A tough day

There has not been much fishing for me of late. Either I have been busy with tasks around the house or the weather has been awful, either way my gear has been gathering dust in the spare room for most of the month of November. Met Eireann, our state weather forecaster, promised us a half decent day on Tuesday with relatively light south westerly winds and not much in the way of rain, the only downside being low temperatures. Looking further forward, the winds were going to pick up and heavy rain would come back to soak us by the end of the week, so I’d wrap up well and brave the cold for a few hours fishing.

I loaded the gear into the car the previous evening in pouring rain. This simple expedient meant I didn’t have to faff about in the darkness of the early morning with the almost inevitable consequence of forgetting something important. It took a lot of faith to presume the weather would dry up by Tuesday morning but the forecast was for a largely dry day in a south wind. I woke to the sound of rain still battering against the windows and water gurgling down the drains. A quick check online showed the rain was still forecast to stop soon so I went ahead and ate a meagre breakfast and dressed for the day. Ready for the road at 8.30am, I departed under a sky the colour of a witches hat, despite the sun having risen half-an-hour before.

I set off in the gloom, heading east into the midlands at a stately 90 kph. The old Toyota is happiest at that cruising speed, any faster and the engine sounds a bit thrashy. The white van brigade whizz past me at illegal velocities and I pull in close to the verge to let them pass when it is safe to do so. Whatever happened to that ton-up biker I used to be? It’s a cold day, not freezing but not far off of it. While I would like it to be warmer the fact is we are now in December so it will either be cold or wet and windy here in Ireland and you just have to suck it up.

My chosen venue was the Ballinamore canal. My logic was the water temperature might have been relatively stable lately, despite the fluctuations in flow with the rain which came and went over the past weeks. I am the first to accept this decision was not based on the firmest of foundations, but in lieu of any better options I made for the canal via the tackle shop in Carrick where I picked up the usual bait. The rain had eased to a fine drizzle by then and there were even some streaks of blue sky to the south.

Picking a new spot for me, I parked up and lugged the gear to the far end of a concrete mooring. It was dry now but very cold so I donned multiple layers under my waterproofs. For gear I had brought the ancient 12 foot Shakespeare float rod and the old Leeda feeder of the same length. I felt a tad ring rusty when starting off, having done very little fishing of any form of late I found myself over thinking every decision. The feeder set up in particular had me perplexed with each detail taking me ages to decide upon. In the end, I opted for a 20 gramme block feeder, two feet of five pound mono and a size 14 baited with maggots. Thankfully the float set up was easier and I shotted a small waggler to fish close in. And so I started to fish, feeding just a rod length out with small balls of groundbait and some loose maggots. All seemed to be good in terms of the tackle and how it was fishing but no bites were forthcoming. The wind chilled my hands and face as I cast, waited, wound in, re-baited and cast again. I fiddled with the float, making tiny adjustments in case I was fishing too high or too deep. Nothing made any difference and I remained stubbornly fishless.

Over an hour passed and in the end I decided to make a move. Perhaps this was hasty and if I had remained the roach would have come to me but it didn’t feel like that so all the gear went back into the car and I headed for Drumshanbo. Acres lake with it’s deep water would be my next venue, and as it was close by it only took 15 minutes in the car. That was long enough for me to begin to thaw out with the car’s heater on at full blast. Once at the lake I put the rods up again and began the whole process of building the swim once more time. The sky was by now almost free from clouds so at least it was dry if still cold. An hour came and went without so much as a nibble, but I consoled myself with the joy of simply being outdoors for a change.

It was well past 1pm when the waggler gave a slight tremor, so faint I was unsure if it was actually a bite. Had I imagined it? The very next cast the float went under but I missed it by a country mile when I struck. New maggots then out again, this time with new found attention. A few casts later and another bite, this time the hook found purchase and I reeled in a tiny roach. Despite it being minute I was pretty damn glad of that wee fish! I photographed it, simply because I had little faith I would land another.

The next hour saw a string of bites and in total 12 small roach or hybrids came to hand. All were very small, the only good fish I hooked threw the tiny size 18 spade end with its first dash. On the one hand it was very poor fishing, but on a day when catching anything was really hard work I was happy enough with the dozen tiddlers. Going fishing in December in Ireland is never going to easy, the rivers are well over the top and have spread across the fields, the lakes are swollen with cold, murky water and the fish have dispersed from their summer haunts. The big roach should have moved into flowing water by now but water levels will have to reduce a bit before it is even safe to fish the rivers. More heavy rain is forecast for the coming two weeks, so I doubt if I’ll be trotting any time soon.

Traffic was heavy all the way home and the clouds thickened until it was raining by the time I pulled into the driveway. Somehow I had managed to break my reading glasses when disrobing in the car park at Acres, something I do with unforgivable regularity. This time I had stuffed afore mentioned spectacles into the wee pocket on the front of my over trousers when I was fishing then forgot they were there and tramped on them as I was taking the trousers off. More than half of the maggots I bought came home with me and are now in the bait fridge, but I have no idea when or if I will get the chance to use them.

On other matters, I am still tying flies and am roughly three-quarters of the way to my target of 1,000 this winter. Luckily, I keep a spare pair of glasses in the fly tying gear.

I see from the detailed stats provided by WordPress that an increasing number of anglers for USA are reading my posts. What you guys make of my ramblings I can only imagine, but let me extend a heart-felt welcome to each of you. I guess you are aware of the alarm us Europeans feel with each new outburst from the current administration over there, but rest assured we know that anglers are the same the world over, no matter what you fish for.