The warmer weather in the past week did not change much in angling around the country as there was a mixture of very wet weather at times.  There are parts of the country which have seen very little rain and in other areas very high water levels prevail and some rivers are unfishable.  Overall however anglers are still catching quiet well for this time of year and in some places like the Moy, there was over 1,000 fish recorded in the past week.

There was a fair bit of Coarse angling activity last week, and young anglers from the Carrickmacross Coarse angling & junior development club enjoyed some good fishing under the guidance of local angling guide Peadar O’Brien.   On the River Shannon, there was some good bream fishing reported including a fine 140 lb. catch for Elliot from Nuneaton in the UK fishing with his dad at Carrick on Shannon.  Some of smaller loughs in the Mullingar fished well with Ned O’Reilly catching a lovely specimen bream of 7 lb. 12 oz. The Royal Canal near Clondra produced some good catches lately of quality roach and hybrids.  At Melview Lodge in Longford three Dutch anglers had great fishing with Kevin Lyons including specimen bream and some fine tench and hybrids.  Loughs in the Ballyconnell, Ballinamore and Cavan areas produced some good fishing and Corgar lough was the highlight producing some good bream and tench.

There was some pike angling activity and angling guide Kenny Sloan had more French anglers out fishing in the Foxford area and the party enjoyed excellent fishing including two pike of over a metre.   Italian visitors fishing with angling guide Michael Flanagan fished on Lough Lene and had some lovely pike on fly.

Gary Robinson with a huge tope taken while fishing in kayak off Wicklow
Gary Robinson with a huge tope taken while fishing in kayak off Wicklow

The wet summer has been super for salmon anglers this year and there was plenty of fish reported this week on most of the fisheries on the Munster Blackwater where fish to 18.1 lb. were recorded.   Many of the other fisheries in the Cork Kerry area produced great numbers of salmon during the week with some super fishing on the Laune.  It was another consistent week for anglers catching good numbers of sea trout and many grilse on Lough Currane mainly on fly. William Murphy caught two nice spring salmon on the River Feale.  Water levels were high in Galway but there was excellent fishing reported in Connemara.  It was described as sea trout bonanza on Lough Inagh and there was good fishing reported also on nearby Kylemore fishery.  It was another good week for anglers fishing on the River Erriff and at Delphi.  In northwest Mayo anglers enjoyed good sport on the Newport River and on the Owenduff River.   The Moy estuary fished well for sea trout and as already stated all fisheries throughout the Moy system fished very well.  Anglers fishing the Ballisodare fishery had another great week and there was also good fishing reported from the River Drowes in Co. Donegal.

It has been another good week for sea anglers and on the east coast one angler Gary Robinson fishing in his kayak off the Wicklow beaches caught and released two huge tope on successive days this week.  See the dramatic pictures to Gary with his huge fish in this week’s update which were quickly released and this tremendous catch is our Catch of the Week. In the same area well known angling journalist, Mike Trussell had some terrific fishing for tope, spurdog and smoothounds off the Wicklow coast.   The Waterford Bass Festival proved a great success.  There was some super fishing off Roches Point for cod, whiting and pollack.  A Dutch father and son team fished with bass guide Richie Ryan and enjoyed super fishing catching quality bass and cod in the Cork Harbour area. At Courtmacsherry Blue Shark to 2.1 metres along with huge range of species for anglers were recorded in several trips in the past week.  In the Shannon Estuary, there was some fine pollack fishing reported taken on shad baits.  There was some excellent species reported by angler’s deep sea fishing in the Broad Haven Bay area in Co. Mayo.  On a sad note, at the time of writing the rescue services are searching for a man swept off the rocks at Culloo in Valencia.  Anglers, please be careful when fishing off rock marks and wear a lifejacket while afloat.

It is nice to report plenty of trout fishing at this time of year and there were reports of good sedge fishing for trout at the Carton House Fisheries.  Up on Lough Sheelin there was some good fishing on the green peter.  Hatches of Murroughs and Green Peter brought out some big trout on the feed in Lough Ennell. There were very little hatches of Peters or Murroughs yet on Lough Owel although there was some good fishing reported.  The Irish Ladies team had super trout fishing while fishing on Lough O’Flynn in Co. Roscommon.  Over in the west there were only a few anglers out but good sport to be had on Corrib. A German Angling journalist caught a big ferox brown trout on his visit to Lough Corrib.  The World Cup preparations have begun on Lough Mask.  On nearby Lough Carra, dry sedge patterns were producing good trout fishing.  There was some great late evening fishing on Lough Arrow. Dry flies and buzzer patterns were best for rainbow trout at the Cashel Trout Fishery.

Tight lines especially in Ireland,
Paul Bourke
Catch, Photo, Release


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