Garrett Ruigrok reports on the first heat of our winter league at the Courtland Trout Fishery in North Co. Dublin.
We had a busy week in preparation getting the place scrubbed up, water levels topped up and the last (thank God…) grass cut of the year.
The morning was sizing up well, flat calm, still and reasonably mild, with fish seen mooching the surface before the off. Our regular juniors had an outing on the lake the day before and had reasonably good fishing, with the boys who could handle sinking lines doing the best by far……. I think that kind of says it all…..
Soon after 10am the gunshot started the fishing and Tony McCrave landed the first fish of the day, and if he had any luck at all he could have nearly wrapped things up early but the ‘rubber hooks’ he was using just weren’t holding the fish. 2 anglers had hit their 5 fish per peg limit at the first half hour rotation. Today it appeared that the deeper sections of the fishery were performing best and sinking lines were the order of the day, lures and tungsten nymphs were banking most fish in the early stages.
We fished from 10 until 2 with the anglers moving 4 pegs left every half hour, hence allowing a full circuit of the fishery throughout the competition. We had introduced a small fresh stocking of fish earlier in the week and it seems that these had awoken our more established resident trout and we had very good fishing for the session. A couple of better fish were landed including a 56cm fish for Karl Murrin and a 61cm fish for Daniel Scully who had an epic battle with his fish on light tackle.
The weather held off well and at 2 o’clock everyone retired for the stew while the scores were tallied up with Joe Hennessy earning the honours prize for most stew eaten (bottomless pit !!!!)At the finish the winner was Matt Campbell (Dundalk) with 17 fish landed, 2nd was Karl Murrin (Drogheda) with 15, and 3rd was Gar Murphy with 14.
The final tally of fish landed was a very impressive 161 for the session.
The top 3 received a new Airflo flyline and automatic qualification for the final in March.
A big thank you to all of the anglers for supporting the event, looking forward to seeing you for the next heat on Sunday 22nd December. Big shout to Keith Marry, Damien Franzoni and Don Johnston (who’s wife landed a cracking baby girl yesterday) for their help in running the day. Thanks lads.
The fishery is open 7 days a week from 9.30 until dark, all visits must be booked in advance please on 087 2712704.
