Stephen Brennan of IrishSportFishing.com was out on Carrowmore Lake last week…
…the fresh fish which had entered the lake were in a taking mood, and we were rising fish on every drift. We actually rose three fish in the first five minutes!
The best fish landed came after an explosion on the surface of the water to my top dropper. The fish came clean out of the water and then stripped about fifty yards of backing. It made several more similar runs in various directions before deciding to hug the bottom around the boat. My cast was in a knotted mess from the initial jump and I applied as much pressure as I dared. By this stage I had a bit of an audience as several boats had stopped for a look. I could hear comments of “He’s had that fish on for over an hour”, and “He must be stuck in the bottom”. Normally this is the time when a fish is lost as the angler gets impatient and tries to force things, but there was only so much forcing I could do seeing as the tackle I was using was effectively trout gear.
After almost ninety minutes, the fish began to come to the surface every so often. Luckily for John he was able to net the fish – if he hadn’t then he would have gone overboard! We both estimated the fish to be a good 16lb, and at 89cm various online calculators give a weight of around 17-17.5lb.
Stephen was careful to give the fish enough time to fully recover and she swam off strongly.
For more photos and the full story see his blog at IrishSportFishing.com
