It has been a lot wetter and pretty dull for much of the last week. Not great weather for the beach but not bad for anglers. Inland there were some great reports from the various coarse angling festivals and some of the trout lakes. The run of grilse is continuing with a number of fisheries reporting exciting catches. At sea there seems to be no end to the blue shark and there were also some interesting ground and wreck fishing reports…

Sixgill shark
 David Ball fishing on the Clare Dragoon latched onto this 900lb monster and brought it safely to the boat for unhooking. The next day he caught another one!

The big news this week is the back to back capture to two enormous six gill sharks, each estimated to weigh about 900lb. Luke Aston, fishing out of Carrigaholt in County Clare, has become a bit of a specialist charter boat skipper when it comes to these leviathans of the deep. So it will come as no surprise that it was from his boat the two monster fish were caught. What is surprising though is that it was the same angler who caught both fish! Congratulations to David Ball for this incredible and unique Catch of the Week.

Staying with shark fishing the high number of blue sharks off the south west of the country are providing great sport for anglers all along the Cork coast. At Valentia the charter boat anglers have been concentrating on pollack and similar species and have not been disappointed. The bass fishing in the area does not seem to be as productive, however, and the same can be said for most venues from Kerry to Wexford. Tralee Bay Sea Angling Club fished a competition at The Spa on Sunday and though it started well only a handful of species were landed on what was a quiet day at the office for the competitors. Going back afloat, good mixed species fishing was reported from anglers out on Galway Bay. At Newport 40 junior anglers fished the Daniel Peacock Memorial/National Junior Competition recently. Well done to winners Peadar O’Toole, David Loftus, Ruby McDonnell and Darragh O’Grady. At Sligo Bay there was some great fishing reported with tope to 57lb and cod to 13lb bringing smiles to anglers’ faces.

The recent rains have seen some good salmon fishing on many of our spate rivers and helped the run of grilse on other systems. Some nice floods on the Owenea in Donegal saw 11 salmon to 10lb landed, 5 of these taken on Sunday alone. There has been a pretty good run of grilse on the Drowes and about 30 salmon are being reported weekly. One party of Spanish anglers have landed 41 fish on the river in the last two weeks. With a total of 396 fish caught (110 released) the past two weeks were exceptionally productive at the Ballisodare Fishery. The Moy system saw its best week of the season so far with over 650 salmon reported. The best of the fishing was again in the tidal section of the river and around and above Foxford town. At Delphi the fishing has been steady since last week with good numbers of salmon entering the system and nineteen fish landed. The broken weather has lifted water levels significantly at Costello and Fermoyle and salmon are moving in on most tides. Across Kerry the grilse run is well underway and good sea trout fishing is also being reported particularly in the Owenmore Fishery and on the Kerry Blackwater. Salmon fishing on the Laune has continued to be quiet but there are good catches of fish being taken on the Killarney Lakes and up to 44 grilse were reported on the Flesk in recent days. Lough Currane did not fish well on those days it was too calm but as there were a few days when conditions were more suitable there were over 20 good sea trout and a similar number of grilse reported. The grilse run is also continuing to provide sport on the Bandon with fly being the best method. The Munster Blackwater has also continued to enjoy a decent run of grilse. Finally, although the salmon fishing has been slow on the Slaney since May, the sea trout fishing is currently pretty good.

After a slow start, the Peter fishing picked up considerably on Lough Arrow over the past week. The weather conditions on Lough Conn have not been much to write home about for much of last week but many anglers who ventured out on the lake were rewarded with some excellent angling. Lough Corrib has still a lot to offer with mixed weather conditions. Hatches of mayfly, sedges and Caenis are happening when conditions are favourable. Some good fishing reports also came in from Lough Mask where hatches of sedge and Caenis kept the trout looking up, but there was also some good Daphnia fishing. Lough Sheelin is becoming more and more a night time affair as the sedge fishing there improves.

The summer months see the coarse angling festival season pick up a few gears and there were some great reports for venues from Cork to Cavan. Although the fishing was described as tough at the Ballybay 2 day festival, winner Johnny Keith managed 44.730kg to take the win with a comfortable 11kg lead over Nick Seddon. The Muckno Mania Angling Festival is being fished this week and some great weights to 18kg were recorded on Day 3. More modest weights were made up at Lough Sillan where the Naas and District Anglers fished their Summer League. Recreational anglers in Cavan and Longford are reporting good fishing for bream and tench. Congratulations go to Brendan Collins who is the 2015 Waterways Ireland Open Champion after a fine display of dace fishing on the River Barrow at St. Mullins. More big bags were reported from Inniscarra where Trev Platt had 38.900kg in the 2 Day Open fished there. Junior anglers at Oaklands netted up to 140lb in the final of the Junior League. No doubt some of these anglers will be fishing for Team Ireland in the future.

Summer always sees a lull in piking and we only have a couple of reports this week from Mayo and the Cavan/Monaghan area where some entertaining fishing was enjoyed by visiting anglers.

As we go to post there is a STATUS YELLOW weather warning for Donegal, Galway, Leitrim, Mayo, Sligo and Clare. West to southwest winds of mean speeds 45 to 65km/h with gusts of 90 to 110km/h are forecast for western coastal counties overnight and Friday morning and the northwest during Friday afternoon and evening. There will be further heavy downpours at times also. There is also a SMALL CRAFT WARNING for tonight and tomorrow on all Irish Coastal Waters. It will continue wet, windy and cool for the weekend. Put away the bikinis and get out the fishing gear.

Safe fishing to all and tight lines, especially here in Ireland.

Myles Kelly

Catch, Photo, Release

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St Mullins
St. Mullins on the River Barrow