Cobh
View over Cork Harbour from Cobh

There was plenty of rain across northern and eastern coastal counties but elsewhere it was relatively dry and sunny, if still a bit cooler than expected for June. This has made for pretty inconsistent fishing, with results varying in many places from day to day. That said there were a few parts of the country that saw consistently good results, particularly for coarse, trout, charter boat and shore anglers…

salmon
18lb salmon from the Nore for Ger #CPRsavesfish

Bright sunshine, heavy showers, cold northerly wind and fluctuating water levels made conditions very tough on the Moy for the past week. However, 285 salmon were reported caught with a big percentage of them grilse. The Erriff and Delphi Fishery enjoyed good fishing as the rain there brought much needed water. Anglers at Costello and Fermoyle reported good numbers of salmon and sea trout in the system and fish were taking well as the waters levels dropped there. Things were looking up on the Owenmore Fishery at the weekend but the wind changed and so did the luck of the fishermen. On the Munster Blackwater there was some great fishing last week but as the levels on the river continued to drop the fishing petered out. Once again there were a few salmon from the Ilen and there was a long wait for anglers on the Nore to hit it right again this season, but that time arrived at the weekend and some great fish to 18lb were caught and released.

Andrew Flitcroft of Trout & Salmon with his Corrib PB, a fine trout of 5lbs 4oz
Andrew Flitcroft of Trout & Salmon with his Corrib PB, a fine trout of 5lbs 4oz

The Nore is also seeing some great trout fishing recently. Thankfully the trout fishing is not as fickle as the salmon fishing, though they probably lie side by side in many pools. The word from Lough Corrib is that fishing is much improved with good catches on Mayfly and Caenis.

bream
There has been some super bream fishing in Cavan

All our coarse reports are from the top half of the country this week. There has been some great bream fishing reported, both in festivals and from pleasure anglers. What’s great to see is the spread of locations with good bream reports coming in from Cavan, Longford and Monaghan. Some super tench catches were also reported.

Lough Derg
Lough Derg pike

Just one pike report in this week, from Lough Derg. German anglers on a guided fishing holiday had some very enjoyable fishing where they caught some hard fighting fish to 90cm.

Connor O'Reilly's big Porbeagle
Connor O’Reilly’s big Porbeagle was around 7 feet long

On the subject of hard fighting fish a huge porbeagle shark of around 7 feet and estimated to weigh 300lb was caught by an angler on the Silver Dawn out of Courtmacsherry on Tuesday. This huge fish is Catch of the Week. A few good sharks were caught on the same day and fishing in the area is going well at the moment. Charter boat anglers are also getting good fishing at Wicklow where 70 specimens were recorded in the last few weeks. Heading to the top of the country and up in Downings it was a similar story with good reports from wreck and reef. Specimen spurdog and tub gurnard have been landed here too. Out on the west coast there was good fishing on Killala Bay

And now the weather…

Saturday will be warm and dry, temperatures will range 15 to 20C, in moderate southeast breezes. It will be mildest inland away from south and east facing coasts. There will be a locally damp start to Sunday. Heavy thundery rain in the south will slowly push northwards through the day. Spot flooding is likely. Feeling humid, with highs of 15 to 20C, all in a moderate easterly breezes. It will become very warm and increasingly humid well into next week with temperatures widely rising into the 20s. Some thundery rain is possible too though with low pressure lining up close to the Bay of Biscay. Hmmmmm… I’m going fishing, but it looks like I’ll have the rain gear and the the sun block on.

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

Myles Kelly
Catch, Photo, Release

If you have an angling story to share with the Irish Angling Update please send it to [email protected].

Headlines

Salmon angling news

Trout fishing reports

Coarse angling reports

Sea angling news

Pike angling reports

Other news