Arthur Guinness!

The alarm rang at 3.30am but I was already awake with the excitement of going to Ireland to fish in the Irish Ferries sponsored ‘British King of Clubs’ I picked Harry up at 4am and we started the long trek to Holyhead which is over 400 miles from home. The journey went smoothly and at around 1.30pm we were driving onto the mammoth Irish Ferry ‘Ulysses’. I have to say how impressed I was with the actual ship, it was fantastic, everything from driving onboard to arrival in Dublin was smooth as silk. There were plenty of places to get your head down for a couple of hours rest or loads of other things to do if you didn’t want to sleep. I have no hesitation in recommending Irish Ferries for travel to Ireland, It was a perfect crossing.

After the 3 ½ hour crossing we arrived in Dublin and set about finding the N3 which took us to County Cavan and the town of Arvagh where we were staying for the week, we arrived just as it was getting dark, We soon found our digs which was a three bed roomed ground floor flat owned by the Breffni Arms. The facilities included a secure tackle room and bait preparation area which included a massive walk in bait fridge! We were literally a stone’s throw from the high street and all the bars and restaurants. Time for a couple of pints of that black stuff, cheers Arthur!

Casting to the moon!

Sunday morning we sorted the bait out and had a drive around some of the sections, the lakes looked absolutely fantastic, set in amazing countryside I couldn’t wait to give them a go. In the afternoon we settled on B section on Rockfield Lake it was part of a split section. I only fished for a couple of hours but caught some nice roach on the pole. I watched some of the others anglers practising and started to get a little worried that tactically we had it wrong! I can honestly say that in all my years of fishing I have never seen anglers fishing at such distances. They all talked in measurements of reel turns and they were quoting distances of 75 and 90 turns! Now that is long by anyone’s standards. I certainly didn’t have the tackle for that so my plans were to do what I do best and that was pack up and go down to the pub! I actually had the feeders for the job they are Mosella distance feeders in 50 gram, they cast brilliantly but I wasn’t going that far.

The registration and section draw was on Sunday night at the Breffni Arms and it was great to meet up with a few old faces over a glass or two of Guinness. The registration process started, Harry and I registered to fish in the same section as there is quite a distance between some of them, it just makes things so much easier when you are travelling in the same vehicle. Now all we had to do was to draw in the same sections as a few of them were split into two on different lakes! The draw bag would dictate that and there was nothing we could do about it! We drew B section which would put us on Rock field Lake and Glass Houses on the first day. I was pleased with that as we had a chance of drawing where we had practised which is obviously good for confidence. Word was that around 14 – 15 kilos would win the section it could be the odd bream or roach.

Monday

I managed to get o the front of the queue and have an early dip, out came peg 6 on Glass House which meant absolutely nothing to me as I had not even seen that lake before! Harry was behind me and pulled out peg 8, it was great that we were on the same section no dropping him off and me getting lost somewhere in Co Cavan! I was really pleased to find a parking spot behind my peg, if only we could do this on my local Porth Reservoir!

Bait for each day was 4 pints of casters, some hemp, corn, a kilo of worm and a few red maggots. Ground bait was Mosella All Round Select and Euro Cup with around 20% brown crumb. All the waters are clear so we thought a dark mix would be best.

I wanted to catch on the pole as I had on Sunday; my rigs were .6 gram Spro mid water floats to fish on the deck in 7’ of water and a lighter. 4 gram float to fish off the deck. Hook lengths were Xedion .10 and I was using a Milo size 22 Series AS hook they are larger than a standard 22 but from what we were told big hooks in Ireland don’t work anymore. I set up two rigs and duplicated them. I also set up a feeder that I was going to fish Porth style at a comfortable 25 turns and a waggler for good measure.

At the start I cupped in four balls of GB which contained a lot of caster and chopped worms and I also sprinkled 250ml of hemp over the top and I went out straight away on red maggot fished on the deck at 13m. I was hoping the roach would be there fairly quickly but they were late for dinner and I just could not get a bite! After 10 minutes or so I was forced to pick up the feeder rod as my Dutch neighbour was catching on the tip. After a few casts to get some bait in I put double maggot on the hook and promptly missed my first bite! Out again and a roach of 3 oz opened my account. I was getting loads of indication but was missing bites so I figured that they were hungry and hopefully would have found the bait I put on the pole line.

I must admit I was pleased when I dropped the rig in and just went under and I swung a 2 ounce roach to hand, I was even happier when I caught for the rest of the match! It was a great days fishing with fish coming all day with the exception of the last 40 minutes which was much slower, I had to work a little harder for them by chasing them around a bit adding an extra section but managed to swing a fish on the all out. It was one of those matches when it all went right for me, with the exception of losing a few perch that just came off and two decent roach to pike. I did manage to save one roach though as I saw the pike coming for it and swung it quickly to hand, it was a nice 4 oz sample as well, the daft thing was I missed the keepnet with it, must have been the shock of seeing jaws!

I managed to win Glass houses with 15 kilo 100 grams which comprised of 195 fish it was worth around £150 but I lost out on the overall section by 100 grams as I was beaten on the other half of the split section at Rock Field Lake. I really must improve my aim! Harry finished with 12 kilo plus so it was not a bad start for the boys from Cornwall both finishing in the overall top ten.

Tuesday

This saw the pair of us on another split section and today we managed to draw different lakes Harry was on Corfree and I was on nearby Rosduff. I managed to follow someone to my venue after dropping Harry off. When we arrived at the farm I followed the track down to the Lough and I have to say I had to use all my driving skills on a very tight and bumpy track, I have never in my life gone off road in a large van before! It was a scary drive and I was going to a peg that came last the day before, Oh man, the wheel was off! At least I could park behind my peg for the second time in two matches.

I tackled the swim with a 1 gram pencil float and a feeder that I was chucking a comfortable 40 turns. I balled the swim at the start and was straight out on the feeder. After a short wait I was getting roach and the odd small skimmer but it wasn’t fast and furious. An angler from Belgium was catching on the pole next to me so that got me reaching for mine. There were roach on my pole line and I was quickly up to about 25 fish before it died. Re feeding resulted in a few more roach. I swopped around between pole and feeder getting a few on each line. I finished up with 8 kilo 200 which was not really a disaster in a match that was decided on weight but I felt that I should have committed to one line or the other. Harry managed third on his lake with 17 kilos from the end peg, mostly caught on the feeder. He was moving nicely up the leader board.

Wednesday

This was another split section and the results showed that Gullado was the lake to draw as it was out and out pole looking for around 15 kilo of roach. I had my dip in the bag of dreams and came out with peg 9 on Church lake Harry also drew Church peg 5 which was consistently the worst peg on that lake all week.

This was deep, and I drew the shallow end of the section! I fished at 13 metres where it was 5 ½ sections deep! In fact I shipped back just three sections to net or swing fish to hand. I plumbed around closer at about 6m it was deep on that line but I kept hooking weed on the plummet so settled for the longer line. I cupped in bait at the start as the swim was just going away from me and I didn’t want any ‘no balls’ taking the bait and fish into even deeper water.

Denizens

I started on the feeder at 40 turns of the reel and unbelievable started to catch roach in what must have been 40’ of water! Why on earth they want to live in that depth of water is beyond me! They really were denizens of the deep but I would just have liked some bigger samples or at least catch them a little quicker. With that in mind I was out on the pole and I started to catch them on that method. Every time I felt it was slowing down I put another ball of ground bait on their heads and that brought them back.

I started having a problem with a snag, I had been fishing the line for some time with no problems and then I was snagged up! Amazing really, somebody told me it was zebra mussels, it may explain why I fished for so long without getting snagged. I actually changed my position moving a metre or so to my left, started catching again with no problem before I found the snag again, so maybe them mussels were the cause.

I ended up with 7 kilo of Roach and Perch which was the result of quite an enjoyable days fishing but I am afraid it was three kilo of the pace. My mate hindsight reckoned I should have fished closer at six metres and talking to others later ‘his’ opinion was confirmed, it is a learning curve but I was enjoying learning!

Harry had a hard day finishing with around 5 kilos it really was a hard lake to come to grips with on the first occasion.

Thursday

Everybody on Thursday wanted to draw Leonard’s farm and I was chuffed with plucking peg 2 out of the bag of dreams. That is until I got there and sat on my peg listening to the voices of doom that belonged to Lee Klimczuk on peg 3 and Nigel Houldsworth on peg 1. I thought the ‘Grim Reaper’ was coming to get me at one stage! The reason for their despair is that we had drawn really well but the weather was against us! The reason being it was 7’ deep not a breath of wind and the sunniest day on record in Ireland! Oh man, typical of my luck.

Never mind I tried my best fishing at 14.50m with a .5 gram rig over 5 balls of GB cupped in. I started to get the odd fish and I was just thinking I was doing some damage with nice sized hybrids and roach when there was a swirl just off m pole tip. It turned out to be a Grebe that like me was also fishing! The swim went stone dead! My back up was the waggler that I was going to fish at around 20 metres firing soft balls of GB at containing a few casters. After awhile I started to catch on this method some nice fish as well. That is until that pesky bird came fishing in my swim again! Oh man two dead swims now!

I managed to nick a few fish from both lines but it never got going again and I was well beaten by ‘one rod Nigel’ on my right who won the section by fishing the feeder back to back. Lee also caught well in the last hour to make me the sandwich filling, I finished with 8 kilo.

Harry won his section in the deeper water with a brilliant 17 kilos of quality roach he now needs a decent weight on the last day to get up in the money as he has around 53 kilos.

Last chance saloon

Friday saw us travel to Eonish, it had fished well the day before on the pole so we were all looking forward to it. There were also a couple of pegs 6 and 7 which were capable of winning the match overall I went to the bag of dreams thinking nice thoughts of those pegs but failed miserably, out came peg 1. Never mind, me thinks end peg will do I look at the results only to see that Barry Smith came well down with 4 kilos the day before. I found him and asked him his thoughts on the peg. Don’t bother fishing was the answer! It’s full of weed until about 15 metres and apparently every time he reeled a fish in he came back with weed the size of a T shirt with a perch buried in the middle of it!

I wasn’t going to miss out on a day’s fishing so decided to get out as far as I could in the water and fish over the weed. I found a weed free area at 15m and that was where I was going to fish. I also decided to ‘give it some’ and try and force a bad peg into a winner! Well, someone has to win so it might as well be me!

Now I would love to say that I had 15 kilos and walked the section but that would be a lie! I fished at around 15 metres and caught roach steady but could see two and three pegs to my right were catching well. Those lucky anglers were Lee Klimczuk and none other than Kevin Ashurst

The clock shot round to 3pm leaving 90 minutes to go and I felt it was make or break time, I was catching but not catching up so I made the decision to re ball the swim. I gave it another 5 big balls but unfortunately it didn’t work, I had 1 missed bite and three roach to show in that last spell!

The festival was won by Kevin Johnson with a total weight of 83.280 very well done mate a briliant performance.

2nd Kevin Rowles 79.280

3rd John Whincup 74.320

4th Lee Klimczuk 73.660

5th Baz Smith 65.420

6th Dave Brettle 64.730

Thoughts!

I had a great weeks fishing in beautiful scenic surroundings, the weather was brilliant in fact too nice on one of the days! It didn’t rain once in the whole week which I feel sure is a record for Ireland. Yes, it was a steep learning curve for me as a King of Clubs virgin but one that I enjoyed climbing, even if I didn’t reach anywhere near the summit. But as what usually happens when we visit fantastic new pastures, I have got myself well and truly hooked on the Emerald Isle and cannot wait to travel to Arvagh next year.

Anyone thinking of travelling to Ireland for the first time there is a couple of things that will make your angling experience so much better. Make sure that you have some braid for feeder fishing, it really is a must, and some long cast feeders certainly make casting easier and importantly tighten up to in deep water. Floats up to 3 grams t cope with those deep swims I found Tamas Walter pencil floats perfect for the job; otherwise a Chianti type float was right for the shallower swims. Don’t be afraid to ask questions about your swim or section, I found my fellow competitors very helpful with information.

At the moment it is so much cheaper to fill your car in Ireland especially with diesel. It is also so much cheaper buying bait in the UK especially if you have the facilities that the Breffni Arms offer.

Unfortunately, litter is a problem around the lakes and I am afraid some of it falls on anglers shoulders. Please take your litter home with you or as the sign says at Rock Field Lake ‘Bring your litter home!’

I cannot believe just how fast a week can go! It seemed like we had been there for a couple of days when we were zooming across the Irish Sea on the aptly named Jonathon Swift, the 111 kms crossing took well under two hours!

I would personally like to say a big thank you to Irish Ferries for sponsoring the King of Clubs, Tourism Ireland and the Northern Regional Fisheries Board for their organisation, and to all the people around Arvagh for their welcome and help in making the King of Clubs a success, not forgetting all those that gave up their time and help with the draw and the weighing, well done to you all.