It has been sometime since I have been able to write in my blog, this is largely due to the fact my daughter tends to hog the computer? However in my first blog I left off, talking about the importance of feeding the fish, "in order to catch more fish" First of all various venues do sometimes require a different approach.
The first thing I would do is to aquire as much knowledge about the water I intend to fish, ie: were the most popular spots are, what are the most dominent species what is the average depth, I would attempt to create a mental picture about the contours of the bottom of the venue, this would give me an insight as to were the most likely fish holding arears are likely to be, such as shelves were the water is deeper or even shallower.
Having fished for a great number of years now in serious competition, and alongside some of the best anglers in the country, it appears to be common knowledge that fish do inhabit these areas at certain times of the year. For example during the winter months it would be reasonable to believe the fish would be in the deeper water. The theory being that Given a greater volume of water it would therefore take longer for it to drop in temperature. On the other hand if the sun comes out even during winter months this can warm shallower water quicker, so can contradict this theory somewhat?
One thing is for sure is that, personaly I would rather be warmer than cold, another thing that comes to mind is that contary to popular belief that when the sun is out during the day, in the summer months the water will be warm , I have found this not to be the case, infact what does happen is that the water temperature increases conciderably during the early evening. During my early years as an angler I did a great deal of night fishing, and it wasn't until I fell in that I discovered this!.
On a more serious note now, I personaly believe that this change in temperature encourages the fish to feed later in the day, quite often you here anglers say the fish just switched on all of a sudden, meaning they started feeding late during the competition, this change in temperature however, maybe the reason for this in winter and summer. So keep one eye open for the sun and if you have a thermomitor It would not be a bad idea, to take it with you mostly in adverse conditions, during the colder months.
Many years ago my friends and I used to take some very respectable catches of fish during the night and I seriously believe this was largely due to this fact , coupled with the fact that there is less disturbance on the bank.
07 December 2007
14 September 2006
10 September 2006
Pics of me Fishing!
Here are some pictures of me fishing 
These photo's were taken many years ago before digital cameras were available as you might well of guessed!! but I couldn't leave them out as this brings back some very happy moments from two trips to the Emerald Ilse's and some big nets of bream.
This was a trip which was organized by the Irby Angling National squad and sponsored by the Irish tourist board, the trip was arranged for a week with a total of three competitions to be fished on two lakes.
The first was on lake Killykeen and the other two where on Lake Ramor.There were five trophies up for grabs , one for each match and the others were for the best aggregate weight , and the best specimen fish.
With the knowledge I had from previous visits there and the enormous amount of bait you needed at that time, I was able to win the first two competitions and in doing so took the specimen fish trophy, and also finished with the top aggregate weight, therefore returned home to collect four of the five trophies not bad eh!!
My best weight of the week was 92lbs of bream this was the photo of that catch were I am lifting them out. Perhaps the one thing I should have done is taken another net, so if you intend going there it would be wise to double up with everything.
Just for the record the first match was won, on Lake Killykeen using the pole with 52lbs of bream using an eight gram pole float in approximately 15 foot of water, which you needed in order to get the bait down to the fish and hold it still.
The other was won on swim feeder tactics at approximately 40yards out, I chose to fish on the swim feeder because the Lake was shallow, both matches were won with a cocktail of worm and red maggots, fished over beds of sweetcorn and loads of casters, mixed in a fifty- fifty mix of brown and white bread crumb, nothing special!!
I can recall being laughed at when I boarded the coach with my over sized lunch box. But I think I had the last laugh, It just goes to show the more you know the more you catch! one things for sure is that if you sit amongst the vast shoals of bream in Ireland, is that you will certainly find it difficult to over feed them.
To sum it up this was a very memorable trip bye for now.
These photo's were taken many years ago before digital cameras were available as you might well of guessed!! but I couldn't leave them out as this brings back some very happy moments from two trips to the Emerald Ilse's and some big nets of bream.
This was a trip which was organized by the Irby Angling National squad and sponsored by the Irish tourist board, the trip was arranged for a week with a total of three competitions to be fished on two lakes.
The first was on lake Killykeen and the other two where on Lake Ramor.There were five trophies up for grabs , one for each match and the others were for the best aggregate weight , and the best specimen fish.
With the knowledge I had from previous visits there and the enormous amount of bait you needed at that time, I was able to win the first two competitions and in doing so took the specimen fish trophy, and also finished with the top aggregate weight, therefore returned home to collect four of the five trophies not bad eh!!
My best weight of the week was 92lbs of bream this was the photo of that catch were I am lifting them out. Perhaps the one thing I should have done is taken another net, so if you intend going there it would be wise to double up with everything.
Just for the record the first match was won, on Lake Killykeen using the pole with 52lbs of bream using an eight gram pole float in approximately 15 foot of water, which you needed in order to get the bait down to the fish and hold it still.
The other was won on swim feeder tactics at approximately 40yards out, I chose to fish on the swim feeder because the Lake was shallow, both matches were won with a cocktail of worm and red maggots, fished over beds of sweetcorn and loads of casters, mixed in a fifty- fifty mix of brown and white bread crumb, nothing special!!
I can recall being laughed at when I boarded the coach with my over sized lunch box. But I think I had the last laugh, It just goes to show the more you know the more you catch! one things for sure is that if you sit amongst the vast shoals of bream in Ireland, is that you will certainly find it difficult to over feed them.
To sum it up this was a very memorable trip bye for now.
08 September 2006
Fishing obsession
My first interest in fishing came about when I used to visit a park with my parents, when I was around 9 years old there was a large lake in this park, and it appeared to hold a large head of fish there were men catching, plenty of small fish with long fishing rods. I remember thinking what were these fish called? The only way I could describe them, is that they looked very silvery when they flashed in the sunlight, when the anglers swung them in with these long rods. It wasn't until many years later I was to learn that competition anglers of today call these fish Silvers. Of course at that time these fish appeared big to me, I remember being very excited at the numbers of fish being caught, whilst all this was happening there were lots of kids fishing with nets and jam jars, full of tiny fish called sticklebacks because they had sharp spines on their backs. Although we knew them as Jack Sharps which may give you a clue as to where I am talking about, yes this was Sefton park. Liverpool where I was born. My Mother and father saw how excited I was at the mystique of fishing. I pleaded with them to buy me a fishing rod, times where hard on my parents in those days so they could not afford to buy me a proper rod, but they bought me the nearest thing which was a fishing net on the end of a piece of bamboo cane.
My parents promised to take me there the very next weekend, I couldn't wait to start catching fish and the thought of collecting them in jam jars and being able to take them home was even more exciting. However we arrived at the park, I had so much fun catching these tiny little fish some of them had red underneath them, and we called them red breasts. We took these home with us and admired what we had caught. Some years later when I was older I used to visit the park with my friends. Whilst we were catching these fish once again, we noticed that some of the kids were scraping the mud around the margins. And collecting these little red worms that lived in the mud. We also noticed one of the boys had a piece of cotton on a stick with a match stick attached and used as a float. They tied the worms about one foot below the float, and was catching these fish a lot easier. So naturally we were curious at this, and we tried it ourselves. And low and behold we emptied the lake of fish.
During my teens I was a bit of a tearaway, I stayed out late with my friends, fishing ponds. By this time we had proper fishing rods. We didn't only catch fish, we also enjoyed the challenge of catching things that had the opportunity to escape including for example Mice, Rats, Butterflies, and even Ladybirds. Needless to say the Ladybirds were the most challenging and elusive, with this in mind I stuck to fishing. With the number of times we went fishing I can recall thinking the neighbours thinking we must be potty. And that we as teenagers should be catching the women. I may add this didn't happen until many years later. I enjoyed my fishing so much and still do, so much so that when I started working I was taking time off to go fishing alone. Something I don't do today of course. However many years later I still found myself going fishing with working at times, I could afford to purchase more and more fishing tackle. I also discovered I could catch more fish than most people. I was becoming bigheaded. I didn't realise this at the time, but then began to wonder why I caught more fish, after reading magazines it became clear, it was down to the art of feeding the fish.
My parents promised to take me there the very next weekend, I couldn't wait to start catching fish and the thought of collecting them in jam jars and being able to take them home was even more exciting. However we arrived at the park, I had so much fun catching these tiny little fish some of them had red underneath them, and we called them red breasts. We took these home with us and admired what we had caught. Some years later when I was older I used to visit the park with my friends. Whilst we were catching these fish once again, we noticed that some of the kids were scraping the mud around the margins. And collecting these little red worms that lived in the mud. We also noticed one of the boys had a piece of cotton on a stick with a match stick attached and used as a float. They tied the worms about one foot below the float, and was catching these fish a lot easier. So naturally we were curious at this, and we tried it ourselves. And low and behold we emptied the lake of fish.
During my teens I was a bit of a tearaway, I stayed out late with my friends, fishing ponds. By this time we had proper fishing rods. We didn't only catch fish, we also enjoyed the challenge of catching things that had the opportunity to escape including for example Mice, Rats, Butterflies, and even Ladybirds. Needless to say the Ladybirds were the most challenging and elusive, with this in mind I stuck to fishing. With the number of times we went fishing I can recall thinking the neighbours thinking we must be potty. And that we as teenagers should be catching the women. I may add this didn't happen until many years later. I enjoyed my fishing so much and still do, so much so that when I started working I was taking time off to go fishing alone. Something I don't do today of course. However many years later I still found myself going fishing with working at times, I could afford to purchase more and more fishing tackle. I also discovered I could catch more fish than most people. I was becoming bigheaded. I didn't realise this at the time, but then began to wonder why I caught more fish, after reading magazines it became clear, it was down to the art of feeding the fish.
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