Happy in defeat

So I used to fish this small lake in county Leitrim for tench. Note the use of the past tense, as this venue had but one stand to fish from, the entirety of the circumference being covered by a 50 yard deep belt of rushes. That rickety wooden stand collapsed into the water a couple of winters ago, meaning the fish were granted an extended period of peace from us anglers. Then, earlier this year I saw a photo of a beaming coarse angler holding up a brace of nice tench and in the background was this lake. It could only mean one thing, the fisheries board had built a new stand. A little ferreting around the dark corners of the internet revealed minutes of a council meeting of March 2025, where the fisheries board were asked to replace the dilapidated stand, and presumably the IFI had completed that task in good order. All this meant I simply HAD to try the new infrastructure out.

I was gifted a handful of maggots (thanks Nik and Steve), just enough for a short session. These were left over from a morning session on the Royal canal with two mates, looking for Tench. They fished the pole and had one tench and a handful of rudd between them after a lot of vigorous raking to clear two swims. Nik gave me a hand to rake out a swim for my self and I finally managed to land my first tench of the year, a smallish male which was very, very welcome. A couple of dozen rudd kept the float bobbing as well and it was a lovely way to spend a sunny Sunday morning. Would my luck with the tench extend to this evening? That was the question…..

Fearing the small amount of bait was not going to be sufficient I dropped in by Carrick and bought some more. While I was at it I got some for my mate Ian who likes to do a bit of feeder fishing on the Moy for the good sized roach that infest that river. Over the years we have developed a symbiotic relationship, he helps me with repairs to boats and engines and I get him maggots when he wants to go coarse fishing. With the fresh wrigglers in the boot, I toddled off down the sunlit lanes and back roads of lovely Leitrim on a glorious summer’s evening.

The old adage of fishing early or late in hot weather makes an awful lot of sense and so I had to pick whether to get up at ridiculous-o-clock or wait until the end of the day to set off. With an early session is that sport dies completely as soon as the sun hits the water, so realistically I would only have a couple of hours at best to try and winkle out a tench or two. Instead, I had opted for an evening session, the 90 minute drive home in the dark after a long day being the only drawback. This lake also boasts a few roach, some bream and a sprinkling of perch, meaning there was the faint hope of something snaffling the maggots even if the Tincas were proving a bit shy in the brightness. The wind has been stuck in an easterly flow for a few days now, again, not the best for us anglers but there is nothing I can do about the wind so I’d just have to put up with it.

This evening I would fish by myself, for the first time in a while. This season has seen a big departure for me, away from solo fishing to more outings in the company of other like minded wastrels. What to most people sounds like a very normal engagement with other anglers has been a bit of a stretch for me. Not being the most sociable of buggers, meeting up at appointed times/venues and the host of little interactions which add so much to a day on the bank with others took some getting used to. I’m very aware that I drift into quietness and must appear to be extremely odd whenever I have a rod in my hand. The truth is that I ‘lose’ myself in my fishing, concentrating deeply for long periods to the exclusion of everything and everyone around me. One thing which these meet ups has highlighted is the age and decerped state of my tackle. I see expensive new rods, poles, reels, etc wielded with skill, while I flail around with 1980’s (or older) rods and reels I have bought second hand and fixed up. As I am retired now there will be no splurge in the tackle shops to replace my rusty collection of gear, but I do have to be realistic and start to invest in some proper gear. I’ll limp along until the end of the year then see what is available in the sales.

Gear:

Float: the Korum 11 footer and ABU reel filled with 6 pound mono. A waggler above a 6 pound hook link and a size 14 spade end. Shotting was shirt button style. Bait was maggots

Feeder: 12 foot feeder rod and an old Mitchell 260 reel loaded with 6 pound nylon. A 30 gram window feeder, a three foot hook length to a size 12 hook. For hook bait I went with sweetcorn to preserve the maggots for the float rig.

On arrival I got out of the car and strode over to the gate where you can see the lake. Sure enough, a fine new stand was there and no other anglers were using it. Wellie boots (cow pat protection) and a cap (sun protection) were all I threw on before hopping the solid steel stile and crossing rapidly browning grass. The stand was excellent, wide and firm with plenty of space to stretch out. I mixed up some Sensas 3000 Tench with a handful of crushed hemp, sweetcorn and some krill mini pellets and fed small balls into the right hand swim, something I would do steadily all evening. Despite my derogatory statements regarding the efficacy of sweetcorn as hook bait I have had a degree of limited success with it as a bait for bream on this particular lake, so I figured I’d use the feeder for bream with a faint possibility of a tench on corn fished on the bottom. I doubt if there are any large bream in this small lake but the ones I have previously landed have been well made fish up to about three pounds. Listen, on a broiling hot day under a cloudless blue sky I would happily accept just about anything that swims, including a silvery skimmer or a slimy bream. So I started off with corn on the feeder.

In chronological order, I mixed ground bait and fed the right hand swim, fired out ten casts with the window feeder (clipped up) then set the feeder rod down and sorted out the float rod. The water is not deep here, only about four feet, but after all the construction erecting the stand I check the depths up to 20 yards out in case there had been changes during the works. No, all seemed to be pretty level out there so I started operations fishing the right hand swim. A wind was blowing out of the east and for once I was not complaining as it offered a slight cooling effect. Although it was nearly 5pm by now it was still very hot (the car told me it was 28 degrees on the way over). House martins were busy swooping low over the lough and ducks fussed endlessly in the dense reeds, while I sat back and relaxed. There was plenty of relaxing to be done as the fish were not in the least interested in my offerings. To be honest, I didn’t care, it was just so wonderful to be sitting there on a day such as this.

A couple of hours passed. I ate a sandwich, re-cast the feeder many times and switched to maggot when the corn failed to produce and fished the swim with the float as diligently as I knew how. There was no signs of fish beyond a few fry messing about at my feet in the shadow of the stand. I rechecked the depth for my float, just in case I had misjudged it but, I was firmly on the bottom alright. The small bottle of water I had brought with me proved to be woefully inadequate and I had it all drunk in no time, leaving me parched for most of the session. Finally, the merest twitch on the waggler brought an instinctual strike from me and a small rudd came to hand, thus saving the blank which up until then looked increasingly likely. Half-an-hour later a small skimmer dragged the float under and was swiftly brought to hand. Any hopes this was the start of action were quickly dashed and I was gifted the opportunity to sit back and watch the world go by in perfect peace. The sun slowly slid towards the horizon, the heat finally began to reduce and the small creatures of the countryside came out to feed.

Swifts, in tight flock of a dozen or so, swept in front of me, screeching loudly to proclaim their arrival to join the martins hunting flies. Raucous coots fought battles across the lake watched by a family of graceful swans. The first tench topped far out beyond the lily pads, but that one was soon joined by others, working their way closer and closer to the shoreline. Cows lowed in the distance, just adding to the sense of well being. I am not religious, but it sure felt like heaven out on the edge of that lake yesterday as the sun set on old Ireland.

With no response to the feeder I tried a different tactic. Dropping the feeder closer in and hard against the lilies to my left brought an near immediate response in the shape of a tiny little bite. Rudd number 2 came to me, a small but utterly gorgeous fish with the reddest fins you ever did see. By now massive tench were feeding in my right hand swim, rafts of bubbles disturbing the mirror calm surface and the dark monsters occasionally rolling on the top to tease me. Some of my casts landed right in the middle of all this commotion, but only once did the float go under and I lifted into thin air (probably a liner). Twenty minutes after the feeding started it abruptly ended, like someone had flicked a switch, and the mighty tench went quiet once again. I fished on and managed to catch a second skimmer which would prove to be the last action of the day. The wind had by now dissipated entirely and the sun reflected off the burnished water as the light faded from the sky. I took some photos but of course they do not do the scene justice. It was utterly breath-taking and the fact the fishing had been poor was of no consequence to me amid the glories of evening.

Packing up before it got totally dark, I crossed the field and opened the car which was hotter than the sun inside. Doors all open while I packed in the gear, I located a half-drunk bottle of far too warm water on the back seat to slake my thirst. Then it was a slow drive home along quiet roads to end a lovely day. The hot weather is set to continue and a hosepipe ban is in place to try and conserve water. There will be little fishing of any consequence until the weather breaks, making yesterday evening even more special. It will certainly live long in my memory.