two good days on the river...

I fished two competitions last weekend, both on rivers. I won the club competition on Saturday with the best three fish (a 3 fish bag limit, I caught about 8 takeable fish in total).

On Sunday it was the provincial championships, where I came second on my beat behind the overall winner. He and the beat winners of the other 4 beats will represent the province later in the year. I ended up as first reserve, my points total being the highest runner-up out of all the beats. (In fact my points were higher than some of the other beat winners, but to allow each beat to provide more than one qualifier is unfair on those drawn on the poorer beats that cannot hope to compete against a better beat draw. )
I was happy with the result, the winner deserved his victory, and fished very hard for the day. I did not work nearly as hard, but just fished to catch and enjoy the day. I stopped and watched the eventual winner for about 15 minutes in the morning session, and knew he was going to do very well, his work rate was high and he had the right methods and flies for the day.
I had decided to fish a team of spider patterns and a gold-head nymph, rather than dry fly (the winner was fishing dry, and then covering the water again with goldhead nymphs!!) and perservered with the method. I caught a couple of good fish too, up to 35cm. I only caught one below the 20cm minimum size, so my techniques worked in that sense. My fishing was a lot more relaxed than would have been needed, but I wanted to enjoy the day, and with the company of my steward (umpire), who was extremely pleasant, I arrived back at the "weigh-in" (points tally- it was catch and release) feeling relaxed and happy with my day.
I was actually surprised to be top runner-up, because even though I knew I was 2nd on my beat I had thought others would have had more success on the other beats. I am looking forward to this Saturdays second leg of the club competition for the 'trout cup', I feel in the mood to repeat last weeks result and ensure I win it!

I really should fish the rivers more often...

Bohernabreena reservoirs.

I had an enjoyable afternoons fishing Yesterday. I fished the two lakes up at Bohernabreena, where the river Dodder rises in the Dublin Mountains. I caught a few nice little brown trout in the upper lake, and then walked down to the lower lake and fished for the larger fish there, catching a few of them also.
I had plenty of fish without fishing hard, and found them to be hard fighting in the cold water.
It was a change from my recent hard fishing days. I have also realised, my expectations from a days fishing are very different from the average. I have been fishing on a couple of occaisions recently with someone who would consider themselves a fairly good angler, with a better than average catch rate. His catches have been consistently under 20% of mine.

I have been fishing against anglers of a similar standard to myself for so long it is easy to forget that what I would consider an average catch is for many a red-letter day. When I go with Noel, while he doesn't fish very competitively any more, the ability to catch fish is still there. Noel doesn't mind not catching these days....(I do!!), but he can always pull out a fish or two, even when the fishing is hard and would not be an 'average' angler. Most angling is done outside of the competitive arena, I can forget that on occaision. Even my mayfly time 'week away' is in the company of an ex-international competitor from England, and contains an element of friendly rivalry...
However, if you want an enjoyable few hours fly fishing in beautiful surroundings, just outside of Dublin City, the lakes at Bohernabreena are available to members of the Dodder angling club, annual memberships are available in all the tackle shops for 10 euro!... Small dark flies work best in the reservoirs, if you are thinking of going.