After a fairy disastrous day on the Shannon last time out, I wanted to try and do a bit better on my next jaunt. When Nik suggested the Camlin river might be worth a go I jumped at the chance to fish with him. To date, I have always done well on the Camlin, nothing spectacular you understand, just picking away at skimmers, hybrids and roach. We arranged to meet up on the bank at 9.30am on Wednesday and I slept soundly, dreaming of vanishing floats and nodding feeder rods.
I had spent an hour during the previous evening sorting out some gear. Messy by nature, I tend to let things slide into disarray before taking matters in hand. I was out of hook lengths tied with sizes 12 and 14 hooks, so that box had to be topped up. My feeders were everywhere except in the box specially for them and I rounded up the little blighters from every coat pocket, hidden pouch in my tackle bag and even from the boot of the car. The line on my Okuma fixed spool reel was too short, a result of me chopping the end off after every session, to the point where it was affecting my casting. 100 yards of 5 pound mono were used to top up the spool and the reel got a clean/lube while I was at it. The box of ‘bits’ was low on items like swivels, beads and shot, so I topped them all up. Isn’t the need to fiddle with fishing tackle a sublime pastime? I guess we are all still small boys at heart.
While quietly confident we would find a few fish, the horribly low water was a concern. There has been some rain over the past two weeks, but nothing like enough to lift the rivers to even their normal summer levels. I fear that when the rains do eventually come, we will suffer from the opposite effect and floods are probably be a feature of the coming winter. But for now, fooling a few small silvers in the low, clear, warm water was my concern. There are a couple of pegs on the Camlin where I fish, both tight affairs hemmed in by trees. I suggested Nik set up in the upper peg as that was the one I had fished on my last visit and where I had caught fish. I would try the lower peg, just a few yards downstream. We tackled up, he with a 5m whip to start with, me with an 11 foot float rod and a leger rod. Neither of us had much room and the session was one where the tight pegs made casting and landing fish a challenge.
Early on I landed a small perch, then a second while Nik got into the roach. He landing a couple of nice ones before some tench started to bubble in his swim. The bubbles were too much of a temptation, so he switched up to a heavier rig and changed on to the worm. Alas, the tench didn’t want to play, but he steadily increased his catch of roach even on the thicker line. I landed some roach and perch myself, but there was no sign of the skimmers or hybrids which usually inhabit this stretch of the river. Despite heavy feeding with ground bait and loose maggots the fishing gradually tailed off. It wasn’t awful, but the wait between bites grew longer and longer. About 1pm I decided a move was in order. There was a spot further up which I had fished before and I felt I had nothing to lose trying there before packing up. Nik said he would join me an half an hour, and off I toddled, not really expecting too much from the new peg. Indeed, I thought I’d be back at the car before 2pm to start the drive back home.
The first cast in the new spot with the leger brought an instant response, but that fish shook the hook without me setting eyes on it. Moving over on to the float rod, the action was hectic! A gorgeous rudd, then a fine roach, back to a stunning golden flanked rudd, then more orange-eyed roach. I text Nik and basically told him to get his butt up here, then carried on hitting quality fish. He appeared, got set up – and it went quiet! OK, the bites did not stop completely, but they certainly slowed down a lot. I must have just stumbled upon a shoal of fish when I had started and those rudd and roach had now moved on. We picked away, the odd good roach here, a pretty little rudd there. By now Nik was using an eight metre pole and a lovely, slow bite produced an exciting big bend in the carbon fibre. ‘That is a bit better’ he said as the fish lunged out towards the middle. The tench fought well but was soon in the meshes of my net (Nik had left the handle for his net in the car). While all of that was happening I was sorting out a tangle on my main line which had wrapped around the reel. I got that sorted out only to find the hook was buried bank and I had to replace it. The very next cast I hooked a tench which powered off, snapping my three pound hook length. For the second time in a few minutes I was tying on a new hook length, but this time I scaled up to six pound. His fish released, Nik started again and immediately hooked his second tench, this time a bigger fish which fought really hard. Once again, my net was called into action and the fish safely netted and then released.
After a few casts which yielded a couple of decent roach, my float slid under and I was stuck in another tench. This one remained hooked and was duly netted after a strong fight, a fish of between 2 and 3 pounds. The excitement calmed down after that; we both landed some more roach and rudd but the tench had moved off. The afternoon had gone by in a flash, now it was 4pm and the rain was beginning to fall. Both parties agreed we had seen the best of it and we packed up the gear. Below is Nik’s bag of silvers (the tench were returned immediately).
Looking back on the day it had been one of mixed fortunes. The tench were obviously the highlight for us both, but there were some good roach too. Given the low, clear water in the river I think we did OK. I ended up with 6 perch, 13 roach, 7 rudd, a pair of roach/rudd hybrids and a tench. Judging by the photo above Nik had much the same sort of bag plus one more tench than me in the afternoon, but he had landed more than me in the morning. Most of my fish had come during the mad afternoon, the move to a new peg having paid off big time. I found it interesting that today was the first time I have fished the Camlin without catching a lot of hybrids, and the couple I did land were roach/rudd.
A funny sort of a day really, we endured long periods of slow sport interspersed with manic action. We both tried the worm at different times but good old red maggots were far superior on the day. I had considered trying corn but never quite got around to it, perhaps it would have worked but we will never know. After today I am itching to get out on the bank again but the remainder of this week looks to be fully booked with other stuff. We will see, I might manage to sneak off! The forecast is for some wet weather over the coming days, so let’s hope it is sufficient to lift river levels across the country.
Claretbumbler 