I have recently joined Ballynure Angling Club and they where having their first competition of the year at Tildarg so I headed up at around 9.30am and was greated by a strong gusting Westerly wind with boughts of rain. I set up with my new koma kassette and snowbee buzzer line and a size 12 Holo Necked Black buzzer on the point and a size 16 orange firefoil on the dropper. My boat partner Billy and I headed down the far end of the lake as the other boats had congregated around the top half of the lake, we fished for an about 30 mins or so with no luck, then I lifted my rod up in the air and was dicussing the buzzer line with billy with my holo necked buzzer hanging in the water and BANG!!! fish on, It stayed deep but it didnt feel like a stock rainbow, far too thrashy, showing the signs of a wild fish and when it came to the surface this beauty greated me



With the brown trout safely released I was happy catching the brown trout and didnt care if I didnt catch anything else all day but slogged on anyway through the wind and the rain. With a few more missed takes and getting smashed a few times, Billy missed a nice fish that took his whole cast. We fished on with no luck, others from the club had been using intermediate and sinking lines so moved out into the deeper water and switched to fast glass intermediate with a mini orange booby and fished it with slow strips and fast figure 8, but no luck. Changed onto a hot head damsel but after 30 mins with no luck we moved back tight into the bank and switched back to buzzers with an olive and a black holo necked buzzers on. I had a big hit and looked at leader, well where a leader should have been, the wee ****** snapped my leader so retied my cast but used a Hares Head Buzzer (will post a picture in a few days) on the dropper and new holo neck on point, fished on for a another 20 mins and thought i had hit the weed but when i brought my line up my cast that I had lost was attached with my two flies, make both of us laugh and got my buzzers back. I then hit this nice rainbow



It was 2lb or so and gave me a hell of a fight despite it not having best of tails, it stayed deep but was good craic. We fished on again missing fish and then another fish hit me and made a huge arc around the boat and gave me a nice fight, with it safely in the bag, it took the Hares Head buzzer which was nice as it was first time id fished it since it came off the vice, just a wee variant i tied up and will be getting the production line going for them. We fished on for a while and then Billy finally got his first fish the boat on a black buzzer. We packed up for the day at around 4pm.

Overall it was very enjoyable day, the brown made my day. Initially i was concerned about the buzzer line, whether or not it was worth it but after using it for the day I can say it is definitely worth it, it gives a heightened sense of the take and it took a while to get used to but i can say it made the bites feel more connected if you know what i mean, its hard to describe. The Koma Kassette was excellent, i managed to get 100m of wychwood 20lb backing and the entire buzzer line with room to spare and with the space saved it my bag with kassettes it is def worth the investment.

Chris

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2009 ITFFA Inter-Provincial Champions - ULSTER

I see through people for a living!!