Here we have the articulate John Cole telling us about the fishing conditions on the Inny and the persistence of his buddy Peter. And as the saying goes Persistence pays off !! John has a keen eye for nature and not only describes the river life but also the wonderful surroundings.
Flaming June has no resemblance to the weather we’ve had over the past years, the start of this month has been horrendous what with Cold, Wet, and Windy conditions and a complete Lack of Fish.
Anglers are as rare as the Fish apart from the efforts of Peter Wood who has braved all conditions to bring a glimmer of hope to this web site. Peter has had very good success in his travels to various locations from Tarnmonbarry and as far down to the Shannon, not forgetting the Canal at the N55 turn off. With great catches of specimen Tench, Roach and the odd Bream, the best brace of Tench being of the 6 lbs class with others from 5.5 lbs down to 4 lbs.
Along with these great fish he has produced fine catches of mixed bags of Roach, Hybrids and small Bream.
On my travels to our stretch of the Inny, from Newcastle Wood to the entrance at Tommy Fox’s turned out to be very Sad with no sign of fish in the whole section, very little wildlife (no Kingfishers, Otters, Herons or anything else that relies on their feedings from the river).
Turning to my travels along the Canal from Branigan’s Harbour to Abbeyshrule was a different story, plenty of Life both in the water and surrounding habitat. Not too many anglers apart from Branigan’s where there were 4 anglers at the cottage and a further few up at the Bend.
As I write there’s been tremendous Rain around 4 inches or so, this has now emptied into the river and canal thus bringing the levels well up and refreshing what was Very Stale conditions.
I have been checking on our family of Peregrine Falcons to which our last report there were 2 chicks but in fact there are 3 to which they are now three times the size and continuously feeding on food from their busy parents which shows in their rapid growth.
John Coles
