Thinking small

I can hear her words today just as clearly as when she said them to me. Mrs Collier was my teacher at primary school, a lovely woman who doted on her charges but stood for no nonsense. What with eight year old me being a bit of a tearaway there were frequent clashes between me […]

Float repairs

Messing about again When I started out coarse fishing a couple of years ago the only floats I owned were a few large Avons which had given sterling service when trotting for grayling on the mighty river Tay back in the eighties. These large cock bodied floats were required over there to handle the heavy […]

New rod

I don’t get those ‘unboxing’ videos which are all over the place. I am obviously missing something here as they are incredibly popular but I will spare you the unboxing of my new purchase. When I looked at this 14 foot Shakespeare feeder rod in the shop it seemed to be an awful lot of […]

Sunday morning

The trip to Kildare the other weekend lit a fire inside me. It smoldered through the week, a glowing ember inside which I could not extinguish. All my angling senses told me that this is January and there very few fish to be caught but still that orange glow grew stronger and by Saturday night […]

Another project

Late November, a damp, dreary morning. Loud and heavy, I knew that booming knock on the front door well and sure enough my mate was stood there clad in coat and boots against the weather when I opened the door. It’s early and he knows I am working so what has brought him across town […]

Pondering my feeder fishing

What I have learned and what I need to improve on Two years of coarse fishing have flown by and I am sitting down today to think about one aspect of the sport where I still need to improve, using feeders. Let’s start off with the bigger picture here, I have no intention of trying […]

2022, looking forward

It is that time of the year for me, the time when I start to plan my angling for next year. I go through this exercise every close season and find it not only enjoyable but worthwhile as it gives me an excuse to research the fishing potential here and learn a bit more about […]

Little adoo at Gulladoo

I could tell she was unimpressed. There are a million jobs to be done around the house but I badly needed some time off to do a bit of fishing so I broached the subject of a day on the bank to my better half. The look said it all, there was no need for […]

Silvers

I had a few hours of free time so headed off to county Leitrim once more, this time to fish on the canal near Keshcarrigan. This wee village is almost surrounded by lakes and is a coarse fisher’s heaven. Just for a change though the canal appealed to me so the long road east by […]

Surf n’ Turf

Surf n’ Turf – That is a meal where your plate is filled with both beef and fish isn’t it? Read on dear readers, read on….. I unexpectedly had a day to myself so I took off for a few hours on a tench lake in Roscommon. Lowfield lies close to the Shannon and reputedly […]