Three young anglers from Meath had a great day on the water in County Monaghan last weekend. The trio were after pike and they had hoped to fish on Saturday, but with rain and wind forecast throughout the day, they postponed to Sunday morning – with a lunchtime deadline to get home for the Ireland football match.
Sunday turned out to be calm and dry – perfect for a day afloat. On arrival at the lake, however, it was clear that water levels were way up from all of the recent rainfall, with much of the boat ramp submerged. This was a worry, as a drop in temperatures might put the pike off.
Once afloat, the trio set about casting their lures into all the likely spots, and they needn’t have worried, as it wasn’t long before the first pike was on the line – a 3 lb jack on the ever-reliable golden Rapala for Shane. Next up was Luke, who landed a slightly smaller fish on another diving lure, but then things went quiet for a while.
The guys searched all the way to the far end of the lake for fish and eventually decided to troll their lures back to where they started. Then, halfway back, a fish whacked Kevin’s lure, and the rod buckled. Kevin, who is more used to jigging for mackerel and pollack in saltwater, had never caught a pike before. Keeping a good bend in the rod, he played this one expertly all the way to the net – once again it was a golden Rapala that did the damage. A fine fish for a first pike – maybe 5 or 6 lb in weight.
One or two other fish struck at the lures but didn’t connect. And so, with a hat-trick of fish caught, the guys packed up and headed for home to watch another hat-trick, which put the cherry on top for a perfect Sunday.
