Anglers have endured some wet and windy weather over the last few days. However there are no shortage of angling reports in this week’s update. High water is still affecting many rivers and lakes and high winds impacted on boat anglers at sea and on inland lakes. But there were still plenty of of opportunities to get out and catch a fish between the downpours and the gales.

bream lanesborough
Eric Thomas with his Catch of the Week winning bream

Although floods continue to affect fishing on the Munster Blackwater there were a few fish taken from upper and middle reaches. Fishing should improve if the floods continue to fine. It has been a relatively quiet period on the Moy, both in terms of angling effort and catch reports, yet the system recorded a catch of 157 for the week. High water towards the end of the week disrupted fishing at Ballisodare, despite this the fishery recorded 39 salmon for the week, 25 of which were released. Spates on the Erriff did not impact too much on angling success there as the water remained largely clear. At Kylemore and Lough Inagh high the recent weather conditions salmon fishing effort and salmon catches were low, but there were encouraging sea trout reports. Anglers on Lough Currane enjoyed some good sea trout fishing with fish to 9.2lb caught on fly. There were a few rods fishing the Drowes over the week but the fishery and there was a fair run of grilse. On the Owenea, despite some good water, the grilse run was disappointing. As August draws to a close, anglers are reminded that from the 1st September the daily bag limit drops to one salmon or sea trout over 40cm.

Trout fishing in the midlands was slow last week where conditions were generally poor for anglers fishing lakes and rivers.  Some good fishing was reported at Lough O’Flynn where Gerry Ward won the McCarthy Cup. The western lakes also report that fishing has been challenging as the recent low pressure has pounded the lakes with even more unseasonable wind and rain. Lough Conn often fishes well in the latter part of August and September and Michael Tiernan Jr. of Foxford hooked, boated and successfully released a brown trout, estimated at over 10lbs weight. An Italian angler had 60 trout while fishing the Mulkear last week and a Belgian angler had 36 trout. A mix of streamer and dry fly fishing is taking some good trout on the Suir and its tributaries depending on conditions. The river is up again follow this week’s rain but should improve for the weekend.

While more gilthead bream are reported from southern shores this week the even rarer (in our reports) Ray’s Bream made an appearance on a Mayo beach. The weather meant sharks remained off the menu at Redbay but some good pollack, spurdogs and tope entertained anglers there. On the Twitter Machine we saw reports of blue shark for anglers fishing with Luke Aston off the Clare coast but overall conditions meant fishing was only possible where there was some shelter. During the breaks in the weather there were some bass to be taken on fly and we have reports from Cork Harbour and the Wexford coast though the fishing was described as difficult.

Catch of the Week goes to Eric Thomas, 12, who caught a9lb 12oz bream on Tuesday morning at Lanesborough. Elsewhere fishing in the area is reported to be good everywhere and there have been good mixed bags of fish up to 50/60lb including plenty of hybrids and bream weighing 3 – 4lb. Bags of bream to 50lb were landed by anglers in Leitrim.  Fishing in and the Longford area has been great over the last few weeks producing some great fish, Bream to 6lb and Tench to 5lb along with Roach and Hybrids – bags over 100lb have been taken. An angling family holidaying at Inniscarra had some memorable fishing with 564lb of mostly skimmers caught during their stay.  Lough Muckno is still quite high but bags to just under 40lb have been reported. Big bags of bream were also reported from the Portumna area of Lough Derg and Lough Grainy is fishing well for roach.

Spanish anglers enjoyed Monaghan’s pike angling last week despite all the rain that fell. On Lough Derg jerk baits accounted for a number of pike to just under 20lb.

The outlook over the weekend is for close, humid and at times warm weather. Dry and sunny conditions are forecast, but as fronts break through from the Atlantic there will be rain from time to time. The driest of the conditions expected in the eastern half of the country.

Tight lines especially in Ireland,
Myles Kelly
Catch, Photo, Release

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