Lacking any better ideas, I made my way up to Ballanascarrow lough near Ballymote in county Sligo today. I had hoped to be doing a bit of trout fishing, but a few phone calls yesterday evening put paid to any notions there were brownies to be caught. Conn and Mask are both fishing very poorly and the salmon fishing is not much better. Some fish are holed up in the deep water of the lower beats of the Moy but they are not giving themselves up easily. Seals are chasing fresh fish around the Ridge pool in Ballina, making a spectacle for the tourists watching from the bridge but doing nothing to improve the catches of the anglers. So with the game fishing in the doldrums I reached for the coarse gear again.
Once there, it was the work of a few minutes to get set up and begin to build a swim three rod lengths out from my chosen stand. A slight delay was required when a buzzard appeared and quartered the field next to the water. Such magnificent birds and it is great to see them back in good numbers after years of persecution. Back to business and I set up a waggler to fish just over depth and put four red maggots (the left overs from my last outing) on the size 14. Maybe 20 minutes elapsed before a solid bite produced a skimmer. A roach was next, then another skimmer. And so it went on, mostly skimmers with an odd roach or hybrid. I kept up with volleys of loose fed maggots and occasional small balls of ground bait, just enough to keep the fish interested and prevent them from drifting off again.
Somewhere around 1.30 or so I was about to ping the next pinch of maggots out around the float when SNAP, the catapult broke on me. Maggots flew in all directions, very few of them near to where I had been aiming. A rudimentary inspection revealed terminal damage to the cat and the remains were packed away in the bag for later disposal. Now here is an interesting thing, I decided to keep fishing over the area where I had been feeding and then switch to fishing much closer in where I could simply chuck in a few maggots by hand. So I cast into the same spot and the fish and the fish kept biting. An hour or more passed and still there was no requirement to bait up a swim closer to me, the snotties were holding three rod lengths out just as they had all day. Could be that I had over fed the initial swim and there was still a lot of food for the fish to pick at. Regardless, I caught skimmers steadily until the end of the session.
The afternoon had been punctuated with a springer spaniel which was running amok, completely out of control of the two women who were ‘walking’ the creature. He ran up to me, knocked various items of off the stand and launched himself into the water . Not content with that he swam off only to reappear minutes later and repeating the trick. To say I was nonplussed would be a grave understatement. IThe spaniel could have easily got a hook stuck in itself or cut its feet on line, something which would have upset me greatly. f you have a dog it needs to be under control. I love dogs but people need to be responsible for their pets and not let them behave so badly.
By the time I packed up I guess about three dozen skimmers and a few roach had come to hand. None required the net. One poor wee guy had been in the wars and sported a recent scar on his flank. The weather for once had been kind and apart from the lack of any big fish it had been a lovely day on the bank. On the way home I saw there pine martins crossing the busy N5 at Swinford. These once rare beasts are making a real comeback now. Work on Monday and Tuesday now beckons, with the vague plan to do some fishing before the end of the week. Where to go is the question; maybe another visit to Ballanascarrow would not be a bad option. I’ll need to invest in a new cat before then though!
Claretbumbler 