Michael Righton was in touch to tell us about a fine Lough Mask trout he caught on Monday:
He was fishing out of Cushlough, and the lake was flat and calm. He had been in hospital for the previous 3 weeks with a very rare virus and had been quite ill. As a consequence, he chose not to go out too far as he was fishing on his own and wanted to see how he coped in the boat. The lake was very high, but he decided to fish the shallows. He came across some hatches of very small buzzers along with some caenis, but there was no sign of fish showing to them.
As the day progressed, he saw two fish jump at the end of a bay, a place where he had come across fish before and set his boat on a drift in that direction. He was fishing a 5lbs leader with 3 flies, and a slow figure of 8 retrieve on an intermediate line. As he approached the end of the bay, he had a gentle pull, but nothing came of it. However, another 30m down the drift, he had a nice solid pull and connected with a fish. The trout pitched straight out of the water and then put up a very dogged fight to the net. The fish measured 52cm and was nice and plump, and Michael estimated from tables that it weighed 4 lbs plus. He caught it on his self-tied Gold-head hares ear nymph, which was duly removed, and following a quick photo, the trout was returned to the lough.
No doubt a trout like that was the perfect tonic after his spell in hospital, a worth winner of Catch of the Week.
