Taking my own advice, I went in search of a new venue somewhere small and not often or heavily fished and looking at the map I located a number of small lakes in the Bailieboro area of Co Cavan. I have fished the Castle, Town, Drumkeery and Skeagh lakes before but I was looking for a blank canvas, somewhere new. The lake outside of Bailieboro was small, reasonably good access but only one or two naturally occuring swims. If I could get a few fish from this unfamiliar water I would be more than happy.
It was a mild enough day, around 10 degrees and overcast but with a strong squally breeze. I decided to fish feeder 45cm hook length down to .10mm, with a size 14 hook. I was fishing about thirty turns into 10ft of water. After about 10 feeders full of black groundbait, the feeder settled and bites started almost straight away. Not what I was expecting though, a nice rudd about 6ozs was the first fish of the day. Rudd are an extremely handsome fish and lovely to catch on float. Next fish was another small rudd and then all changed. I thought that I was getting into better fish but as the fish got nearer I could see the striped flank of a nice sized perch. With the mouth open and the dorsal raised these fish always seem to be heavier than they actually are. When the bites slowed and I upped the bait to 4 red maggots and this kept the fish coming.
The majority of fish for the session were perch with an occasional rudd. On one occasion I struck into what felt like a better fish that broke me off before it could be netted. What it was, a hybrid or something else I thought I would never know. As it turned out later in the session I hooked what I thought was a better fish and discovered that it was a wild brown trout. I landed the fish and unhooked it only to discover my line from the break off was traling from its mouth. The rogue hook was removed and the fish photographed and released unharmed back to the lake.
A most enjoyable session produced a nice net of fish, some of which were photographed prior to release. I am looking forward to my next outing which I am sure will be to a location less visited.
