those of you who know me know how much I love Ireland. And this year I am going to fish the waterways Ireland classic in and around enniskillen.

The festival is a week long and this year has been brought forwards two weeks to start on the 28th April to try and coincide with the annual fish migration through the town.

I am lucky enough to have won this festival back in 1999, that year there were over 400 competitors, in the last few years numbers have dwindled to around 275 but they should pick up with the shifting of the match to an earlier date.

The days of big weights fishing pole to hand have unfortunately passed, and anyway I have always maintained you can catch more consistently on long pole short line over the course of a match. Feeder fishing tends to dominate anyway so its a case of long range accurate casting.

It tends to be very windy out on the open lough and this takes out alot of the competition as people just start fishing too far out and when the wind picks up later in the day then they are casting all over!

Anyway I am just getting the shimanos loaded with fresh technium and tying up a load of series 18 hooks. Next week will move onto the pole rigs!