Lough Sheelin Angling Report By Brenda Montgomery, IFI – October 5th – October 12th 2015
‘Until the shadows lengthen, and the evening comes, the busy world is hushed’
‘As J John Henry Newman
The end of the fishing season on Lough Sheelin is a mixed time for emotions – a twinge of sadness with the end of another fishing year on this great lake combined with a sense of moving on and change as autumn with that insidious trace of winter embraces each day and the trout prepare for their spawning journey towards the incoming rivers. The inevitable transition from one phase to the next has been making itself apparent over the past number of weeks on this lake, there has been little sign of surface feeding but the trout however have been advertising themselves well with splashy rises and elaborate aerial gymnastics in a seeming warm up before their sojourn upstream. With the natural progression of the seasons there is usually an excited anticipation for the coming avalanche of fish travelling the rivers to spawn but this year this has been shadowed by the death of one of the greatest fly tiers in Ireland and certainly for Lough Sheelin – the one and only Lawrence Finney. Although Lawrence had been battling cancer, which he called his gremlin, for some time, it still came as a great shock to hear that he had passed away last Thursday night, October 8th for it seemed to me that this great man could fight and win every battle. I had the pleasure of knowing and ‘ pestering’ Lawrence for fly patterns over the past number of years and no matter how much I must of annoyed his head, not once did he refuse a short notice ask for a photograph of a Hopper or a Green Peter or whatever for the IFI weekly Lough Sheelin angling report. He was a gentleman to the last, funny and extremely kind to me, a great friend and unwaveringly supportive of Inland Fisheries Ireland. The stunning news of his death on Friday morning reminded me of W.H Auden’s poem ‘Stop All the Clocks’. The world will be much poorer place without this special man.
Stop All The Clocks
……..
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
W.H Auden
The Jewel in the crown – Lough Sheelin, October 8th 2015
The numbers fishing this lake increased this week due to many anglers wanting to get those last few days in before the close of season and in their own way bid farewell to the 2015 trout season here. The lake each morning was swathed in a dense fog eventually rising like steam from the water’s surface. Daytime temperatures were good, sometimes reaching the late teens but lacking that summer intensity. At this time of the year the sun never climbs too high in the sky and evening light fades into darkness from 7pm. Some days saw mirror calm reflective surfaces with the later end of the week having more cloud cover which produced more conducive fishing conditions.
Sheelin is undoubtedly a tough lake to fish, some would argue that this jewel is one of the toughest in Ireland but its magnetism lies in the fact that although challenging this is a lake that produces supreme trout with the distinct possibility that the trout will be over 4lb. To quote Denis Moss from his article ‘Lough Sheelin – A Love/Hate Relationship – ‘Wild brown trout of this weight and more have been the hallmark of Sheelin since I first fished the water, such is its pedigree’ and herein lies the attraction.
Lough Sheelin lets its anglers away with nothing, it’s not enough just to go out there and throw anything and everything out on the water, yes this might work if luck is on your side (or if it’s Duffers fortnight) but to really fish this lake and get proper results, the angler must absorb themselves in this lake and be competitively driven by the need to learn. The true Sheelin angler is a meteorologist, entomologist and an ichthyologist.
There is no set fishing rule for Sheelin, each day is different and a fly that works one day may not work the next.
This lake undoubtedly contains an abundance of food, the trout don’t have to forage or hunt to fill their dinner plate, it is all there – surface and subsurface – flies in all stages of their development along with the terrestrials and bottom dwellers like the snails, freshwater shrimps and louse. The list is endless. At the back end of the season the angler is also faced with the restlessness and unpredictability of pre spawning trout, the window of opportunity for feeding trout is small and if an opportunity of a feeding rise is missed than that’s it, game over, there will not be another chance. A beautiful trout of over 7lb was recorded this week by an angler who reported that it was more like a grilse and ran like a race horse, was feisty and wild and gave him a real battle before succumbing to the net. This fish was released but the angler got to keep the most treasured part– the memory of the beauty of a wild Sheelin trout.
Trevor Greene, Belfast – one of five, Lough Sheelin October 8th
There was a lot of pot luck this week, fish were caught on Olive Nymphs, Silver Daddies, Red Tailed Green Peters, Peters, Sweeney Todd’s, Sooty Olives and Golden Olives but there was also a vast array of other flies that were bringing in the 2 – 2 ½ lb fish. Mary Harkin of Rory’s Tackle Shop in Dublin caught her lovely trout last Monday on a Thunder & Lightening which although there is a trout variation, is really a salmon fly. Many anglers clung on to the Claret, Red and Orange colours with silver somewhere threaded through the pattern and others went with the theory that whatever works for the beginning of the season also works at the end so we are talking lures here – the Minkies and Humungous.
The Flies..
The last week of the season is a more relaxed affair here at Lough Sheelin. Everyone is on wind down, last minute fishing trips are being made, there is the meeting up of friends on Church Island for lunch to compare fishing tactics, flies and past season catches and of course ‘the ones that got away’ followed by the eventual removal of boats from piers and shorelines. Anglers are more generous in their divulges of what flies they used probably with the idea that by the 2016 season, all will be forgotten by the inquisitive enquirer.
Mary Harkin (Rory’s Tackle shop, Dublin) with her Sheelin trout caught on a Thunder & Lightening at Derrysheridan, October 5th
The fish caught during the week were in prime condition, indeed anglers have in general reported that this season’s fish were in much better condition than last year (were there seemed to be a lot of lice damage), 2015 trout were ‘thick from head to tail’ with silver bodies flanked with those distinct spots. One Lough Arrow angler made the comment that ‘ Sheelin trout were like Arrow fish on steroids.’ Sometimes a very dark brown trout would be caught particularly at the end of season and this is the trout that had been a bottom feeder and has only moved to the surface to head towards its spawning ground.
Because of the increase in anglers there was an increase in trout recorded and along with two competitions last Saturday –The Cavan/Monaghan Garda Divisional Fly Fishing Championship and Open Competition and the Kells anglers end of season competition, returns tipped over the sixty mark.
The Garda Competition held on Saturday last October 10th attracted 120 anglers with Niall Burns from Kingscourt in Cavan being a runaway winner with his superb trout of 6.5lbs which he caught using a Green Peter. Some beautiful trout were weighed in, with a number of 3lb and 2lb trout being landed.
Niall Burns, Kingscourt, Cavan winner of both the Garda Competition and the end of season Kells Anglers Competition, with his 6.5lbs trout caught on a Green Peter on Saturday October 10th
The results of this competition were:
1st Niall Burns, Cavan 6.5 lbs
2nd James Fagan 4.3 lbs
3rd Ronnie Law 3.8 lbs
The catches…
The Kells angling Club ran their end of season competition on Lough Sheelin on October 10th. The winner of this competition was Niall Burns with his 6.5lb fish with Noel McLoughlin coming in second with a 3.09 fish caught on an Octopus, third was a 2.82lb trout caught by J.Heery. This weigh in was on Church Island.
Noel McLoughlin, Kells at Kilnahard, who came second in the Kells Anglers ‘End Of Season’ trout competition with his 3.2lb trout caught using an Octopus, October 10th 2015
Lough Sheelin Guiding Services (www.loughsheelinguidingservices.com) 087 1245927
Michael Farrell @ 087 4194156 Telephone:+353 43 6681298 Email:[email protected]
Kenneth o Keeffe Grey Duster Guiding 086 8984172
For anyone interested in joining Lough Sheelin’s Angling Club – The Lough Sheelin Trout Protection Association please contact Thomas Lynch @ 087 9132033.
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 LSTPA will be holding fly tying classes at the IFI offices at Kilnahard in November. These classes are open to all age groups, for further details please Thomas Lynch @ 087 9132033
This week’s was a trout of over 7lbs caught by a Dublin angler
Total number of trout recorded: 64
Selection of Catches
Trevor Greene, Belfast – October 8th 5 trout heaviest weighed in at 3lbs.
Declan Young, Cavan – October 9th 1 trout at over 3lbs on a Peter at Ross.
Mary Harkin, Dublin – 1 trout at 2 ½ lbs at Derrysheridan on a Thunder & Lightening, October 5th.
Des Elliott, Dublin – 5 trout for the week – 2lbs to the heaviest at 3lbs, caught on wet flies – Sooty and Golden Olives.
Pat Foley, Monaghan – 1 trout at 3 lbs caught October 10th.
Kieran Smith, Cavan – 1 trout at 3lbs on a Silver Daddy.
Seamus Maguire, Cavan – 2 trout – 2 ½ and 3 ½ lbs caught on a red tailed Peter and a Claret Dabbler.
Tommy Rush, Northern Ireland – 1 trout at 2.2lbs caught on a Claret Dabbler.
David Trent, Northern Ireland – 2 trout at 2 ½ and 1 ¾ lbs caught using a Pheasant Tailed Nymph and a Sooty Olive.
And so as the end of the season closed in, the last day’s fishing of 2015 was met with a frosty cold and bands of fog lying close to the lakes surface. A golden sunlight bathed the shoreline in a gentle auburn light, the ground now strewn with dry leaves.
It’s never too young to be an angler – 18 month old Tomas at the Garda competition last Saturday Ocbober 10th (Tomas is the grandson of the late Piper Leggett, Kilnahard).
The season may be over but Lough Sheelin will be waiting for its anglers next year with the same mixture of challenges, victories and magic – venisti remanebis donec denuo completus sis.
Brenda Montgomery IFI
