appeal.

9 of us turned up for the first wednesday match and after a few tweaks to my approach i improved my catch rate a won the match after a good battle from Josh Kavanagh off the next peg.. that will be the next blog for you to read :-)

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Thanks

Leigh