There was some great fishing reported by anglers fishing in fresh and salt water over the last seven days. Sea anglers did particularly well and big fish of many species were reported from Antrim to Wexford and Cork to Clare. Many rivers have been a bit low for salmon anglers – though some parts fared better than others as those in the West found. Pike and coarse anglers have also had good results, there were some great bags of fish at recent festivals and one pike angler had a lovely “30” from Lough Corrib. Trout anglers seemed to have the hardest time of it, particularly the lough anglers.

Dentlif's huge 250kg six-gill shark wins Catch of the Week
Dentlif's huge 350kg six-gill shark wins Catch of the Week

Sea anglers are reporting good shark fishing from off Antrim to Cork Harbour. Anglers fishing with Hamish Currie out of Red Bay have had another porbeagle. Blue sharks have featured in catches in Cork, Kerry, Clare, Galway, Sligo and Donegal. The really big new though, is yesterday’s capture of an enormous 350kg six-gill shark off the Clare coast by Dentlif Geeling fishing from Luke Aston’s Clare Dragoon. Good reef and ground fishing was also reported on the Leah in Kilalla Bay, the Blue Water out of Cleggan and big catches of tope to specimen size and more were had from Kit Dunne’s Lisin out of Wicklow. Small boat anglers had some enjoyable bass fishing at marks along the Wexford coast and in Cork Harbour while kayak anglers reported some really fine wrasse fishing only minutes from Dublin city – fish to specimen size were landed. Some big if not plentiful bass were also reported by shore anglers along the south east and southern coasts.

Despite some small spates on the Owenea last week salmon fishing did not improve much due to the very coloured water that resulted. A few grilse were taken but a good flood is needed to improve prospects there. With low water on the Drowes angling pressure was light. A few grilse were reported but more water is needed. Better fishing was reported from the Newport River and the lake should be fishing well for seatrout. Salmon angling has been quiet at Ballisodare and only 15 salmon were taken last week. Low water level and an extremely low angling effort on the Moy of late resulted in a weekly catch of just 171 salmon for the system. Anglers in Connemara have done better and Nigel Rush reports that another remarkable week has passed for the Dawros/Kylemore fishery where 27 fish were landed for just 32 rod-days. Late last week Nigel had a huge salmon of 17lbs, landed in front of an audience of almost 100 onlookers! Following rain at Lough Inagh fishing picked up and 10 salmon and 60 sea trout were recorded for 44 rod-days.  The Erriff started last week with a big spate and  total catch for the week was 19 salmon and 7 sea trout. News from Ballynahinch is that the favourable weather conditions and near perfect water levels brought some very good fishing over the past week with a good deal of salmon landed. Skipping down to Kerry the odd salmon and few juniors (small sea trout) have been reported from Lough Currane which has been quiet in the last 5 days. The Laune too has been quiet, but that said there was a 14.5 lb fish caught on the fly at Heffernan’s on Saturday and Stewart Stephens had a bar of silver of 7lbs on Friday evening also on the fly at Breen’s. There was a nice rise in river levels on the Bandon last weekend but fish seemed a lot more reluctant to rise to a fly. Fishing on the Munster Blackwater has also been challenging as conditions make for difficult angling.  The consensus is that there are quite a few fish in the river but they have their heads down for the most part. More rain needed.

Sea trout anglers will be interested in the update from the Celtic Sea trout Project – A short summary of the Celtic Sea Trout Project at August 2013 as the project draws close to completion.

Lough Sheelin is testing trout anglers’ patience and perseverance with sporadic rises and huge quantities of smaller fish around 6 to 8 inches taking the flies while the bigger trout seldom made an appearance. Tough fishing has also been reported from Loughs Owel and Ennell though Lough Lene with its rainbows fished better. Lough Melvin fished reasonably well for sonaghan on occasion last week and a few rods reported decent catches of these open water trout.

The fishing this year at the Ballymote Festival was simply exceptional. On the second day Darren Greaney landed 143lbs 6oz on Templehouse Lake, an exceptional catch for any natural water. This gave him a total of 180lbs 8oz over the 2 days to win the prize money and the I.F.I Perpetual Trophy. The other places were as follows 2nd Cathal Hughes 81lbs 0oz, 3rd Paul McGreivy 64lbs 7oz and 4th Arunas Mlecka 60lbs 8oz. Elsewhere good fishing was reported at Templemore with bream to 5lb landed, in the Longford area, around Mullingar and at Oaklands Fishery. Last Sunday the four day Kingfisher AC Ramor Festival finished and with anglers needing 20kg to be sure of a section win it was proving to be an exciting event. In the end Paul Leese KFCAC was the winner with 93-950kg, in 2nd place was Kevin Ashurst 84-430kg, 3rd Bob Nudd 83-390kg, 4th Keith Murphy 83-250kg and 5th Franics McGoldrick 80-950kg.

Kenneth Lowe was piking on Lough Corrib last Sunday. Fishing roach deadbait he caught a pike longer than his 1.2 metre tape which weighed 32lb. The closing date for entries to Lough Derg’s Pike Fly International is 19 September. The competition takes place 21 September and there are still places available. The final two Qualifiers to select the NCFFI Team Ireland, to fish the World Championships in Enniskillen in October took place on an excellent River Erne over the weekend, in good weather conditions. Congratulations and good luck to the team – Colin Rutherford, Lindsey McFadden, Jacek Gorny, Tomasz Kurman, Stephen Powell and Andrew Powell.

Origin of the Goureen unveiled

A team of researchers from University College Dublin, the University of Salford and Inland Fisheries Ireland has reconstructed the origin of the endangered Killarney shad in Lough Leane, Co. Kerry, providing genetic evidence for the timing of colonisation of the lake after the last glaciations ended. Read the press release Irish research team unveil the origins of a fish unique to Kerry!

Water Framework Survey results

Preliminary reports on the Water Framework Directive surveys carried out in 2013 are available to download from the links below.  More detailed reports will be available later in the year. Find out more here.

Prospects

It will misty and mostly cloudy for much of tomorrow but drier and brighter weather will spread from the Atlantic later in the afternoon and evening,  in a moderate to fresh westerly breeze. the weekend looks like being a bit cooler than of late and though mostly dry there will be plenty of scattered showers. Winds will go from West to Southwest and next week will probably become wet with heavier rain starting on Monday evening. Winds will be fresher along west and northwest coasts but hopefully it won’t impact on the fishing too much.

Tight lines,

Myles Kelly
Catch, Photo, Release

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Salmon fishing on the Erriff
Salmon fishing on the Erriff