Lough Sheelin Angling Report By Brenda Montgomery, IFI -April 18th – April 24th 2016
The fish and I were both stunned and disbelieving to find ourselves connected by a line. William Humphrey
‘Expressing the inexpressible’ – Tony Hogg with his Sheelin trout
This was another tough week for fishing on Lough Sheelin with temperature peaks of 17 degrees matched with troughs hitting the minus figures. Fishing days were punctuated with that ‘take the coat off, put it back on’ indecisiveness. The nightly frosts ensured that water temperatures remained consistently low and Lough Sheelin did not step out of winter mode this week despite that false heat that sometimes only an Irish April can bring.
Early in the spring, a trout’s metabolism is slow but now with May in sight the Lough Sheelin trout are starting to make their presence felt with a few splashy rises, some surface feeding and that odd kamikaze ‘ poking the head up ‘of a trout on the move.
Tipping the scales at over 6 ½ lbs a beauty caught and released by Lough Sheelin Guiding
The trout are feeding on small roach fry, no bigger than an inch in the very shallows, around islands and inlets, snapping them up in a frenzied and totally focused, totaling all excluding way.
Some good trout were caught this week and weights of 4 and 5 lb fish were reported with that casual dismissiveness that only Sheelin can produce, for the Lough Sheelin anglers set the bar high as far as fish weights are concerned and a four pounder although nice to get appears a lot of the time to be nothing really to get that excited about. But bring in one of our English or Scottish angling friends and give them a 5lb trout off a premier limestone lake and the reaction is guaranteed to be one of euphoria. Complacency can be curious thing.
All of the trout reported for this week were in beautiful peak condition with frequent comments on the encouragingly high numbers of juvenile fish seen. The heavier successes seem to be pushing out into the deeper areas of the lake away from the early season shore hugging closeness.
Depending on wind direction on the day for this week Lynch’s pt, Bog Bay, Corru, Ross, at the back of Church Island, Watty’s and Chambers Bay got the best results.
With the lack of rain, this lake’s levels are dropping leaving that bleached washed out look around the perimeter of the lake, abit like a faded hem line.
The aftermath of winter and receding water levels – the washed out limestone shoreline at Crover, Lough Sheelin
The catches…
‘You fill up my census’
John Denver’s song ‘You fill up my senses’ came to mind on census day, yesterday April 24th when Dublin angler Danny Murray marked his own censes day by catching a beautiful 53cm trout guided by Gary McKiernan, Lough Sheelin Guiding.
Selection of the catches
Patsy Gallagher, Duleck – 2 trout, heaviest at 3lbs on an Epoxy Buzzer.
Christopher De Fillon, Slane – 3 trout, 1 at 6 ¾ and 2 at 5 lb fishing lures.
Furitz Blinovs, Dublin – 3 trout on Saturday April 23rd, heaviest at 3 ½ lbs
Eamonn Delaney, Ardee – 1 trout at 2lbs on a Green Dabbler
Robert Kent, Dublin – 2 trout on a muddler/dabbler wet fly and a Silver Dabbler, heaviest at 4lbs.
Michael Brady, Longford – 2 trout heaviest at 3 ½ lbs on a Sooty Olive and Claret Dabbler.
Gene Brady, Cavan – 1 at 2lbs on an Olive Bumble.
Adrians Ulmanis, Dublin – 2 trout at 4 and 4 ½ lbs on small white minkies.
Ingus Vasijevs fishing with Leonards Bertholds, Dublin – 5 trout for the week (all released) heaviest at 6lbs, caught on black and silver Minkies.
Dzeimss Bartosz, Wexford – 2 trout at 3lbs and 3 ½ lbs using small Minkies – white and yellow.
Mieczyslaw Bartosz fishing with Dariusz Gajos, Dublin – 8 trout for the week heaviest at 6lbs caught on a Black & Silver Minkie.
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 this week was a 6 ¾ pounder caught by Christopher De Fillon, Slane, Co. Meath
Total number of trout recorded: 45
A catch & release policy is actively encouraged on the lake at all times
The Hatches and Flies…
There was only a small amount of fly life on the lake due to the cold conditions but at long last the lake olives have made an appearance, admittedly in sparse numbers but they are there. There are plenty of these olives on the River Inny, leaving Lough Sheelin, and flowing into Finea. The river is a warmer, more sheltered and therefore a more conducive place for these insects to hatch compared to the open harshness of a lake in chilly spring weather.
There were small hatches of buzzer, again more prolific on the river and the larger or Campto buzzers have been sighted this week but no balling of them as yet. Anglers have reported a few fish moving in the calm, surface feeding and a gradual move away from the popular early season sinking lines. Because Sheelin’s shallows are very shallow a floating line is totally adequate for the angler fishing these parts of the lake.
The cold this week particularly the north wind that stuck in for the weekend, stunted the hatches of fly on the lake but regardless of this there is still always something to be done with the buzzers as these are a kind of a constant at this time of the year when basically nothing else seems to be happening in the fly world. Buzzer fishing can be as complicated as you care to make it and many anglers have tried to make it very complicated indeed. Remember there are over 430 species all doing different things, at different times and at different depths so thinking this way it can all be a little daunting.
A Buzzer is an imitation of the pupa of a midge, that stage between a larva and the adult flying insect. The skinny slinkiness of the Epoxy Buzzer is motivated by the fact that the animals that they imitate are small and slender, so there is often a wish for a fly that moves and sinks freely in the water. Lack of body volume is one way of obtaining this.
The secret to successful buzzer fishing is a slow retrieve, there can be nothing hurried about this as we are attempting to simulate the natural and that pupa does not ascends like a bolt of lightening.
Buzzers aside, good advice when fishing Sheelin now and in the coming weeks and months is to keep it simple. A large fly box stuffed to the hilt with amazingly coloured flies of all sizes might look fairly impressive but in reality the angler with maybe a dozen of the old tried and tested traditional patterns will be the more successful and perhaps less confused angler.
It’s important to listen to those who have fished the lake for years and learn from their time mastering this often difficult stretch of water. This week I was told that the colours for Sheelin are red, claret and silver with yellow being a good colour for clouded discoloured flooded water, this is good advice because looking over the flies that have landed the big fish nearly all of those successes have been down to flies with this colour in them.
The most successful flies for this week were the Golden Olive Bumble, the Hare’s Ear, Buzzer Pupa imitations, the Silver Dabbler, the Fiery Brown Dabbler, the Claret Dabbler, the Claret Bumble, Bibios, the Silver Invicta, the Connemara Black, Black Pennell, the Diawl Bach and the Sooty Olive.
Competitions
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
Brenda Montgomery IFI
