Peter Gleeson, angling journalist, was on a week’s holidays up to last Wednesday and was faced with a question: how am I going to get some trout fishing done in such sizzling sun? Read on to see where he found success…
I do what I usually do in warm weather. I gave up thinking about chasing wild browns and went in search of rainbows. From my experience, rainbows don’t seem to get as lethargic in the heat as browns do.
So, first I headed to Pallas Lake, a scenic waterway of over 30 acres set in a verdant rural area just a few miles from Tullamore. The fishery is stocked with both browns and rainbows by Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI) and a “Midlands Fisheries Permit” (obtainable on the IFI website) is required.
I arrived early on Thursday morning week last and had the lake to myself. Despite the intense heat and near calm and intensely bright conditions, fish were very active on the surface. I put on a size 14 chocolate brown dry sedge and after a short time I had two rises, but failed to connect each time.
I noticed that most of the fish were heading and tailing, so I changed to a size 12 buzzer emerger pattern and went on to have a lovely morning’s fishing, landing a total of five fully finned top quality fish – two browns and three rainbows up to 3lbs, all released.
Considering the heat of the day I was chuffed to get in such quality fishing over a few hours.
For the record, the killer fly consists of a body of peacock herl, ribbed with krystal flash reinforced with fine silver wire. The thorax is red seals fur and the head hackle is two turns of badger.
