We have seen a real change in the weather over the past two weeks with significant drops in temperature both at night and during daylight hours. The trout and salmon fishing is over for the year and the cooler weather means the summer coarse species will be winding down. I wanted to cram in one last bream fishing outing and so headed for the small lake in County Galway where I am allowed to fish occasionally. It is a bit of a spin down there but I was in no rush and set off after breakfast and the madness of the school run. As someone who was brought up in the ’60’s I find it ridiculous and unsustainable that kids have to be driven to school. Why can’t children walk or cycle anymore?
My plan was pretty much the same as usual, fish a waggler for bream using worm or maggots for bait. The only slight addition were the couple of pike rods which lurked in the back of the car on the off chance I’d have a chuck for pike to break the day up. I know, you have heard me postulate about piking before but with no end result, but there are lots of pike in this small lough and if I am going to fish for them this autumn this would be a good place to start.
So why was I chasing slimy bream at all? The truth is that I find these fish fascinating. The difficulty in catching them here in Ireland is one reason. Vast shoals of bream inhabit the big loughs but finding them, then keeping them feeding in front of you is a major undertaking. I guess many of you have read about the need for pre-baiting, but it is a monumental task to be there for maybe three days in a row and hurling out bag after bag of ground bait in the hope of attracting the shoals of big bream. I don’t have the stamina for such heroics, hence the reason why this small lough is so special for me. Beyond that, the fish themselves are amazing. There is something very old about them, a feeling I am holding a creature from a different world all together. Many anglers hate the slime which covers the fish, and as soon as you land one it covers most of you too, but that just adds to the strangeness for me.
The lough also holds some rudd and rudd/bream hybrids, as well as a smattering of small perch and pike to impressive proportions. With so much to chose from I felt I was spoiled for choice and had to concentrate hard on presenting my hook bait hard on the bottom for the bream and skimmers. My reason for picking Tuesday to fish was almost entirely based on the wind. Strong southerly winds have predominated lately and are forecast to return as soon as Thursday, and a wind from the south or adjacent quarters makes life difficult as there is only one peg you can fish from and it faces south. Leaving this trip until later didn’t work as heavy rains and cooler weather are on their way for next week, so it was a case of now or never.
Arriving about 11am, I set up the float rod and plumbed up. My mate Nik lives close by and he had kindly done a bit of pre-baiting for me by chucking in some balls of ground bait earlier in the morning. A grey, overcast day threatened rain by it actually stayed dry-ish until seven o’clock and it was a lovely soft day to be beside the water. I foolishly started with my normal size 16 and double maggot under a medium waggler, but that simply invited a veritable rudd-fest and the small golden fish hurled themselves at the bait as it gently tumbled through the water column. I had caught eight rudd before the first skimmer showed up, a small lad of a half a pound or so. Nik came down to see how I was getting on and he recommended a change to corn and going heavier so the bait got through the shoals of rudd and down to the bream below on the bottom. I switched to a 5AAA waggler and upped the hook to a size 12 while Nik set up a whip and fished beside me for a short time.
A couple of skimmers came to the corn but it was far from hectic, so I went over to the worm and things began to improve right away. First a skimmer and then an absolutely stonking rudd came to hand. I don’t measure of weigh my fish so it is hard to be certain, but I think this is the best rudd I have ever landed. It didn’t matter what else happened, this was the fish of the session for me. The photo does not to it justice, the rudd seemed to glow it was so bright.
Nik had to go again and I settled into a steady rhythm of cast/bite/land/rebait/repeat. Baiting the swim was a bit of a double edged sword, a ball of ground bait every now and then did hold the skimmers in front of me, but it also attracted the small rudd who could be seen swirling and rising on the surface as soon as the ball went in. For that reason I only added ground bait when the bites started to slow down. As usual with skimmers, bites were infuriatingly difficult to hit, but even so I was racking up a good count. Only one full grown bream came to the net, a fish of under two pounds but very welcome never the less.
Even the worm started to lose its charm and bites slowed in mid-afternoon. I switched back to maggot, but instead of my favoured double grub on a small hook I loaded up the size 12 with as many maggots as I could cram on. This mouthful was too big for the small rudd but the skimmers loved it and I was soon bending the rod into the pewter sided beauties once again. Up until then I had been lucky and the couple of lunges from pike chasing hooked fish failed to connect. That changed later on in the session and I lost three fish to pike attacks. Two snapped me quickly but one hung around for a while before letting go of his prey. The poor skimmer was scarred but still alive so I returned it to the water. I have caught fish far more badly injured so while this looks bad it may just make it.
Nik and Tom both came down after teatime so see how I was doing. We chatted about the fishing here and in general, the float dipping occasionally as we dissected the season and made loose plans for the future. The evening air cooled and a heavy shower drove us off the water and sent us scurrying for our cars about 7pm. The lads were quickly gone but I had to dismantle the rods and pack away the gear in the boot of the Ford, a task I did not perform to an acceptable standard as when I got home I found the lid had come off the maggot box and I had lots of little friends crawling about in there.
It had been a grand day. 39 skimmers, 26 rudd, 4 tiny perch, that solitary bream and a small rudd/bream hybrid gave a total of over 70 fish for the session. All good things come at a price and today I have to clean the slime from all my gear, dry out those items that got soaked in the rain and find and remove every last maggot that escaped into the boot of the car. I got as many as I could find in the dark last night but I am sure there are more I didn’t see in the gloom. For those of you tut-tutting and thinking what an idiot for not making sure the lid was firmly on my bait box I will only say – your day will come! Few are the coarse fishers who have not suffered the same ignominy.
And what about my pike fishing efforts you might well ask? I took along both a heavy spinning rod and my venerable ABU heavy leger rod so I had the choice of spinning or dead baiting for a while. For bait I had a few small roach in the freezer which were needing to be used up. After talking to Nik at lunchtime it sounded like spinning rarely works on this lake for some reason and instead I set up a float rig on the heavy ABU rod. I fished that set up for the whole afternoon without getting a touch, pretty much my usual experience when piking. Undeterred, I’ll try for pike again over the coming weekend on a venue closer to home.
