Brown trout are the staple species in the county Mayo. The huge salmon runs of yester year have gone, wiped out by the industrial fishing around the coasts, so anglers come here to fly fish for the lovely browns which live in just about all the local rivers and loughs. Go back a couple of decades and the idea of fishing for roach hereabouts would have sounded ludicrous, but these days the humble roach has penetrated most river systems. As with Irish roach elsewhere in the country it is a job of work to find big ones in amongst the millions of small fellas. That was my plan for Thursday though, a short afternoon session fishing the lower part of one of the major rivers in search of a landing net sized roach. I am not going to give the exact location, simply because it is a very small venue with limited swims which would very quickly be fished out if even a modest number of anglers descended on it.
High water for the past few months has been a curse, but it many ways it might yet prove to be a blessing for the rest of the season. Angling pressure has been low to non-existent, so the fish have not be disturbed as they usually would have. Weed growth has been held in check up until now due to the high water levels and low temperatures, and while that will change very quickly as the weeks progress, we anglers may fish some loughs and rivers much easier than in previous ‘normal’ seasons. High pressure is promised for the coming few days, all be it with that cursed east wind, so levels will drop and the water will begin to warm, hopefully leading us into a productive month of May.
Unusually for me, I was not fishing alone. Nick and I have been exchanging emails for a long time, each passing on information about where we were catching fish during our respective coarse sessions. We met up at 1pm on a bright day, the ruffled surface of the river whispering past us, looking absolutely perfect. He came prepared with both float rod and whips, while I came armed with just a twelve foot match rod. We were both travelling light with minimum gear. I had arrived first, scrambling inelegantly over a five bar gate and down a rough path along the side of the still high river, Nick turning up some 40 minutes later. Neither of us had fished this stretch before, so this was all going to be a bit of a learning curve. More so for me than him, as he is a vastly experienced and successful angler and I was hoping to learn a lot from him today.
The previous couple of days had been notable for the very windy conditions. A strong breeze out of the east had dried the wet clothes hung out on the line alright but it would have made for tricky fishing conditions. This morning, that wind had dropped a considerably but it was still set from the east. At least it was dry. The spot we would be fishing is wide open with no shelter from the elements at all, so if it had been a rainy day we would have surely been soaked. It is funny how I don’t really mind getting wet when I am out in the boat but dislike it when I am bank fishing. In even a moderate wind spray flies around when in the boat and I am always wet to some degree but barely notice it. Not so when hunched on my seat watching a float.
While I initially thought a stick float was the obvious choice on the river, I found the slow flow might actually be better suited to a waggler. I wanted to get my line well under the surface and a waggler should be just the ticket. I rigged a 3BB waggler with bulk shot at the float and shirt button no.10’s down to a 3 pound hook length and a size 16 spade end fine wire hook. While the target species today was roach I had heard there were bream in here too, so I plumbed up and aimed to start fishing close to the bottom, then work my way up through the water column as required. Bait was maggots, I had a few very old and slightly smelly ones in the bait fridge at home and they would do until Nick arrived as he kindly picked some fresh ones up on his way to Mayo. Plumbed up, I set the float to fish slightly over depth and made my first cast.
The float went down, I lifted and hey presto! A smallish roach was soon unhooked and returned, a nice start to a session when I had never been here before. Next cast did not go so well, I snagged on the bottom where the current bent around into a back eddy. SNAP! There goes the hook length, so I fiddled about and put an identical one on and re-cast. A jiggle from the float this time a wee perch came wriggling out and to my hand. That too went back, I re baited and cast out, only to snag the bottom again. I’ll spare you the gory details but despite lifting off the bottom I lost 4 hook lengths in quick succession. It seemed the back water was a repository for all sorts of branches and twigs. Nick arrived as I was setting up the float (again), so we chatted and he set up a float rod too. We discussed the depth and he suggested there could be roach higher in the water column thus solving two problems at once. Repositioning my float to give about a 4 foot drop, I cast out again, this time with Nick to my left where he trotted through a likely looking slow paced swim.
Being better prepared than me, Nick had brought along some ground bait and he fed a few balls into his swim in an effort to pull some roach into it. I was loose feeding maggots and casters into my swim and I chucked in a couple of balls of ground bait too which Nick had kindly donated. Bites and fish began to grow in number from a very slow start to steady action for both of us. While there were the occasional small roach, the vast majority were fish of half to three-quarters of a pound. This was excellent fishing, not easy, as many bites were fast and hard to hit. Most of those landed were lightly hooked on the top lip. Poorly presented maggots were generally ignored. Feeding the swims kept the roach in front of us apart from a spell of about 30 minutes when it all went quiet (possibly a pike in the swim?). Neither of us kept a count, but it was a substantial catch.
The reason for Nick turning up with two whips became apparent, he showed me how to rig a whip then handed it to me to try out. I caught a few roach on the 6m whip but missed many more, the strike felt different, but it is hard to describe exactly why. I gave it about 30 minutes then reverted back to my waggler. I’ve been saying for a while now that I was going to buy a whip and today has cemented that notion in my head. I can see lots if uses for a whip on different venues where I regularly fish.
We fished on into the evening, sometimes Nick was catching more than me, sometimes it was the other way around. What was most impressive was the excellent average size of the roach. There were none over a pound but there were plenty of 8 to 12 ounce fish. Our decision to fish here was totally validated. It just shows both the numbers and quality of roach in the western loughs these days. Around 7pm we called it a day, the bites were starting to slacken off and I was getting tired, so we packed up and walked back across the sun dappled fields. Back at home, Helen had a bite of supper ready for me as I walked in the door, so I sat at the table and ate, pondering the afternoons sport and already planning another trip in search of big Mayo roach!
Claretbumbler 