Pike
fishing in Ireland
This
'AnglersTale' is submitted by 14-year-old Steven Young from Kings Lynn,
Norfolk
I
went on holiday this Easter with my parents to Ireland and did some
fishing for pike. I was struggling all week trying to catch on various
lochs like Loch Conn, Loch Cullin and Loch Urlaugh. I finally found
a loch called Derryhick where they stocked all the pike removed from
Loch Conn.
By
this time I had discovered that the pike were feeding in the mornings,
so we got up early to start fishing - just as it got light and finished
to about 12:30.
I managed to catch 6 pike and about 10 minutes before we packed up I
beat my previous personal best for a third time with a fish weighing
in at 14lb 7oz. I caught my fish at the end of the holiday when I started
fishing Derryhick these weighed in at 8lb 6oz, 11lb, 2x3lb and a small
one of about 8oz. I caught all my fish on a ledgered sardine with two
sized 6 semi barbed hooks on a long wire trace of 25lb breaking strain
on 15lb mainline fished at long range in 9ft of water.
My
dad was catching a lot of pike from Loch Urlaugh but as he didn’t
have the use of a boat he could only fish a 100 yard stretch of the
bank, however he was catching fish of minimum 6lb up to 14lb over 3
days of fishing.
The
pike had already spawned so they were down deep and we couldn’t
get to the deep stretches on Loch Conn or Kullen so we had little luck
there. After a couple of days my dad decided to turn it into a match
so I ended up with the biggest fish of the holiday however my dad ended
up with the most fish.
The
weather was perfect for fishing as one day we had cyclonic weather which
fish love. Where as on another day when I caught my 14lb 7oz - we had
force 8-9, south westerly winds with sunny spells, hail and heavy downpours
and the rod rests kept blowing over and dad had to shelter in the car
as he is getting soft.
On
the day before - a pike kept attacking dad's stationary float but didn’t
take the bait 6 inches under it. Also at one point we had four runs
at the same time - we both had 2 rods each - but we only managed to
land two fish in the end.
Steven
Young
|