It comes as no surprise that there is a lot to report this week in the Irish Angling Update. The beautiful weather encouraged many anglers who had yet to wet a line this year to dust off rods and reels and return to river bank, sea shore or boat. Although many found the bright, sunny and often very calm conditions did not make for good fishing there were plenty of anglers who managed to get some great fishing in with the fine weather.

Salmon anglers are reporting low water at most fisheries with many rivers running at summer time levels. The fishing has been a bit hit and miss and though there are fresh fish running the rivers all the time they are not often in a taking mood. The lakes have fared a bit better with Carrowmore doing particularly well. 10 salmon between 8 and 13lbs were landed by anglers over the last week who report that the Green Peter is a very killing fly at present. The Ridge Pool webcam is back in action again and can be viewed at this link.

Conor Lynch and his 10lb trout
Conor Lynch wins Catch of the Week for this 10lb trout

The warm weather has brought on some great hatches of fly on river and lake and though the day’s end has been mostly too cool for an evening rise there were plenty of fly anglers willing to spend their time casting to likely looking spots behind rocks and under bushes. On Lough Conn buzzers accounted for a number of trout between 1lbs and 1.5lbs. The hatches of Duckfly, Olives, Sedges and even the occasional Mayfly on Loughs Mask and Corrib made for more varied fishing and these venues could be well worth a visit.

There were some great sea angling reports from the coast of Ireland this week. Bass, along with some sea trout, feature in reports from Wexford where lures are tempting these prized fish. East Cork venues also produced bass, though bait was the tactic of choice there. The recent Ballybunion Sea Angling festival was fished in glorious weather;  clear blue skies, a light breeze, unbroken sunshine and only a slight ‘lap’ at the water’s edge. Of course this made for poor fishing and many anglers struggled to catch. Boat anglers at the Light Lines competition in Cork Harbour fared much better with an average of 63 fish caught per rod.

Tench have made and early appearance in coarse anglers’ catches this year. Peter of innyangling.net fame was fishing the Royal Canal in the upper Shannon catchment when he took 4 fine tench amongst a catch of roach. Evening fishing at Town Lake, Bailieboro was productive for at least one angler over the weekend. Pre-baiting was the key to success and a good bag of bream and roach was put together. Leigh Maitland had a good afternoon on the Boyle River, Co Roscommon, catching 11kg of mainly Roach. Fans of Paul Waghorn will be delighted to hear that he is back reporting on the angling at Lanesborough in his own unique style. He has already fished a couple of days but the low water levels he encountered did not make for good angling, though he has seen good shoals of roach…

Pike are right in the middle of spawning now and already a few spent fish have been landed by anglers. Some big fish were also reported and Mullingar Angler Damian Grifferty rattled the scales on Ree with a huge pike well in the high double figures. Anglers on Upper Lough Erne have also done well and a fish of 28lb was boated by one fisherman using dead baits. Catch of the Week goes to Conor Lynch for his 10lb trout taken while pike fishing earlier this week at Carrick on Shannon.

The ACI and it’s Salmon and Sea Trout Recreational Anglers, SSTRAI, have come together with the Game Angling Instructors Association (GAIA) to provide a casting clinic day for all members and friends. This event, being run to raise funds for Autism Ireland, is also supported by IFI. We especially welcome  all people new to the sport of angling and fly fishing in particular. Find out more here.

The weather at time of writing is beautiful, but over the weekend it is likely to change.  Saturday will  cooler than previous days and there’ll be a good deal of cloud over north Leinster and Ulster with perhaps one or two showers. Sunday will be similar with highest temperatures of 10 to 14C. It will be mostly dry with a mix of cloud and sunny spells. A few showers are possible in northern parts of Connacht and Ulster. On Monday, a band of more general rain will spread from the north. Amounts will be fairly small. But it will become much colder with highest temperatures of just 7 to 10 degrees. It will continue cold on Tuesday and Wednesday next with some scattered showers.

Tight lines especially in Ireland

Paul Bourke

Angling Information Officer.
Catch, Photo, Release

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