Paul Waghorne reports that the cold weather has slowed down the activity at Lanesborough but there has been some good fishing there in recent days…
22/04 The river was alive with Roach turning on the surface. Catching them was easy to start with, but as dusk fell and more fish arrived, so the bites dried up. I had 16 fish including a mongrel of a pound and a tiny Perch. Most of the Roach were 10-12oz and they were all male.
23/04 There were hundreds, if not thousands of Roach under the bridge this morning, some if not most were well over a pound. In fact, unless there were mongrels amongst them, some could have been over 2 lbs. On my second inspection at 11:00 my eyes popped out of my head, as the shoal had been joined by a Carp of well in excess of 20 lbs. Also, a number of bigger fish which I suspect were Bream, unless they too, were smaller Carp. This is the biggest shoal of fish I’ve seen in the stretch for nearly five years.
I tried for the carp in the evening. No luck but loads of liners and my heart stopped when line was being peeled off the bait runner at a rate of knots only to strike into nothing. Elsewhere Tim Collyer had a Tench of 3.08 and a Rudd of a pound or so. Peter was fishing the Roscommon bank and I presume caught loads as there were so many fish in the navigation channel this evening. I had several male Roach up to 12oz and a couple of Mongrels before casting out the heavy gear. Pat and Connor Lowry were also fishing and had lots of smallish Roach and at least two small Pike.
24/04 The angling was superb, I had several pound plus Roach, male and female, but on inspection at the gusher, it was evident that spawning had occurred overnight. Some serious action was had by Mr & Mrs Rutilus, leaving a golden bed of spawn. There was also much commotion in the navigation channel where I caught several fish including 3 mongrels, the best probably topped 2lbs. My evening session was more of the norm. Plenty of fish in the gusher, the best Roach going 1.04 which had not spawned. All the Roach here were hens, but when I fished the last 45 minutes of dusk on the navigation channel, they were all cocks!
25/04 A difficult day to say the least, early morning heavy showers combined with a 180 degree turn of the wind to a bitter Northerly, saw a marked downturn in activity. Anglers came and went and returns were poor. The larger Roach all but disappeared and I struggled on the gusher with just two small fish. It was no better elsewhere and even the usual banker swim on the Roscommon side produced only three juvenile males and a Perch.
26/04 If I had stayed out another half hour last night, I may have witnessed a huge shoal of Rudd that appeared near the duckpond. James and Bobby were geared up for bottom fishing so were not able to capitalise on these golden beauties. James however, was later rewarded with a brace of tincas.
Earlier this morning, some reasonable angling was had by two visitors. Noel from Carrigellen caught several fish up to a pound with two Rudd (in my opinion) being the most notable part of his catch. Larry Kelly had several Rudd up to 8oz before catching the first of his four Tench, the best going 5lb with the others all between 2-3lb with some Bream of a pound or so. He was lucky enough to see two very large Trout chasing the Rudd as dusk fell, so I’d guess he went home as happy as…
27/04 The water temperature has dropped from a healthy 14c to 11c in 48 hours and the cold week ahead suggests there is little chance of improvement.
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