There are two activites that will make you go blind

The first is widely known.

The second is staring at a fishing float for two long.

As my buddy Ali has recently taken on a slightly less labour intensive job we decided we should celebrate by a wee fishing excursion. As usual the weather didn't play ball but as both of us had already received our day release passes from our significant others we were determined to make the most of the day.

The venue chosen was once again Murloc Fishery in Aghalee, I'm a big fan of this place, the lodges faculties are great, the owner Fred is always on hand to help you out if you're struggling and possibly because it's new the other fishers are even more friendlier to new faces.

To begin the day we started in the more sheltered side, left of the jetty. There was a slight breeze that was building up quite quickly. This enabled us to get our casting fine tuned and quite quickly I got into a plucky rainbow of about a pound on an apps bloodworm. After a fishless half an hour afterwards it was suggested that we try the opposite bank. Usually I'll avoid casting into wind as I'm a bit of wimp and it upsets me when my casts end up in a heap at my feet. It was a nice surprise to find that my casting must have improved as with a couple of tips from Fred and a little change in style i was almost able to get a decent cast out. Yay

Unfortunately the task of catching more fish didn't have the same progress as my casting. The remainder of the day was pretty much fishless for myself and was spent going cross eyed staring at my bobbing but not sinking pimp. Ali on the other hand was still in strong fish fighting spirits. With short casts around the weeds and the pontoon he managed to get two strong takes. The first he managed to lose after a knot gave way, bloody amatures ;), and the second he miss-timed the strike even after it had been pointed out by a passing fisher tsk tsk.

With the gusting wind we faced I'm not surprised we didn't get more fish. It was a day where everyone seemed to struggle. There was one noticeable exception one fella, John, had managed to crack the code and to get all the ingredients right, the wind seemed to be funneling the fish at him and whatever he was presenting to them (rumour was it was some strange leggy claret goldhead hopper thingy) was working extremely effectively. By the time we left he had a tally of around forty eight!!

A special mention I feel should be made to Alan Coleman, not only was he the fella who almost caught Ali his second trout, he's the first person to recognise me solely from this Blog. Cheers for your kind words and I hope the rest of the day was more productive for you.