Ireland results - Carp Vader Competition

Oneabung · #1 (**permalink**) 6th May 2008, 08:31 AM

Hi Guys and Girls,

Just got back from my week in Ireland.... a very mixed bag to say the least.

For the Carp Vader Competition purposes here are my weights for the week - full report will appear in my blog as soon as I get a chance to type it up..

Day 1 - Drew Trory 14, can be a good peg but on the day the lake was flat calm.... blanked!

Day 2 - First Day of the Classic, drew Boa Island 15 - it had also blanked the day before so I decided to ball it - put in 60 balls and caught 34.940 Kg of mainly roach with several over 2lb!! Third overall out of 255 pegs.

Day 3 - First Day of King of the Erne... drew Derrychara 18, can be a very good bream peg - (should have fished for roach)... had 4.000 Kg

Day 4 - Second day of classic.... Drew Muckross - shouldn't have bothered going but was sitting third in the classic at this point..... blanked!

Day 5 - Second day of King of the Erne... Drew Ely Lodge 18, there were quite a few bream showing on Ely - put 45 balls in in the first hour, next hour caught 8 bream - then it went flat calm like glass and sunny - stopped catching other than odd roach - ended with 22.720 Kg for 2nd overall in 205 pegs.

Day 6 - Last day of classic, drew Cornagrade 7 - there went my chances in the classic!! Was next to Mark Downes... we both scratched around on the pole and I spent 2 hours during the match looking for bream over the balls I put in at the start but never saw one - this cost me framing in the classic and ended up 9th! Weighed 8.320 Kg on the day - Downsy had 6 Kg!

So a very good week and paid for the holiday in pickups!

Total weight - 69.99 Kg = 154 lb

justin case · #2 (**permalink**) 6th May 2008, 12:33 PM

Did you have fun though ?

Shame the fishing was a little on and off but you caught a few fish and thats the main thing.

Well done for beating Downsy off the next peg *wicked grin*

I bet the evenings made up for the fishing

Oneabung · #3 (**permalink**) 6th May 2008, 02:56 PM

Oh yeah its great craic! The town fills up and every night is a good one.

For a little town Enniskillen has some fantastic resturants and pubs, some of the lads did take things a bit too far I'm afraid to report and there were some very sore heads.

royst · #4 (**permalink**) 6th May 2008, 04:38 PM

Well done Simon.

That sounds like an awful lot of ground bait? How much is 60 balls and did you ball it the night before? and how long did that take to throw in?
Sorry for silly questions but never considered using that much bait in one session, I'm just intriged by it......it obviously works!

Oneabung · #5 (**permalink**) 7th May 2008, 08:40 AM

What I do when I want to get that amount of bait into the peg depends on the depth and colour of the water. The pegs I am talking about are genrally quite shallow - 6 to 12ft and the water is VERY clear out in ireland. You don't risk putting it all in in one hit just in case there are a load of bream sitting in front of you as more than likely a load of balls will scare them off.

So what I do is make up the balls before the start which saves a load of time, then all you do is every time you cast the feeder you put a ball right on top of it - I don't think you need to be really accurate as your feeder is carrying most of the loosefeed and any balls dropping short or going a bit too far just serve to hold some fish in your peg later in the match. Using this method you can judge easily how the balls are affecting your catch rate and if fish are backing off the feed. If there happen to be no fish in front of you then you can step up to 3 balls per chuck and get the lot put in early in hope that when they arrive they then stop in front of you and nobody else. You have to remember that the shoals of fish in Ireland are like nothing you have ever seen - even if you emptied 10 sensas buckets out in your peg sometimes that would only last five minutes, too many people go out there and don't feed.

jethro · #6 (**permalink**) 7th May 2008, 04:49 PM

You sound disappointed Simon, when really I think you had a good chance. reading your short synopsis apart from two bad days you came close. Did you need to fish lower diametre than previous years, did you think their were plenty of fish to be caught if the conditions had been a little better. Still a few envelopes.Well done I think.

..Jethro..