Lough Sheelin angling report May 30th – June 16th 2023
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.
Winston Churchill

Water temperatures have gradually climbed during the past two weeks as daytime heats peaked at 24°C. For Lough Sheelin, water temperatures are now registering 19.72°C at 0.5 metres and 17.99°C at 12.5 metres. The blusterier days produced a better stratification but in general it has been warm from top to bottom.
Brown trout are the hardier of the trout family. The optimal feeding and movement water temperature for them is 10°C to 15°C. Like many other fish species, trout are cold-water fish, and they become less active when the water gets too hot. Due to the high oxygen needs, trout search for colder waters during the summer season because the amount of oxygen in the water reduces the warmer things gets. Higher temperatures mean that the trout are more lethargic and it’s difficult for them to breathe. This translates to moving less to save energy and not eating as often or as much.
Hitting 19°C plus, the goal of our trout is to move to areas of colder water or thermal refuge, so it is down to the bottom and holding out under those rocks and weeded areas.
When the water temperature reaches 20°C or goes even higher, the oxygen level drops significantly, and the trout get stressed and they will stop feeding until the water cools down again. Trout caught in water temps above 20°C can and will often die even if you think that you released them healthy.
All of the above doesn’t bode well for the trout angler and successes diminished significantly as this hot spell continued.

The Whit weekend marked the start of this heat wave and with the persistent and rising temperatures the Sheelin trout have headed South for deeper water, gluing themselves to the bottom until the evening cool brought falls of spent and hatches of sedges and with it the necessary piscatorial encouragement to chance surface feeding.

Although the hot weather took its toll on the daytime fishing, the evening and dusk more than made up for things as Sheelin treated its anglers to spectacular dances of millions of mayfly bobbing up and down above shoreline trees and bushes and above islands in their almost theatrical mating dance. Although our mayfly season is more or less over for this year, there are still pods of hatches to be found. Lough Sheelin, above any other trout lake in Ireland appears to have hosted the largest numbers of this special almost magical little insect. In their silent way, mayflies speak volumes about water quality. Known as an indicator species, their presence and abundance serve as evidence of healthy water as they have little tolerance for poor water quality. Lough Sheelin historically has battled a nutrient overload and although always on a knife edge, it has to be a very encouraging and uplifting thing to witness so many of these wonderful, almost spiritual little flies, take to the air. It is as if nature is fighting back against the damage that humans have done to this wild brown trout fishery.
Day time fishing has more or less ground to a halt with an odd trout being caught on nymph set ups – mayfly, Diawl Bach, CDC, Montana Nymph, Buzzer and Spiders. Dry and wet fishing was poor and it was the nymphs that worked best during the day.
Anglers here continually prefer the exhilaration of sight fishing regardless of the fact that there is a great reason to start nymphing as 90% of the fish eat nymphs 90% of the time.
Easterly winds predominated throughout the two weeks. This direction is generally not favoured by anglers but with the heat it didn’t much matter.
Lough Sheelin’s trout fishing has moved nocturnal as trout are now rising to sedges after 10pm. The fish are only surfacing to feed at sunset and after dark, with trout taking small dry sedge patterns and Wulffs.

Although fish are being caught and angling numbers remain in the double figures after office hours, fishing has become more challenging with trout becoming picky and difficult. Spent numbers were huge but it was only the smaller male patterns that were working or the pattern that had a bushier or shaggy muddler kind of head.. It seems to be the scruffier tyings that are getting the trout’s attention.

The best areas for fishing (wind dependant) were the back of Church Island, Corru, Derrysheridan, Bog Bay, Inchacup, Stoney Island, Chambers, Lynch’s pt and Plunketts point.
The flies that worked reasonably well over the past two weeks were the spent gnat patterns and for the past seven days most of the catches were in the late afternoon up to and beyond 11pm.
Another good working combination was a size 14 Klinkhammer as the point fly with the second fly a size 14 Sedge pattern. The Wulffs featured strongly as well with the Gray, Royal, Green and Yellow landing some fine fish. On windy days a Royal Wulff ginked at the top to make sure it drags in the wave proved to be a good plan.
The Sedges are starting to make an appearance with a tentative degree of success as it is still early days for them on this lake.
Other popular patterns were the Mayflies – Green, Mosley and Ginger, the Dabblers (Peter Ross, Green, Silver and Fiery) Epoxy Buzzer, Buzzer variants, Spent Gnat, Sooty Olive, Golden Olive Bumble, CDC Mayfly Nymph, the Welshman’s Button, the Fiery Brown Sedge, the French Partridge Mayfly, the Royal Coachman, the Silver Invicta, the Cock Robin, The Grey Klinkhammers (size 12 -14 (Emerger), the Cinnamon Sedge and Stimulators.

In certain parts of America and Canada, from July to August every year ‘Hoot Owl’ regulations are imposed where the rivers are closed at the hottest part of the day, the afternoon, to give the trout a break from fishing pressure , thus reducing stress. ‘Hoot Owl’ is a funny name for these restrictions but has an interesting origin. This term originated during the logging era of the early 20th century. In summer, the forests of the western US are particularly dry and have a very high risk of forest fires. Given that logging equipment can generate sparks and lead to fires, loggers would cease operations in the afternoons to avoid working during the hottest and driest parts of the day. When logging activity shifted to the cooler, dewy mornings, loggers often encountered actively hooting owls. The morning shift became known as the Hoot Owl shift. Hoot Owl fishing restrictions are one of the most successful strategies for reducing catch and release mortality during times of heat-induced stress. An idea for Sheelin perhaps, until the rain comes….




Lough Sheelin Guiding Services (www.loughsheelinguidingservices.com) 087 1245927
Michael Farrell @ 087 4194156Telephone: +353 43 6681298 Email: [email protected]
Grey Duster Guiding
Kenneth O’Keeffe
Tel: 086 8984172 Email: [email protected]
John Mulvany [email protected] 086 2490076

Please remember anglers to abide by BYE-LAW 949 which strictly prohibits from June 14th, 2017 onwards:
- The taking of any brown trout of less than 36 centimeters.
- For a person to fish with more than 2 rods at any one time.
- To fish with more than 4 rods at any one time when there is more than one person on board the boat concerned.
- For a person to take more than 2 trout per day.
- All trolling on the lake from March 1st to June 16th (inclusive).
- To fish or to attempt to take or to fish for, fish of any kind other than during the period from March 1st to October 12th in any year.
All anglers fishing Lough Sheelin must hold a current Midland Fisheries Permit. Anglers must be in possession of this permit BEFORE they fish the lake. This permit can be bought online from the Inland Fisheries website or a hard copy can be bought locally from Crover House Hotel, Geraldine Hand, Finea or Brian Webber, Cavan
Catches for the two weeks: 92
Heaviest fish: 8lb trout caught on a Gray Wulff by Dublin angler Brian Graham.
