Six species in five hours fishing, roach, bream, hybrid, dace, eel, trout, all in tip top condition. How many venues can lay claim to that level of fishing? A return visit to the River Barrow delivered in style with some quality bream and a bonus trout. The rain fell in stair rods for two hours solid but that didn’t deter from the action or the fun.
A big thank you to Gerry McStraw of Carlow Coarse Angling Supplies for providing his left over groundbait mix and offering some good advice on the chosen venue. Overcast, humid, and still, within an hour of arriving the heavens opened. Monsoon is the only description, no wind, rain straight up and down, our pitch became a mudbath, but the bites were frequent.
Feeder fishing at twenty meters with red maggot and Gerry’s secret mix bites came on within ten minutes and remained constant throughout the session. Initially hybrids, then a few dace, before a bream in the three pound bracket put a right curve in the rod. Not a dustbin lid but a welcome sight, my first Barrow bream. Davy did well on his first coarse angling trip, catching five species, including that welcome trout.
While unhooking the trout Davy found a length of flourocarbon attached to a maggot baited size 14 embedded in the scissors. “This trout is either hungry or very stupid. Remember the fish that broke you earlier on, well I think I have just caught him”. Then the ribbing started, all part of the gig. Eventually the rain stopped, a watery sun shone through, and a few more fish came the way of two muddy, wet, and happy anglers, before finally calling it a day.
