Posts Tagged ‘Carrickmacross’

Bream Fishing in Co. Monaghan

Thursday, July 8th, 2010

A planned trip to fish for bream in Co. Monaghan proved successful but not in the way that was originally envisaged. Peadar and I agreed on a small venue that had produced bream for some English clients of his last year, and also been kind to him in club matches. On arriving the lake looked ideal, reed fringed and well catered for with fishing stands, the water ruffled by the breeze had a lovely colour to it. Peadar chose two adjacent stands located in a quite corner giving access to a drop off thirty metres offshore.  A sunny, humid day, with a strong south westerly breeze blowing, fishing without prebaiting we still felt confident.

Peadar O'Brien with a fine County Monaghan, Ireland bream.

Feeder fishing casters and sweetcorn while baiting up with four red maggot or a maggot sweetcorn combo, both aiming at a tree on the far shore we built up a swim over a narrow area thirty metres out. Quickly I started to catch very small skimmers, a good sign, Peadar hooking small perch. After an hour Peadar’s rod took on a nice bend, “I’m in and it’s a good fish”. Whoever said bream come in like a wet sack didn’t tell this fellow. The lily pads were favourite to win on a few occasions as the fish stayed deep and swam towards them. Eventually the fish was netted, a fine bream running four pounds+.

Peadar O' Brien playing a large bream, County Monaghan, Ireland.

So the pattern continued throughout the day, Peadar caught perch and every hour or so hooked, played, and landed another lunker bream. I on the other hand must have been casting my feeder into the creche for all I could tempt was the babies and a few perch. We were fishing within feet of each other. Peadar, a seasoned coarse fisher and ex Irish International was adamant that I was fishing correctly, “it was just the day that was in it”, or maybe Peadar’s aftershave? With the World Cup semi between Germany and Spain beckoning we upped sticks at five o’clock.

Angling guide Peadar O' Brien with a fine catch of County Monaghan, Ireland, bream.

The day had been a success, with no prebaiting Peadar had landed four quality bream in five hours fishing. Prebaiting combined with an earlier start could certainly enable a competent coarse angler to amass a hundred pound bag here. With that in mind plans are afoot to do just that, hopefully the creche will be on summer holidays by then.