It’s been another eventful week in world of Irish angling as water temperatures increased and the dry weather saw rivers and lakes returning to normal levels.

Lough Melvin reported its first salmon on the fly last week, a 10lb fish caught on an Aussie Gosling by Jim Connolly. Water levels on the Drowes are good with 0.5 on the gauge but only a couple of fish were landed over the weekend. A couple of salmon were reported on Lough Gill recently and Lough Beltra continued to fish well with spring salmon to 15lb landed. At Ballisodare 23 salmon to 12lb were caught. Despite moderate angling effort, the River Moy produced a number of spring salmon during the week while  Carrowmore Lake saw another good week with a total of 19 salmon caught. At the Galway Fishery 2 fish were landed for the week, including the first fish on fly this year and a few salmon were caught on the Cong River. At Lough Currane is was quite over the weekend but things improved in the last couple of days with some good salmon and specimen sea trout taken by anglers. On the Slaney the lower beats were most productive as water levels fell.

Reports of the first Mayfly hatching came from Anglers Paradise at Scariff on Lough Derg last week, but it will be a few days yet before trout begin to focus on the greenfly. Anglers reported enjoyable wetfly fishing on Lough Conn and Cullin where flies such as Golden Olive Bumble, Fiery Brown, Green Peter, Bibio and International Dabbler proved productive. The cooler winds that featured over the weekend slowed the fishing on Lough Mask and the anticipated hatches of Olives only occurred in limited areas. It was a similar story on Lough Corrib though anglers reported a few Mayfly coming off the water in the Cornamona area. On Lough Sheelin the warm days and cold nights made for testing conditions last week and many anglers turned to mini lures which proved deadly in some hands.

Gavin O'Connor wins Catch of the Week with his 79cm bass
Gavin O’Connor wins Catch of the Week with his 79cm bass

Charter boat reports from Cork Harbour came in this week and mackerel made a welcome appearance in the catches. Small whiting, cod, gurnards and lind were also caught though the fishing was described as slack enough by Donal Geary skipper of John Boy. At Courtmacsherry Fishing  anglers charter boat fishing have had good catches of cod, pollack and coalfish with a scatter of mackerel too. Bass anglers are reporting some great sport on lures from Wexford to West Cork in the last couple of weeks. Angling guide Sean Jordan had bass to 72 cm last week from the Wexford coast. two 79cm bass were caught in the Cork Harbour area last week. Gavin O’Connor wins catch of the week for his fish, but Clinton Rachman also had a great fish, this time at night. Pat O’Shea was also in the thick of things and had some incredible fishing recently with a couple of fish over 60cm on each outing. Mullet too are making an appearance in the harbour and angling guide Richie Ryan has been enjoying getting the better of them on fly in the last week.

12 pike up to 96cm were caught by a pair of French anglers fishing with Donal Kelly of Castlehamilton in Killeshandra last week. Red, orange and blue lures were the most productive on the day. Kenny Sloan had some guests at a Mayo venue last week and they had pike to 14lb on the troll. Over 140 pike were caught in this year’s Boyle Pike Festival which was fished over the Easter weekend. The first prize of €2,500  went to Paddy O’Neill for his pike of 20lb 2oz.

Some good tench fishing was reported from an upper Shannon venue over the weekend. Ledgering at distance in a prebaited swim paid off with some lovely tench to  5 lb. 2 oz. On the other side of the country Brendan O’Brien took the honours in the Drogheda Coarse Angling Club match on Lough Egish with 24lbs 4ozs of  of top quality roach, with occasional perch and a single nice hybrid.

Tight lines especially in Ireland

Myles Kelly

Catch, Photo, Release

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Carrowmore slamon
Christin Breuker, Germany, with her first Irish salmon caught on Carrowmore Lake