It’s a cold one this week, with the first day of meteorological winter dawning with a hard frost today, and more to come over the weekend. An Arctic airflow is dominating our weather at the moment, but at least with the cold comes nice bright, dry weather. Remember, there’s no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing, so put on the layers, wrap up well and get out there!

Pike

Winter piking is in full swing at the moment, and the Whitewood Pike Angling club members certainly enjoyed themselves on their league outing last weekend, with 111 pike landed! A wet start did not dampen spirits for the Bective Anglers annual pike competition, where young Cuinn Muldowney left the senior anglers for dust with 3 nice pike. A huge turnout of 124 rods turned out for the Newbridge Pike Anglers open competition at Poulaphouca, where Keiron Cummins was the winner with a fish of 17.08lbs.

Wendell Cruz Junior took a trip to the midlands for his first time ever pike fishing, guided by Chris Scally of Fish Tales Guiding, and was rewarded with 9 pike, including our Catch of the Week, a 17.4lbs fish, a great catch for a first timer!

Coarse

It’s a slow week for coarse angling reports, but Attila Paldick defied the cold water temperatures at Oaklands to take the third round of their winter league with a fine catch of 65.100kg.

oaklands winter league

O’Briensbridge proved a tough venue for Munster Coarse Anglers at the weekend, with some anglers doing reasonable well, but high pegs not seeing many fish at all. Elsewhere, Monasterevin & Fisherstown Anglers are holding a Fur & Feather competition on December 10th which sounds like good fun. Details on their Facebook page here.

Sea

Sea temperatures are also cooling down, but many species are still active and feeding. The cold weather can offer calmer conditions and opportunities to get out boat fishing, and skipper John Fleming and his crew found some reasonable pollack fishing in Galway Bay this week. Big tides at the weekend saw plenty of bass feeding hard after recent storms, and Keith Barker reported some god fish to lures, including a nice 68cm fish. Cormac Walsh of The Lure Fishing Podcast stepped away from the mic this week to make the most of the big tides, and was rewarded with some good bass in excellent condition.

Cormac and one of his November fish

The Killybegs Mariners club had no compeition this week, but that didn’t stop some of the members getting out on the beach and landing plenty of coalfish, flounder, turbot and bass. 38 anglers fished the penultimate leg of the Leinster Shore League last weekend at Kilgorman, but fishing was slow until darkness fell, with Gary Foster taking the win with 19 fish. Troy Francis made an early blitz attack at Garrylucas, catching enough fish in the first 2 hours to easily win the West Cork & District SAC competition.

Salmon

A late end-of-season report from Connemara, where Brian Curran reports that salmon numbers were down, but sea trout showed a large, and welcome increase, with some lovely fish to 4lbs reported.

Ready for action. The Cottage Pool on Beat 1 of the Casla River, Connemara.

Podcasts, Videos, Blogs

The Ireland on the Fly podcast with Daire and Tom this week were joined by Tony McCann from Belfast who, although only taking up salmon fly tying four years ago is already an accomplished salmon fly tier appearing at fairs in Ireland and the UK.

James Raymond from Irish Angling Adventures is back with a new series of videos on fishing for cod in the Shannon Estuary, and while in the first session cod proved elusive, he managed a couple of really chunky Shannon thornback ray which we would be very happy to land ourselves!

Frosty nights and plummeting water temperatures may make for tough fishing, but they hasten the onset of salmon spawning. Many of our rivers and streams will witness this great spectacle over the coming weeks. Most trout spawning is finished now, with some sea trout still digging redds. To mark it, we shared a video this week of the trout spawning migration in the Corrib catchment. The video is narrated by Martin Butler, the long-serving district inspector for the Corrib catchment, who officially retires today, and we wish him the very best in his retirement.

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While the salmon season is closed to let the fish do their thing in private, don’t forget that 2024 salmon licences wlll be on sale shortly, and make a great Christmas present for the angler in your life. Give them something to look forward to!

And now the weather

A very cold weekend in store, with daytime temperatures of 1-5 degrees, and hard frosts at night, with temps of 0 to -4C. Scattered showers, heaviest in the west and north, with some falling as hail, sleet or even snow on higher ground.

Current indications suggest that wet and windy weather will spread over the south and east of the country early on Monday, with the possibility of scattered falls of sleet. Coldest in the north with milder weather possible in the south.

FURTHER OUTLOOK: Considerable uncertainty in the further outlook, with a signal for a return to a more Atlantic regime.

Safe fishing to all and tight lines, especially here in Ireland. If fishing in the sea, don’t forget to check the tides.

IFI Staff
Catch, Photo, Release

If you have an angling story to share with the Irish Angling Update please send it to [email protected] and don’t forget that all of our fishing reports are available on our dedicated Angling Ireland Facebook page.

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