Leinster Championship, Lough Ennell 2007.

Fishing a large competition on Ennell is always going to be hard work. The lough is shallow and fifty boats will soon disturb any feeding fish. Consequently the best chance of a fish is usually in the first hour, or the first drift if the wind is right. I approached the competition with this in mind. I came out of Whitebridge Bay and took a drift south, down across Carrick Bay and Brackagh in company of half a dozen other boats, expecting to find a few mayfly hatching towards Cherry Island. This proved to be fruitless, but I had plan B in mind at all times. My boat partner Des Cox, had kindly allowed me to dictate the day's plan and was a willing partner in crime. My plan of action was to creep into a quiet corner in the lee of Rinn Point and take short drifts in an area I expected to catch small fish, in the 12 to 16 inch range, hopefully getting one or two over the 14 inches size limit.

I kept one eye on the lee shore of Rinn Point and waited for all the boats to move out of the area in Whitebridge Bay. An hour into the competition, after a second drift across the inshore area of Carrick Bay, we motored back into Whitebridge and slowly edged tight into the shore just short of Rinn Point in a shallow little corner. This had almost instant results with Des missing a fish on the first short drift. We also spotted the odd fish taking natural fly. There was a small hatch of the 'Welshman's button', a sedge that hatches during the daytime and due to it being slow to get off the water is always a good sign. A few smaller sedges and the occasional buzzer were also to be seen on the water. I was fishing a team of three flies, a button on the top dropper, a small claret sedge on the middle, and a small(12) golden olive bumble on the point to represent a sedge pupae. I was confident that I had the right flies for the area and I definitely had the right area so it was a case of slowly, quietly fishing the corner with as little disturbance as possible.

After the first drift I felt I needed to fish with a pearly invicta, a great fly for representing both hatching sedges and small fry. So, I added another 5 feet of 6lb fluorocarbon onto my cast and added a fourth fly. The size 12 pearly invicta was now on the point, the golden olive fishing as a dropper. This is what I call a 'suicide cast' the top dropper is about 18 to 20 feet away from the point fly, which makes landing a big fish on the point very difficult%u2026%u2026and has lost me quite a few of them.

A couple of casts later, just as we drifted out of the shallows into slightly deeper water a fish came to the newly acquired point fly. I lifted into the fish and it surged away, well hooked. It was now just a case of taking my time and landing the fish safely, as I knew one fish would qualify me for the Leinster team. This was harder than it sounds. Eventually I ended up standing on the back seat of the boat, arms straight above my head while trying to get the nearly beaten fish's head from under the boat with the 20 foot gap from the top of the rod to the fish. I have to thank Des Cox's deft netting technique too, and eventually I boated the fish and weighed it at 3lb 1oz. Now I could relax and try to get my partner his fish.

By this time we had drifted out into the middle of Whitebridge Bay, the fight lasting quite a while, so I motored back into shore. At this stage I expected an influx of other boats, it must have been obvious I was playing a fish! You cannot mistake six feet of lunatic standing on the back of a boat with an arched rod and arms above his head as anything else. Surprisingly we got away without discovery and still had the corner to ourselves. While Des fished the next drift out I shortened my cast to 3 flies and replaced the claret sedge with a size 14 silver invicta while disposing of the golden olive bumble as well.

We were still seeing a rising fish every time we drifted out, always too far to the left or right to cover, but there none-the-less. I had motored slowly back for another drift out from the shore, almost bumping bottom while creeping along the shoreline into position. This was real commando style stuff, but it works, I cast my line out, turned to Des to say a few words about our prospects and heard a fish rise. Automatically, (just in case it was to my flies) I lifted the rod and found myself bent into another fish. This one had taken the silver invicta and although barely hooked in the edge of the maxillary bone came to the net successfully at just over 2 lb. When your luck is with you things go right. We managed another couple of drifts before a couple of other boats came in to the corner, but moved no fish. We decided to pull up to the shore and have lunch, it was now 2.45pm, and leave the other boats to it while hoping they didn't move anything and go off again.

This tactic worked, and while we sat eating lunch we watched small undersized fish feeding in 6-12 inches of water in front of us. The other boats moved off and after waiting a little while we slipped back out and got another drift or two, with only an undersized fish to my rod for our trouble. We still felt we had a good chance of a fish until some idiot in a speedboat started tearing up and down the lake and in and out of Whitebridge Bay put an end to everyone's hopes while dangerously weaving in and out of the drifting angling boats. These dangerous and inconsiderate boaters are a menace to other users of the water resource.

Because of the disturbance we both lost interest in fishing. This combined with the difficult casting wind and the cold, (it had got very chilly by 5 o'clock), we came ashore to the weigh-in about 15 minutes early. I knew I had qualified, but I was extremely surprised to find my 3lb ½ oz (official weight) trout take the heaviest fish prize, as I would consider a 3lb fish average on Ennell. There is usually a 4 or 5 lb fish weighed in. I was even more delighted to realise I had the only double on the day, winning the Corcoran Perpetual Challenge Cup and the Leinster Championship Title, with a total weight just over 5 lbs.

I was very pleased that my plan of action had paid off. On a day when 115 anglers fished, 8 anglers managed to catch 9 fish over the 14 inches size limit, I had caught two of them. Sadly Des had missed his one chance, but that is often all you will get on Ennell. I was delighted to hear his name drawn out at the after dinner prize giving as a Leinster team member for the inter-pro competition on Lough Leane in Killarney later in the year.

Next time we fish a competition on Lough Ennell I am going to have to find another quiet corner%u2026%u2026%u2026.I think this one is well and truly blown!

Good Anglers are not born, they work at it!
Competitive angling seems to receive a fair amount of negative comment, as one acquaintance said 'nothing but cheats and w*nkers, but competition anglers have revolutionised angling over the last decades. The serious competitive anglers in their search for an edge very often have devised techniques and tackle we now take for granted. The same competitors often devise fly patterns and styles that find their way into mainstream angling, improving the chances for all who fish.

What kind of person is a competition angler? All anglers are competitors, either with their Quarry, friendly competition with their boat partner, or the occasional club competition, or maybe a competition such as the world cup on mask, in which most anglers fishing are only along for the craic.

The main difference for the serious competitor is that we work at it. A day on the Lough tends to become 8 hours hard work. Total commitment, hours of practice with different methods and techniques, practice days using flies and lines you don't think will work, but need to try in case they do. Like all successful sports people, even successful businessmen et al, it takes work, more work, and hard work to be a success. It is possible to win without working, but to do it consistently takes practice and work. When fishing river competitions with drawn beats, luck does come into it, but even on good beats the better anglers will come out on top.

Most of my competition fishing has been done on the Loughs, I prefer fishing these competitions. I have won on rivers, but prefer to leave them for a couple of hours of enjoyment as a pleasure angler, not working for another competition. The last few years I have found I no longer work so hard at competing, as they say I have lost my edge. This is partly due to the fact that having represented Ireland internationally and been Irish Champion I now find myself less hungry for success. That being said, maybe I am just tired of hard work.

But enough meandering, the purpose of this article is to give the angler an insight into what makes a successful competition angler. I would say concentration is one of the most important ingredients. Total concentration. Every fish missed is a fish lost. Every fish not seen is a fish lost. Every fish lost is one less to weigh in, one less than somebody else.

It is hard work concentrating for hours on end, harder than the day job most of the time. This however means you will see fish that don't rise with a large swirl or splash, those most anglers will hook. A large percentage of fish are felt by anglers, rather than seen, a felt fish is often missed or badly hooked and comes off. These 'pulls' are often too late to hook the trout properly, but with practice and concentration many of these fish can be seen before they are felt and struck accordingly. A good pair of glasses is a must for this, polarised glasses allow you to see fish you will miss otherwise. Sometimes these fish show as a brief flash of a flank, sometimes a flattening of a wave, at other times a brief glimpse of a shadow or the flash of an opening mouth%u2026 yes you can see this on the Loughs, just as you do on the rivers. Another tell-tale sign is the movement of the line, but this is only noticeable in a small wave or ripple, but it is in these conditions that these signs are most important as in a big wave the fish tend to break the surface to a greater extent. There are times when I have tightened into fish that I have not seen, but something in the vicinity of my flies looked odd or different. You wont always know what you have seen but with practice you will know something has changed, maybe a slight colour change, a shadow in the water, a wave in the wrong direction, anything out of the ordinary can signal a fish that would otherwise remain unseen.

I remember one competition on Lough Owel in particular; conditions were poor with a bare herringbone ripple, bright sky and too many boats. I was drifting into the back of Srudarra Island, when I noticed a fish following my point fly, Owel fish have a habit of doing this at times, I slowed the retrieve to no avail. I then stopped retrieving and watched, after about 60 seconds the fish opened his mouth, I saw the white flash, and I struck and shortly netted a fine 2 1/2-pound trout. The following drift in the same area I fished the hares ear nymph more slowly, casting a long line and inching it back just fast enough to keep the fly off the bottom, I had three more fish on the drift. One I saw the line tip pull down, another I saw move across a light spot on the lakebed. The third gave itself up, I saw nothing before the rod was almost wrenched out of my hand, he also was hooked well in the vee. After that drift the area I was drifting became like Dunloaghaire Harbour, boats nose to stern drifting behind me and the fish went AWOL.
I spent the rest of competition moving around the reed-beds fishing dry sedge and a small deer hair snail, for two more fish. I won the competition. The three fish that I had spotted taking deep made the difference. Spotting the fish following at depth had also shown me that the fish were in the area, and that they were feeding deep. This was after about four fruitless hours fishing, when most anglers would be fishing by rote rather than concentrating.

Another ingredient of a successful competitor is the ability and willingness to adjust to the conditions. A change of line can work wonders, a floating line normally fishes in the top foot of the water, if the fish are not at the surface go down. A sink tip will fish 4 to 5 feet down when fished slowly, 2 or 3 feet when fished faster, an intermediate will fish at almost any depth if left to sink and inched back, but about 4 feet deep when fished normally. A sinking line fishes deeper again, depending on mass and time left to sink, this allows us to seek fish feeding at depth, which they do far more often than at the surface. Use a floating line if the trout are feeding on hatching insects, but if there is no sign of feeding fish or fly-life, go down. I always approach a competition with this in mind.

The ability of the angler to adapt does not mean just being willing and able to change lines, it needs forward planning. When I practice for a competition, I seek out areas where the trout are feeding on invertebrates such as corixae, shrimp, and hoglouse. Other food forms such as sticklebacks and fry are more easily found by sight. If you look at the Lough, you will see areas with vegetation below the water, these are the first places to try to find deeper feeding fish. You can search these areas during practicing by fishing hares ear nymphs, corixa imitations, such as the Invicta, silver invicta etc. and when fish are caught spoon them! I am amazed at the amount of anglers who do not even own a marrow spoon. Fish will at times take a fly just because it was there when they were feeding, not because it represents a food form they were feeding on, the angler carries on fishing the same pattern to no avail where were he to spoon the fish he would have seen what the fish was feeding on, and, if the food supplies are plentiful enough there will be other fish feeding on them. This is part of the ability to adapt, you can't adapt to conditions if you don't know what they are.

By searching through different drifts etc. you can build up a picture of the Lough, and know which areas have food available for the fish, this allows the third ingredient, planning, which is very important, unless you have a boatman or boat partner that has already done this for you. (But there again, in work you would not rely on others to organise important background material, you would check it yourself. Don't rely on your boat partner to have all the answers, he might be relying on you!) This practice allows you to approach the competition with a plan. 1st try a @ z, 2nd try b @ y etc. this allows you to fish where you expect to find fish feeding, that creates confidence, and if you expect to catch fish you will be looking for them, this helps your concentration.

It must be remembered also that fish will move if there is better feeding in other areas, so watch for surface activity to indicate a good hatch- Swallows are good watchmen- if you see them feeding low to the water there are flies hatching there. If the hatch is large and plentiful enough the fish will find it. Remember also the fish might be feeding on rising nymphs below the surface, they are easy pickings too. These fish may not come to the surface so as I said earlier, go down to them with either wet flies or nymphs that represent the food item. Most anglers know that river fish can be pre-occupied with certain food, because they can be easily seen in the shallower waters usually found in the rivers, and watched ignoring your fly. The angler will adapt and change fly and or presentation. Many anglers forget this when they arrive on a lake and insist on fishing traditional Lough style on the surface. I took a visiting angler out last season, he normally fished the English chalk streams and was telling me about how he fished them, often fishing upstream nymphs and emergers, and how he preferred this type of fishing to pulling lures on sinking lines for the reservoir rainbows when they weren't feeding on the surface. He had not equated the fact that like the river fish, lake dwelling fish often feed at depth on the emerging nymphs rather than go to the top after them. Like many anglers he had assumed they were not feeding because he couldn't see or catch them at the surface. There is nothing more exciting than seeing a large lake trout head and tailing over a fly tripped through the wave, but remember there are other ways to catch the fish.

Finally, when competition fishing, remember the object of the exercise is to catch more fish than the other competitors, but also it should be done

Don't forget small flies.
An insight in fishing the Irish Trout Loughs
What About The Little Guy?

When out for a day on the Loughs, I am often surprised by the number of anglers that insist on fishing flies of size 8 or larger. These are usually bushy Bumbles, Dabblers, or winged wets, often heavily dressed. There are times when these flies work, other times they work very well, but if conditions don't suit they will lead to a blank. Very few Lough anglers pay attention to what they learn on the rivers. If you are fishing to a rising fish on a river and it ignores your fly, but you know that a particular fly is on the water, you will change size; usually a smaller or more lightly dressed fly will do the trick if the presentation is right. Most boat anglers miss this; if a certain pattern doesn't do the trick, try another instead%u2026 regardless of what the trout are likely to be feeding on, or what the natural's size actually is.

Often my first change will be size or style of fly if there is evidence of naturals on the water. When Conditions are hard, with sun and little wind to create a wave, (which often distorts the trout's view of your fly) I often set up a "River cast" i.e. Two small spider patterns, and either a hare's ear or pheasant tail nymph on the point. These flies will be fished slowly on either a floating line, (in a ripple) or an intermediate line if the water is flat. These spider patterns I tie myself as most bought 'spiders' are too bushy, mine have one or one and a half turns of hackle only. The sizes vary from 12 to 16, although 14's are my first preference. These spiders are tied on either standard wet fly hooks or on the heavy 'grubber' hooks, by using the grubber hooks with the different profile I know which are the heavier flies in the box, whereas weighting a standard wet fly hook makes the selection of the heavy flies difficult. The heavier flies help sink the cast deeper when the boat is drifting that bit faster. I fish both types of flies with a very slow retrieve, the equivalent of a slow figure of eight, adjusted to the speed of the boat usually works best, a word of warning, chucking them out and stripping them back wont! Some anglers seem to assume trout have an engine up their *rse and strip the flies back at a rate of knots, this can work with the larger lure type flies but for trout selectively feeding it won't.

I often notice anglers, who fish from the shore on our smaller lakes etc. will fish static or semi-static flies to obviously feeding fish but seem to insist on stripping them back when in a boat, get bored with no action and cast out a couple of dries fished static????? Any angler who has fished from a bank will tell you he often catches fish "on the drop" and the English anglers are adept at fishing wet buzzer patterns static below a 'bung' or dry fly. I recall a day on Lough Owel, when my partner and I were out in blazing sunshine chasing herring-bone ripples around the lake, we eventually got tired of the game and decided to stick it out along the Italians shore, we were only waiting for the peter fishing later that evening when the sun had left the water. My boat partner cast two small dries out to his right and sat back to take refreshment. I cast my spiders on a long line to my left on the slime line counted ten and was about to take the first handful of line for my figure of 8 retrieve when the fly line zipped out and I was in. My partner netted both his and my fish, you guessed it, his klinkhamer disappeared very quickly after.

I then spent an hour retrieving the flies very slowly with out any success and saw two more to the dry flies the other end of the boat. That started me thinking, and I switched to a floating line but resisted the urge to put a couple of dries on, and, instead tied on a small hares ear on the point, a size 14 corixa on the middle dropper and an apple green spider on the top, all spaced about four feet apart on a twenty foot cast. This was cast out and left static, the line just being collected enough to keep me in touch with the flies. I worked out that it took about half an hour for the flies to catch bottom, no it wasn't deep, half an hour and four fish later!

Sadly the method doesn't always work, and there needs to be feeding fish in the area, but it can be very successful at times. It does pay however to remember the things we learnt on the rivers, and pity those that only ever fished the loughs, they have a lot to catch up!

A New season beckons
Traditionally my trout season has always started in the middle of February, somewhere out West, originally I was taken over to Lough Conn, I drifted south, fishing Mask, and recently giving Corrib the benefit of my madness, for fly-fishing the Loughs in February's chill does take a certain amount of something other than sane common sense! Even with the onset of our all year round rainbow fisheries, fly-fishing for Pike now almost run of the mill, (I've been doing that for years%u2026usually on dry Daddies, pearly dabblers, klinkhamers etc.), I look forward to the 'Opening Day' from New-years on.

This year due to other commitments my trip to Lough Corrib on the opening day, February 15th, was a one-day affair. I picked Noel up at his house shortly before 5am, loaded his fishing tackle etc. and hit the road about 5.05. The morning proved to be very foggy and after 100 miles of driving I had to take a break, as I was becoming goggle-eyed and fast approaching splitting headache condition. Out came the flask and a cup of coffee was poured%u2026..yeachhhhhhhhhhh%u2026I should have steeped the flask a bit longer. (It has been lying idle for about 5 months!). After 15 minutes I set off again, arriving Galway City about 8.45, we had averaged only 40 miles an hour but we pulled into the hotel for breakfast anyway, hunger overtaking the need to arrive for an early start. Breakfast finished we then set out the last 30 miles through the Connemara countryside up to Basil Shields, just outside Oughterard, by this time the fog had lifted and the last leg was a pleasant drive.

Arriving at the lake, we organised our boat, put the outboard on and%u2026%u2026%u2026 "Oh Sh*t" we had forgotten to fill the petrol tank! (again, !!!) some things never change!
I hopped into the van, back up the road and filled up at the pumps, added the oil and shot back to Basil's.

By the time we had tackled up and were pulling out from the dock it was 11am. a slow start. We weren't too worried however as the Lough was mirror calm, under a bright sky, dire conditions for fishing fly. Because the conditions were so bad Noel and I had set up two heavy spinning rods with weighted sprats so as we left Portcarron bay we trolled the Sprats behind the boat, looking for one of the Large fish that inhabit the Lough. On our way out of the bay my rod thumped around and for a brief period I could feel a good fish on, but, the hook failed to hold and away it went. We then continued out of the bay towards the nearest Island, Inishcash.

As we made our way to Inishcash, we saw fish move to buzzers in front of the Island and reeled in the Sprats to try cast a fly over the fish. With no breeze at all we couldn't get close to them so we decided to troll the sprats again and took a lazy arc around Inishcash. As we motored along the back of the Island I spotted a double figure fish lazily taking Duckfly off the surface, but, as there were two other boats trolling in the area around the Island, just trolled by the fish as trying the fly was a waste of time, he would be put down by one of the other boats even if we had been able to glide into position without spooking him. We then motored out over the long shallow, across to Malachy's Island and back to Inishcash, before we had got bored trolling. We then decided to persist with the fly rods, even though the conditions were adverse to any likely success.

Moving on towards Portcarron point to try the flies in the rocky shallows outside bog bay, as it is a good spot to find fish feeding on shrimp and hog louse, we fished a combination of hares ear nymphs and invicta patterns. After half an hour of trying to fish and row at the same time, (anything to move the boat) we decided to pull up onto the shore along the point to boil the Kettle and have lunch.

After a leisurely lunch, we were sitting back, watching the world go by, when we noticed a herringbone ripple appearing on the Lough in front of us. Things were looking up! Loading the kettle and remnants of our lunch hurriedly into the boat we pushed out again as the ripple increased. I decided to head straight to Inishcash, where we had seen feeding fish earlier, and, while motoring across replaced my flies on the cast, putting a small sooty spider on the top, a small black spider in the middle and a wingless Peter-ross on the point all size 14.

Setting the boat to drift a particular line to the Island, we started fishing farther out from the shore than where we expected the fish to be, so as not to spook any feeding trout. Within two minutes a fish rolled over Noel's top dropper, a connemara black tied as a Bumble and he was in, I carried on fishing as he played it, and, as it was ready for the net, flicked my line out and did the honours, netting a fine wild Corrib fish a fraction under 2lb. By the time Noel had removed the hook from his fish I was in, this fish taking the Peter-Ross variant, and shortly netted a fine trout of 1½ pounds. Fifty yards further on as we approached the shore Noel rose and missed a small fish. I pulled on the Oar to move us fractionally, allowing us to skirt the point of the Island and as we passed two fish rose to my top two flies simultaneously and on the strike I managed to set the hook in one. The fish turned out to be small and ended up coming off as I attempted swinging him to hand.

We moved no more fish on that drift, so swung around to do the same drift again but found no more fish. The wind switched direction and slackened off again, turning into a bare herringbone ripple. We fished a couple of different drifts but to no avail, so with 30 minutes of light left we decided to troll the sprats again as we meandered in past Inishgarraun back into Basils jetty. As the boat passed Lees point heading into Corrib View Bay, Noel had his sprat viciously assaulted, the fish however came off very quickly, just as mine had earlier in the day. That was to be the last action and we motored on into shore, cold and tired, but happy.

We packed the van, said our good-byes, slagged a few of the 'blanking' Mates and headed back to Dublin, leaving the Lough and its fish behind. Overall, and considering the poor conditions, we had done better than most with fish in the boat. Any day spent on Corrib is a good day, but to open the season without blanking is a very good day, as the fishing is very hit and miss this early in the year.
The few fish caught seemed to be in fine condition though, with very few 'slats' or un-recovered fish reported.

The journey back to Dublin drifted past lost in the conversation and post mortem of the days fishing, a short break in Kinnegad with a well deserved Pint for Noel and Coffee for me saw us looking forward to the Midland Loughs opening on 1st March. Now those Ennell fish should be on the feed by then, pray god there's a little wind, or better still, a lot of wind!