Eddie Long reports that Naas and District Anglers held the 2nd and 3rd rounds of their winter league on two wonderful stretches of the River Barrow, Bagnelstown and Graignamanagh…
2nd Round
The 2nd round of the Winter League was held on the 4th Dec and those chosen to fish their match on Graignamanagh had quite a tough day of it. I believe most were struggling badly with some even blanking up until the halfway point of the match, others were catching trout after trout which are obviously of no use in a match as they cannot be weighed in. Second half of the match saw the catch rates improve with Paul McLoughlin and Trev Campbell battling it out for the top spot and Trev winning at the end of the match. The Bagnelstown match fished quite a lot better with much better weights mostly caught on the whip! I elected to fish the pole but because I had to ship my pole parallel with the bank and keep my roller off the road I lost valuable time and just couldn’t compete with those on the whip! That’s my excuse anyway .
GRAIGNAMANAGH RESULTS
SECTION 1
- 1st Padraig O Riordan with 2.750kg
- 2nd Gravidas Karalius with 2.550kg
SECTION 2
- 1st Trev Campbell with 3.700kg
- 2nd Paul McLoughlin with 3.300kg
BAGNELSTOWN RESULTS
SECTION 1
- 1st Marius Matuiza with 10.550kg
- 2nd Lukasz Cizla with 8.125kg
SECTION 2
- 1st Fergal Scullier with 5.750kg
- 2nd Andrius Simbelis with 4.100kg.
3RD ROUND
This match was again held on the Bagnelstown and Graignamanagh stretches of the Barrow only this time the anglers switched venues, those that fished Bagnelstown would now fish Graignamanagh and vice versa.
I was on Graignamanagh and unfortunately because some boats had been vandalised in the days leading up to our match access was only permitted on foot so we couldn’t drive to our pegs to drop our gear and then park the vans up. Of course I drew one of the farthest pegs and with me being quite a lazy sod I decided I wasn’t going to hump all my gear all that way so I decided to travel light and fish only a 6m whip. I brought my very handy Behr feeder seat along with nets, groundbait buckets and a few other essentials.
To be honest my heart really wasn’t in it that morning and I was still setting up a whip rig when the all in was called at 11:30am. That being said I did ball in about six balls of a very sticky mix of Gros Gardons, Secret, Black magic and some VDE roach additive and by the time I had my whip rig ready I thought surely there’d be some fish in my peg. I flicked out my rig which consisted of Stroft .12 and a 3g wire stem Perfect Gloucester float and bam, fish on! My first fish to enter the keepnet was a nice plump roach but for the first half hour the catch rate was not exactly a fish a chuck.
I put all my particle bait (caster) in through my groundbait and decided to up the bait going in so every put in I fired in a squeezed handful of groundbait and caster. It wasn’t long before my catch rate improved and I was getting a fish a chuck, mostly dace with the odd perch. Looking down to my left I saw our newest member Conleth Loonan netting some clonking perch which I thought had to be around the 2lb mark. Anyway, I kept my bait going in every chuck till the end of the match at 3:30pm and was very happy with how my days fishing had gone.
I don’t think I could have done better on the pole and the stamp of fish didn’t improve with more maggot on the hook so I was very happy with the way I had fished and the day that started off with me really not bothered about making an effort turned out to be a really enjoyable day on the bank.
The boys all came down to begin the weigh in on peg 10 and Lukasz K was first to be weighed in. I knew he had struggled on this peg as it was very deep but I don’t think there was much else he could have done, just don’t think the fish were there in numbers. As the weigh in progressed up the line I was next and weighed in over 6.5kg which I was very happy with but there was box of Colonel Sanders finest chicken riding on whether I’d best Neil Keanes’ weight. He beat me but just over 100 grams and unfortunately I was again buying the chicken in KFC Carlow but I didn’t really mind as I’m a savage for the Colonels secret recipe chicken.
With each angler being weighed in up the line the nets improved every time. There were some really fine nets of fish caught on the day Graignamanagh with Peter Walsh topping the scales on peg 1 with 10.820kg. I’m confident that everyone had a really enjoyable day and there really were some super nets of fish caught.
RESULTS
Section 1
- 1st Peter Walsh with 10.820kg
- 2nd Andrius Saulys with 10.340kg
SECTION 2
- 1st Ronald Durkin with 9.220kg
- 2nd Neil Keane with 6.670kg
BAGNELSTOWN
I can’t really comment on how Bagnelstown fished but everyone seemed to catch well with Padraig O Riordan absolutely sacking up on peg 1 with 12.350kg and his closest rival was Ollie Doyle with 8.425kg. Lovely fishing lads and Padraig, that was a super result over the two rounds! Two section wins, brilliant stuff! Delighted for you 
😀
BAGNELSTOWN RESULTS
SECTION 1
- 1st Padraig O Riordan with 12.350kg
- 2nd Ollie Doyle with 8.425kg
SECTION 2
- 1st Trev Campbell with 7.175kg
- 2nd Shane Kavanagh with 5.000kg.
Well done to everyone that fished these two matches. I think you’ll all agree, they’re both cracking venues and put out some fabulous nets of fish and I hope you all enjoyed yourselves. Well done to those on the committee who organised these matches and did all the pegging and behind the scenes work, take a bow lads, you know who you are!
Anyway, that’s it from me. See you all on the bank for round 4.
Tight lines
Eddie Long.
PRO
Naas & District Anglers
The New Naas & District Anglers Club was set up on the 31 August 2012. Our Club is a Social club. The waters around Naas are Home to brown trout ,salmon,eels, pike, perch, bream, rudd, tench. Naas and District Anglers are dedicated towards getting kids involved in the sport of angling.
Club Members are responsible for restocking and ensuring that all angling byelaws are complied with.
Membership of the club is always open and we welcome new members with open arms.
