Beginners luck for Belfast Buddies on River Maigue

Paddy Dunworth of Celtic Angling reports from the Maigue:

IFI weekly reports last week mentioned the phenomenon of the northern half of our Island experiencing record rainfall whilst the southeast was experiencing the opposite. You can add the southwest to that. I reckon we’re 9 or 10 weeks without rain of any consequence, fishing or farming rain that is, enough to see river water levels rising in feet rather than inches.

The tail-end of Ernesto plus storm Lilian was windy for the most part and had no impact whatsoever on the Maigue with a barely noticeable and short-lived 4″ on the Deel. Bookings have to be met regardless of adverse conditions and Belfast buddies Paddy McCulloch, Brendan Colgan and John O’Connor made the 4 hour+ trip to Adare. Staying within Adare Manor they had only to cross the road for our Saturday midday post-tide session.

Brendan and Paddy had some fly-fishing experience whilst John had none at all, not ideal with a 30km wind whipping upriver and bringing cold showers also. After a brief introduction Paddy and Brendan were able to move downriver, allowing me to give John a crash-course in fly-fishing, page 1 of a very long book.

The ebbing water of a spring tide will last longer as it fills the river more and fishing would have been impossible without this with weeds either on or barely under the surface at low water level. John was casting a reasonable line after an hour or so and I left him to fish at the run just below Adare bridge and waded downriver to see how Paddy and Brendan were faring, leaving instructions on how to take a photo with his phone if he caught anything.

My thinking was, given the atrocious conditions it would be one of the other two improvers who would meet a fish, if at all. And although they both had lots of hits, some probably from playful Roach, it was the rookie John who had hooked, netted, photographed and safely released a trout by the time I got back, beginner’s luck strikes again!

Go fishing…