Church Shore, Garadice - 31st May 2012


Day 5 and the team scores were tight with myself, Paul and Bernard tied in first individual placings.  Today would be a deciding day.

We had arrived at Garadice on the Church shore stretch of the lake for todays sport.

Pegging was a further apart than previous days so I could only just hear the craic from the other guys.  Paul and I certainly made up for it and he was pegged to my right.

My swim looked very fishy with stick up reeds to the left, fish topping at long waggler and feeder range.  The water was crystal clear, the weather was overcast and there was a good ripple on the water.

 The Set-up
  • Pole Line at 14 metres with 4 foot depth straight ahead
  • Pole Line at 14 metres in the stick ups with 3 foot depth
  • Feeder Line at 40 turns
  • Large Waggler rig at 30 turns

 The All-In
I had decided today that I would not groundbait my pole lines, so instead I cupped in a pot full of maggots, sweetcorn and casters on both the line ahead and the 'stick up' swim.

The feeder line was producing some very quick and finicky bites which on retrieve the double red maggot hook bait had been nipped or smashed.  These bites proved impossible to hit.  I even set up a longer and short hook length but that didn't make any difference.

The pole line ahead produced a couple of fish as did the stick up swim.

It was going to be one of those tough days again!

I persisted in the stick ups and towards the end of the day hooked a large fish which took a lot of the pink hydroelastic out.  I played the fish for 10 minutes and finally glimpsed a large irish tench... at last... just as I picked up the net and raised the pole the hook pulled and the fish was off... devastated!

It was quickly followed with mantra from the week from Paul, "Nobody likes to see that Lewy!" ;-)

I tried to fish a long waggler flicking out maggots and fishing shallow, a couple of bites, but no fish came from this tactic... it was a tough day!

The Result
Paul had 2 fish in his net, the other lads had remained fishless, so my 4 fish took the win of the day and put me a point ahead of Paul in the individual league with one day to go!

Conclusion
Again, great conditions, simply the fish weren't there!  Looking back, when fishing in Ireland I think it pays to fish a venue a couple of days running or to pre-bait to let the fish find your bait and to have a better day's sport.


Paul to my right
Location: Unnamed Rd, Coole, Co. Meath, Ireland

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