Leigh Maitland of Browning and coarseandmatch.com reports:
The Ballyhaunis Angling Club held there first ever Memorial match in honour of veteran angler Bill Dyett’s wife who sadly passed away earlier on in the year.
Bill, is a long standing UK angler and now resides here in Ireland for the last 8 years, before moving over Bill and his wife (Heather) had frequented Counties Leitrim and Roscommon fishing as many venues as they could since the 70’s travelling back and forth up to 6 times a year for the amazing fishing and scenery Ireland has to offer.
One of Heathers favourite venues to fish was the River Suck, Donamon, Co Roscommon. It was decided by Bill and myself that this would be a great place to hold the event as the access is brilliant and the large Popular trees on the far bank offer amazing shelter from the great summer weather we are getting at the minute!
The draw took place at 09:30 with fishing from 11:00am till 4:00pm, Section A was filled and section B only had 1 spare peg left in it so the match was looking to be a good one.
I chose not to set up the feeder rod today as I was confident that the resident roach could be tempted into feeding fairy easily on the pole line as I had about 4m of water in front of me at 13m , I mixed up a dark groundbait mix containing Browning Black Magic and VDE Black Secret, in this I had a handful of casters and hemp, with a pinch of fresh pinkies.

Rigs for today was simple, I had a 1g Cralusso Alan with 4xNo 10 droppers spread out over 1m from a bulk of No8’s to the hook on a 0.12mm Browning Hybrid main line to a size 20 Tubertini hook on a 0.10mm hook length of the same line to a No3 Elastic.
I then had a slightly heavier 1.5g Alan Float with 3 No10 droppers spread out over 60cm from bulk to hook, using the same line and hooks as my first rig.
The last rig I had set up was a 2g double bulk rig, again it was a Cralusso Alan set up on a 0.14mm Browning Hybrid line, a size 18 Tubertini hook to an 0.12mm Hook length, shotting was an Olivette positioned 30cm from the hook with 3xNo10’s pushed together just above the hook length knot (15cm Hook length) this will be used if it becomes a bagging match and need to get the bait down quicker
On the whistle I cupped in 3 hard orange sized balls and 1 softer ball at 13m, I laid the rig in up stream to allow my baited hook to to reach the bottom just over my initial feed area, first put in produced a Roach of 60g (2oz), this continued for about 4 hours cupping in 1 ball every 30 minutes or so and loose feeding hemp and caster every put in, the last hour slowed up probably due to the couple of small jack pike that had decided to move in for some easy pickings 🙂
Fishing wasn’t up to its usual standards for the River Suck but every one caught fish and it was an enjoyable day had by all,
- Leigh Maitland (Browning) – 6.700kg (Pole/Caster)
- Shane Dunne (Ireland/Tubertini) – 2.600kg (Feeder/maggot)
- Marcus Kirwan (Roscommon) – 2.240kg (Pole/Maggot)
- Steven Dyett (The Host) – 2.200kg (Pole/Maggot

Ballyhaunis AC would like to thank Tooman Angling for the donation of 2 €50 voucher that was awarded to Steven Dyett and David Morris, Also a big thanks to Steve Dyett who travelled from England to fish and for providing the shield for the competition
We are now taking names for the 2012/13 winter league, if anyone is interested or requires any further information please email [email protected]
Leigh Matiland
Browning and coarseandmatch.com