Lough Sheelin Angling Report By Brenda Montgomery, IFI June 15th to June 21st 2015
‘Every fishing water has its secrets. To yield up those mysteries, it must be fishing with more than hooks’. Zane Grey
Lough Sheelin June 2015
Angling numbers were reduced this week on Lough Sheelin as the perhaps premature assumption grew among anglers that this lake’s mayfly season is at an end. But Lough Sheelin’s mayfly season is not over just yet and the continued hatching of substantial numbers of ‘greens’ corroborated this fact, coupled with impressive falls of spent in various areas of the lake, the locations dictated solely by wind direction and temperatures with resulting great trout of 3lb plus, falling to spent gnat patterns.
But truth be told as this week drew to a close, culminating in the longest day of the year – the summer solstice on Sunday June 21st, the mayfly season on Lough Sheelin did show signs of tapering off to be gradually replaced with the ‘cream’ of the fishing calendar here – the sedge fishing.
For the last three days of this week the trout catches were really a half and half affair between the spent and sedge patterns, both getting equally good results.
Stevie Munn, Belfast with his magnificent 5lb Sheelin trout
Sheelin’s Spent and Murrough
Sedge fishing is reportedly to be the cream of the fishing calendar and on Sheelin there are literally hundreds of different types of sedge, ranging from the tiniest of insects to some of the largest (the Murrough). The life cycle of the sedge is forever constant and they are a common food source for hungry trout. While resting, sedge fold their wings neatly along their backs, forming a ridge tent shape which makes it look a bit like a moth. After hatching from the egg, sedges have three stages within their lifecycle that warrant the angler’s attention – the larva stage, pupa stage and finally the winged adult. Trout will eat sedges at all stages of their development. The cased larva can be free roaming or permanently attached to rocks, trout will dig for these tasty insects and you can often see a tail break the surface in a shallow as the trout hunt for their meal (they hunt for gammarus Shrimp in the same way). Weighted patterns are excellent when representing this stage and are normally found in bigger sizes of 10’s and 8’s and have a body of clipped deer hair. The caseless larva are perhaps fished more often and can be easily represented with a nymph type pattern. These patterns also tend to be weighted as the trout would find the natural closer to the bed of the lake. The next stage is the pupa stage where evolution has allowed this insect to develop into the fully formed adult when in a state of pupation and so the adult rises to the surface contained within the pupa ready to break away from the pupal shuck as it hits the surface. It is worth remembering that the pupa ascends and descends several times before breaking the surface film so a weighed pupa might be a good plan also in order to break out of the pupal shuck the insect pushes the shuck away by inflating it with gas. This will cause the shuck to shine so a fly with a tiny bit of glitter or tinsel in its design could help a lot to land that fish. When the fish are feeding in the surface they will only take the fly that is truly emerging and is part in and out of the film so having a fly with either deer hair or CDC in the dressing to allow the fly to be suspended in the water is a good idea. When the sedge has finally emerged a fly with a fair amount of hackle palmered in the body with a trigger of roofed wing to skitter across the surface usually strikes gold in this phase.
Brendan Glass, Maynooth with his Sheelin trout
As Sheelin is now in that half in half phase between sedge and spent it is necessary for anglers to differentiate as to which exactly the trout are coming up for. The spent lying motionless or in the last throes of life in the top film require little or no effort on behalf of the trout, so a soft boil on the water’s surface is the tail tale evidence of a spent gnat meal. The Murrough on the other hand is active and requires an aggressive take by the fish resulting in that familiar thump sound as the trout hits the surface hard to claim this fly.
Sedges are an important part of the trout’s diet throughout the fishing season, with the peak hatches appearing on this lake from late May through to September. The flies are commonly fished ‘dry’ or in teams of two, positioned 4 to 6 feet apart. Whilst dry flies are normally fished static, sedge patterns such as the Murrough, Grey Flag, Sheelin, Melvin and Small Brown Sedge are best retrieved with short pulls to represent the characteristic skittering motion of the natural sedge moving across the surface water.
Wet Mayflies & Bumbles
The flies most used this week by anglers were the Murrough, a Small Brown Sedge (12-14 or smaller), the Raymond, the Bibio, Watsons Fancy, Greenwells Glory, the Fiery Brown Sedge, the Chocolate Drop, the Grey Flag, hoppers the Hare’s Ear Sedge, the Sooty Olive, the Wulffs (gray, royal and green) the red-tailed Green Peter, the Spent Gnat, the Stimulator, the Welshman’s Button, the Stimulator and a variety of Bumbles.
Red Tailed Peters
The Green Peter and Red Tailed Peter are classic all rounders at sedge time, fished equally well ‘wet’ or ‘dry’. They can be fished in any position on the cast from the start of this particular season through to the close.
Hackless Daddy and Blue Damsel Fly
A Murrough
Still hanging on………..Lough Sheelin’s mayfly
Gary McKiernan of Lough Sheelin Guiding
Lough Sheelin’s shoreline dotted with spinners
A Silver Dabbler
A dry Murrough
Releasing a 2 ½ lb trout caught on a Spent Gnat at Crover
Kieran Garvey’s trout of just over 5lbs caught on a spent – ‘looked lovely swimming back in the lake’
Another great catch for Stevie Munn from Sheelin
A 2lb 13oz trout caught on a Yellow Wulff
Someone is catching…………
One of Lough Sheelin’s heavy weights
‘Tools of the trade’
Sheelin’s many insects Thomas Harten’s trout of Wednesday June 17th
Lough Sheelin’s evening glow – June 2015
Mick Kelly, Dublin – one of his many Sheelin catches
Some trout action
Brendan Glass with one of his Sheelin trout caught on a Spent pattern
Evening Spent fishing on Sheelin – a trout of almost 3lbs caught on a Spent Gnat at Crover shore.
Bobby Bryans fishing with Stevie Munn, Belfast on Lough Sheelin
Bobby Bryans, Belfast
When it all gets too much
There is a feeling of disillusionment among certain anglers now, a feeling that perhaps Sheelin has failed them, cheating them in some way by not reaching the high expectations that were expected of it for the mayfly and following spent season. There was no easy fishing, no ‘duffers fortnight’ and Lough Sheelin’s trout remained with the exception of one Wednesday (June 3rd) stubbornly subsurface, refusing to rise in their reputed hundreds, willing to take any fly regardless of how it was presented to them. This season is disappearing like a gradually deflating balloon and for many anglers it seems their bubble has been burst and Lough Sheelin is now being dismissed by some as something of a mistake. But the only crime would be to categorise this unique and beautiful wild trout fishery as being a mistake so it’s important to put some clarity, some understanding and thought into why 2015 was a difficult and challenging mayfly season.
Lough Sheelin is undisputedly one of the best wild brown fisheries in Europe if not the world. This 4500 acreage of majestic limestone water has the capability of supporting the biggest head of trout for its size arguably in Ireland with weights averaging 3lb up to and over the specimen 10lb. For the past three years the mayfly season has been exceptionally good and then suddenly we get a season when it just didn’t seem to happen and it is important to understand why as a means of going forward for future fishing seasons.
The first and most crucial factor was the weather which had a huge and crushing effect on the fishing, there were no three consecutive days were temperature and wind direction remained the same. The month of May was riddled with nightly frosts and unseasonable cold where north east winds regularly ripped down the lake with a vengeance, even the normally desired south westerly’s were cold, all of these factors kept the water temperature down and with it the trout.
The level of the lake rose by over a foot just before the first hatch of the mayfly and then was stubbornly slow to shrink to normal levels. Even the most seasoned anglers never remembered the lake being so high for the month of May.
Lough Sheelin is an exceptionally rich lake, it is full of food and trout which are naturally bottom and subsurface feeders were not tempted to rise to a cold uninviting surface when their food was on their doorstep, requiring very little expenditure of energy to retrieve (and trout are not unnecessary expenditures of energy).
Because of the previous years excellent fishing and with the angling drums beating out loudly both within and outside Ireland, increasing numbers of anglers have been attracted to this lake at this time of the year. Lough Sheelin would for its size be one of the busiest trout lakes for May with last years figures reporting at over 6000 anglers in a 3 week period. With this huge influx of course come problems, as large numbers of boats competed for popular locations. Heavy boat traffic, jagging of and even the gentle release of trout all take their toll and the fish are naturally spooked by all this activity and unnatural intrusion into their environment.
Trout are refutably supposed to be the piscine equivalent of Einstein and older trout will remember and become wise and shy away from lines and surface noises in future seasons.
Long time Sheelin angler, David Smyth who has fished this lake back in the 60s and 70s talks of the fact that in those times there were no engines and there were markers round the shores where you were not allowed to use an engine at spent time – perhaps this is a way of going forward in managing this lake’s fishing in the future.
Finally all anglers need to be reminded that Lough Sheelin was never an easy lake. Any angler who fishes this special lake cannot seriously think that they only need to turn up and that the fish will jump to attention – as one Sheelin advocate put it – it’s not trained dolphins we are talking about. This lake is a great equaliser of anglers and will bring even the best of trout anglers to their knees. Fishing is fishing and not catching and as we head towards the end of June for all the disillusioned anglers there are many more who wipe that disillusionment out because of being enthralled, exasperated, captivated and enchanted by this wonderful trout lake with their combined experience of great superbly conditioned catches ( the true Sheelin trout thick from head to tail) and the witnessing of some enormous trout taking the spent as they came up the slicks, ignoring the proffered flies and taking the naturals and in one visiting angler’s words ‘just seeing that make our trip more than worthwhile’.
Lough Sheelin of course did not stand alone in its 2015 difficult mayfly season, many of the great trout lakes in Ireland had similar problems producing patchy sporadic fishing. The root cause of all this hardship was the residing bitter cold – the unpredictability of the Irish weather of which we are famous for – ita fiat.
Sunset on Lough Sheelin, June 2015
Lough Sheelin’s Mayfly – Ephemera danica
Lough Sheelin Guiding Services (www.loughsheelinguidingservices.com) 087 1245927
Kenneth o Keeffe Grey Duster Guiding 0868984172
For anyone interested in joining Lough Sheelin’s Angling Club – The Lough Sheelin Trout Protection Association please contact Thomas Lynch @ 087 9132033.
Please remember anglers to abide by BYE-LAW 790 which strictly prohibits
- All trolling on the lake from March 1st to April 30th (inclusive).
- From May 1st to June 15th – no trolling between 7pm –6am and no trolling under engine between 6am – 7pm and
- June 16th – October 12th – no trolling under engine between 7pm – 6am.
- No trout less than 14 inches should be taken from the lake
It won’t work if you aren’t wearing it…
Water rarely gives second chances and a life jacket is just that – it saves your life, so we would implore anglers and all other users for their own safety as well as it being the law under
SI No 921 of 2005 – Pleasure Craft (Personal Flotation Devices and Operation) (Safety) Regulations 2005
Jonathan Peppard, Dublin all set to go fishing
The Orange Invicta and The Red Tailed Peter
A catch & release policy is actively encouraged on the lake at all times
Please remember All anglers are required to have a Fishery Permit to fish Lough Sheelin which must be purchased before going out on the lake.
The heaviest fish for the week was a 5 ½ lb trout caught by George Leinster, England using a Gray Wulff on June 16th.
Total number of trout recorded: 82
Selection of Catches
Thomas Harten, Cavan – 1 trout at 5lbs plus on Wednesday evening on a Spent Gnat.
Brendan Glass, Maynooth – 2 trout at 5lbs and 4 ½ lbs on the Spent and Murrough.
David Smyth, Ballymoney – 1 trout at 2lbs using a Green Peter fishing at Church Island.
Frank Kelly, Cavan – 11 trout for the week, best weighed in at 4 ¾ lbs, all on Spent and Sedge patterns.
Barry and Tony Harton, Cavan – 6 trout averaging over 2lbs caught on Spent patterns off Stoney.
Robert Gilroy, England – 2 trout on Monday evening, June 15th using Finney’s Biscuit Sedge.
Mark Kent, Dublin – 6 trout for the week, heaviest at 4lbs using a Royal Wulff, the rest were caught on the Spent Gnat.
Aaron Smith, Dublin – 1 trout at 3 ½ lbs caught on a Stimulator at the back of Church Island.
Church Island, Lough Sheelin June 2015
Brenda Montgomery IFI
