Lough Sheelin Angling Report By Brenda Montgomery, IFI April 24th – May 1st 2016
‘Pray. There is immeasurable power in it’
Rain clouds over Ross Lough Sheelin April 28th 2016
A weather front sliding down from Iceland meant another tough week for angling on Lough Sheelin. A bitter and ensuing cold permeated each day and even the brief blasts of sunshine did not quell that ‘chill to the bone’ feeling. Each day carried with it some element of angling unfriendly weather with frosts, prolonged showers alternating between rain and hail, harsh bright sunshine, a dusting of snow and fresh and gusty north winds. Interestingly last Tuesday saw the water temperature at 9.2 degrees being warmer than the air temperature.
The Catches…
Christoper Defillion, Slane with his 5lb plus trout
Gary McKiernan of Lough Sheelin Guiding with Lough Sheelin’s weight of the week
The heaviest fish for this week was a trout of almost 6lbs caught by Gary McKiernan of Lough Sheelin Guiding using wet flies
Total number of trout recorded: 47
In the net – caught & released – a Sheelin classic by Lough Sheelin Guiding
Selection of the catches
Tommy Rush, Armagh – 1 trout at 3 lbs on a Black Pennell
Mark Brown, Armagh – 1 trout at 1 ¾ lbs on a black Minkie.
Gene Brady, Cavan – 1 trout at 4lbs on an Olive Dabbler
Andrius Rinkulis, Wexford – 2 trout at 3lbs and 4lbs on small lures.
Lukaz Lisowski, Dublin – 5 trout for the week on Humungus in Black & Silver.
Robert Dunlane, England – 2 trout at 2 ½ and 3 lbs on Silver and Claret Dabblers.
Michael McKiernan, Cavan – 1 trout at 3lbs on a Gold Olive Bumble.
Furitz Blinovis, Dublin – 3 trout heaviest at 3lbs using lures.
Gintaras Padiminskas, Dublin – 5 trout (all released) heaviest at 5 ½ lbs
Martin Connor, Armagh – 1 trout at 2lbs on Dabblers
Christopher Defillion, Meath with one of his lovely Sheelin catches (released)
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 hatches and the flies…
The month of May is synonymous with the may fly on Sheelin and even the mention of this fly brings a rush of blood to the head for most avid trout anglers as excitement, expectation and apprehension all rise up in an uncontrollable swirl of emotion.
April in general has been a cold month resulting in little rise of water temperatures and this according to the long time fishers of Lough Sheelin will bode for a late may fly season.
Although the season is moving on, reflected in the bubbling up of the white blackthorn blossom on shoreline bushes, longer hours of daylight and trees greening up, this lake is sluggish to move with the season, basically Lough Sheelin along with most trout lakes needs warmth to preform and produce the goods but regardless of the artic Icelandic conditions there were still some excellent trout caught by anglers who forged out regardless of the inclement weather and the results of their stubborn persistence were some sizable trout in flawless condition.
Fly is very scarce at the moment, most of the action and feeding is happening below the waterline for now but still anglers are reporting sightings of fish breaking the water and there were trout surface feeding on very small buzzers in Chambers Bay and into the Bog Bay and more sheltered areas of the lake on most days. Nature battles on regardless of the weather as amazingly on one of the worst days weather wise this week, there was some buzzer hatching off the back of the islands opposite Chambers Bay with trout surfacing to feed on them.
There were small hatches of olives in very sheltered areas but these are in fragile single figures and as yet there is nothing substantial around.
The use of lures and traditional wet fly patterns was about half in half this week with the cold weather ensuring that the lures and sinking lines are still featuring strongly. Angling numbers averaged from three to twenty on the days during the week increasing to over thirty on each day over the bank holiday weekend.
With the harshness of this weather and if the angler is a rigid fly rather than lure user, the buzzer is the only imitation to head for in these cold seemingly barren days of April. Buzzers are an all season staple, from the rush of early season to the euphoria of the mayfly through to late season fishing, the buzzer is a constant, so their imitation is what many of the fly using advocates are trying and being reasonably successful with.
The buzzer is the angler’s term for the pupa of the midge. In its natural state the midge can be eaten by the trout in four different forms – the larva, the pupa, the emerger and the adult. To be a really successful angler on Sheelin it is necessary to be able to recognise when the fish are feeding, on what form and to be able to imitate the natural accurately, both in what it looks like and how it moves.
The larva lives in the mud and silt at the bottom of the lake and are usually found in large numbers. They vary in colour and can be olive, brown, green, translucent or, most common, red (known as the bloodworm). Though forming a major part in the trout’s diet the natural larvae swim in a very active wriggle which is very difficult to imitate for the angler.
Much more common and easier to fish is the pupa. The naturals start their `hatch’ anytime between March and November and leave their burrows in the mud on the long hazardous journey to the surface. This may take some time depending on the depth of the water and this will affect fishing tactics, It is very possible to get a major hatch of buzzers being fed on by the trout in deep areas of the lake so the use of high speed sinking lines would be something worth considering. As the pupae near the surface of the water the rise forms of the trout will give away the depths they are feeding at; a flattening of the ripple indicates the fish are feeding between 8″ and 2′, the ‘head & tail’ rise usually indicates the fish feeding on the buzzer in the top 8″ and the full blooded swirl is a sure sign that the fish are taking the hatched adults off the surface.
Because the buzzer is such an old reliable and constant as far as the trout diet is concerned it’s a not a bad idea to get really good at buzzer fishing in order to have the best chance possible on a difficult lake like Sheelin in difficult cold weather.
Dry adult buzzers waking the surface are incredibly difficult fishing and a change of direction seems to be a key, same too of them waking the surface, palmers such as the Bibio and Soldier Palmer which are popular on Sheelin along with the Muddlers also need a change of director but on the dibble. In the surface you are talking about the Shipman’s Buzzer and Suspended Buzzer patterns, subsurface it’s the wets which would be the most popular at the moment – Sooty Olives, Black Pennells and Bumbles and deeper you are talking about the Epoxy slim line Buzzers. Buzzers don’t move much so the angler (regardless of lack of patience) must fish static with a very slow retrieve. Size of the fly is critical and the colour is something to be considered as well and for this the only thing I have ever been advised on this is the use of claret when the trout are on the small olive buzzers.
An angler that fishes the lake more than most threw out the confusing statement at me that the problem with most anglers is that they don’t know how to fish their flies, upon further probing and without too much success or clarification, his only addition to what seemed like a valuable piece of information was that anglers must fish their teams or even single flies with confidence and that most anglers failed due to their lack of knowledge as to how to work their flies. I think it’s important to listen to the wisdom of an angler who has fished this lake for over 40 years so my deduction from his advice was that flies need to be worked to look alive and attractive to the passing trout. Dibbling, a familiar angling term, is the scratching of the water’s surface with a fly so that it dances and looks alive. When fishing a team of wets each fly is brought to the surface in turn and dibbled one by one. Once the fly has reached the surface it’s very easy to change direction – doing this makes the dibble deadly. My deduction from this vague advice was the importance and confidence in the retrieve and this makes a lot of sense.
A lovely 4 ½ pounder was caught using a CDC dry fly during the week. CDC is a popular component in many of the Sheelin flies mostly notably the F fly and Shuttlecock designs which are excellent for ascending buzzer patterns on the lake.
The best flies for this week were the Klinkhammers, Sooty Olives, the Dabblers particularly the Claret and Silver patterns, the Black Pennells, the Hare’s Ear, the Connemara Blacks, Buzzer patterns – Emergers and Epoxy, the lures – small Humungus in black, silver and white, the Diawl Bachs, the Stimulator in Green, the Bibios and the Golden Olive Bumbles.
The areas that yielded the best results, again very weather dependent was Bog Bay, Lynch’s pt, Chambers Bay, Holywell, the back of Church Island, Goreport, Corru, Wilson’s pt and Sailors Garden.
There were some heavy weights got out in the deep water so a di 5 came into action for this but the majority of catches were closer to the shoreline using di3 or floating lines.
A catch & release policy is actively encouraged on the lake at all times
‘Game fish are too valuable to be only caught once’ – Lee Wulff
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
5 year old Noah Breen Johnston
Competitions
‘Hope springs eternal’
Swallows repeatedly skimming over Sheelin’s surface in search of insects
Lough Sheelin in April 2016
Brenda Montgomery IFI
