Cool, dry weather has settled across Ireland of late, lovely weather for a guy to sit beside the water trying to catch a few fish. Tuesday rolled around and I decided to try somewhere new to me, the Jamestown Canal over in Roscommon. Not a name that springs to mind when talking about angling, let me explain a bit about this busy waterway. The Shannon flows past Carrick-on-Shannon and carries on south, then east before sweeping around in a big loop something akin to an inverted ‘U’ shape, with the hamlet of Jamestown on the west bank. Here the river is crossed by a barrier, the Jamestown weir, which is impassable to boats. The river now flows south again, past Drumsna and into Lough Tap. Plans for a canal to cross the two-and-a-half kilometre ‘neck’ of land and join the upstream and downstream river date back to the late 17th century, but it was about 1799 that the canal and lock were completed and in full operation. Never a profitable commercial business, the canal’s fortunes have turned around and it is now a busy cut for pleasure boats during the summer.
Next to the canal itself is the Albert Marina which looks to be a much more inviting spot for roach, but it is private and so impossible for a mere angler like me to gain access to the multitudinous wharfs lining that establishment. I presumed there would be little flow through the canal at this time of the year but if that flow was too strong the roach would likely seek shelter in the marina or even drop down into the lough. All in all, this was going to be a long shot! I have never heard of anyone fishing the canal so this was another case of me pushing my luck.
The road there took me through Carrick-on-Shannon, down a little bit of the slow moving N4 (bloody roadworks), then hanging a right into Jamestown, across the bridge and then finding an unmarked road which bisects the canal a little further on. Driving down the narrow road right to the end, I found a convenient car park, and from there a short walk took me along a small stone jetty just downstream of the lock gates. Beyond, I could make out Lough Nanoge, a pudding basin shaped carbuncle on the main river which the canal flowed into. Reeds and shrubs crowded the banks on both sides of the twenty yard wide canal, giving it a secluded feeling on this cold, calm autumn morning.
My usual rods and reels were set up as quickly as my stiff fingers allowed. Threading rod rings has become a particular type of torture for me these days. My once excellent eyesight is deteriorating daily and judging how to slip fine line through small stand off eyes takes me ages, with frequent missed rings as my penance. That onerous task completed, I set up a maggot feeder on the leger rod and a small waggler with shirt button shotting on the float rod, both completed with size 16 barbless hooks. My plan was to cast the feeder as far down the canal as I dare, while at the same time feeding a middle swim and see if there any roach close to me which would accept my maggots under the waggler. The float shotting pattern was selected to slow the drop of the hook in case the roach were up in the water column. As plans go, this seemed to be quite a reasonable one for me.
It’s hard to believe we are in the month of November. I think it is true that time speeds up as we grow older, exactly how that works is too much for my small brain to consider, but this year is passing quicker than the last. The same process applies to each successive year, like I am on some sort of runaway train, hurtling along the tracks at an ever increasing velocity. I feel it should be something like April 2026, but instead we are closing in rapidly on Christmas. Days such as today, quietly fishing on a deserted waterway in rural Ireland, are to be deeply appreciated in my book. I am not religious, but perhaps there is a spark of spirituality inside me. Devoid of a church to worship in, the outdoors are the nearest I have to somewhere to ‘belong’. I suspect (but have no hard evidence), that many outdoors people share similar feelings to my own.
Back to the fishing… The feeder was plonked 20 yards down from me in the middle of the canal and I plumbed up to find an even eight feet or so of muddy looking water all the way across. Adjusting the float so I was fishing the double maggot hard on the bottom, I cast out and waited. And waited. And still waited. Hooks were re baited and cast out again, maggots loose fed and balls of ground bait slung into the swim. Not so much as a nibble came my way so after an hour I moved down the the very end of the floating pontoon and resumed operations there. Another 60 minutes passed with still no sign of a bite let alone a fish on the bank. OK, let’s try above the lock gates where rafts of dead leaves floated on the surface of the still water. More casts, but still no bites and after 40 minutes there I called it a day. The venue looked perfect, a lovely depth, close to the main river and using tactics which have worked well in the past. But it was not to be today.
Breaking down the rods, I turned for the car park and stowed everything back inside the old Ford. Sitting in the drivers seat, I turned the key in the ignition and started the engine to get some heat going. By now it was nearly noon, but I figured I could fit in an hour over in Boyle. Through the awful road works and the middle of Carrick, then a swiftly covered 15 km to the marina outside Boyle where I usually do well. I hastily re-assembled the float rod but left the feeder rod in the car. With time short I didn’t want to waste time fiddling about with two rods. A jog over the grass to the floating pontoon and I was fishing again in no time. There was a little ground bait left, enough for the two small balls I chucked into the swim, one rod length out. A scattering of maggots followed and a quick plumb to check the depth (it was identical to the canal in Jamestown). Settling back on the seat box I drew a deep breath and tried to flip from the anxiety of the drive to calmly reading the signs and concentrating on the tangerine tip of the waggler.
I missed a timid bite on the first cast, but hooked and landed a small roach on the second. More small bites went a-begging before I got a small perch on the double maggot. This pattern continued, with roughly 10 or 12 bites missed for each fish I hooked. I had landed only 8 fish despite a host of bites so I took time out to think about what was going on. All bites were weak affairs, more like a rattle than a positive plunge of the float. Were the small fish finding it difficult to engulf my bait because they were so small? It seemed to make sense to me, so I removed the size 16 and replaced it with a size 20 spade end whipped to 4 inches of 2 pound. I then dropped down to a single maggot in place of the doubles I had used up until then.
The good news was that my change immediately made a big difference and my ratio of fish landed to bites improved exponentially. The slightly less good news was the size of the roach was disappointingly minute. Some were only about 4 inches, while the best of them might have attained 10 inches. I tend not to fish such small hooks normally, only because my dodgy eyesight makes baiting the hook painfully difficult for me. Today was no different, the combination of a wriggling maggot and a hook I could barely see, made for a frustrating exercise. I even managed to hook my thumb one time instead of the red maggot (thank God for barbless hooks). I toyed with the idea of going back to a larger hook in the hope it would deter the small stuff, or even switching to corn instead of maggots. In the end I stuck with the teensy-weensy size 20 as I was unconvinced there were many bigger roach around.
The sport was constant and bites were still weak and easy to miss. The flat calm conditions made seeing bites much easier than usual and my conversion rate kept improving as the session progressed. The roach, although small, were in good condition with flashing silver sides and deep red fins. The odd small perch joined in the fun, but these too were small fish. I plugged away, keeping count and watching the waggler intently. Generally, I was found striking as soon as the faintest movement was detected gave the best results, waiting for a bite to develop rarely resulted in a hook up and usually all that happened was a stripped hook. A juvenile black headed gull came close to me, cautiously walking along the pontoon until it was only 5 yards from me. A pinch of maggots tossed his way was gratefully gobbled up, so I fed him a few more. I understand some people hate gulls but these little fellows are becoming scarce as their breeding sites are destroyed. A few maggots to help him get through another day didn’t feel like a crime to me.
By 2.30pm I had enough and packed away the tackle. Back at the car, I chucked everything in the back in an unholy mess, intending to sort it all out when I got home. The road home was busy from where I joined the N5 at Frenchpark, but it was moving along nicely and I had time to reflect on the day. Jamestown was a big disappointment to me. It looks perfect! Do I give up on it or is it worth another visit next spring? I’ll mull that over the winter. Boyle marina produced lots of fish but they were uniformly small, something which can happen anywhere. I was kept busy and enjoyed the session but will likely give it a rest for a few weeks in the hope some better proportioned roach move in from the main river. 58 roach and 5 small perch was the final tally for less than two hours fishing in Boyle, not a bad score, all things considered.
The cool, dry and clam weather is due to stay with us for a few more days, but I have things to do for the rest of this week and will probably only be able to fish one day this coming weekend.
