Peter Driver of Piscari Fly shares a few reports on some early-season river trouting:
Mark hit his local river on Sunday, the River Erkina, a tributary of the River Nore, just past Durrow Co. Laois. A river well known for its early season fishing & great numbers of fish with some fine fish to be caught, too, Mark always reports. Local GALA shop sells day tickets and membership. Though the Erkina has many stretches of water, Mark reports always enjoying the stretch from the joinings of the Nore to the town bridge on the Erkina, which is about 1.5km in length, with some fine pools & flats to entice fish from. Mark fished for 3hrs prior to work, with fellow fishing partner Roger. Mark geared up with a dry-dropper & nymphing setup. Getting some good action on the dry-dropper to start with on certain pools fishing 5 feet from the indicator fly, but later changing to Nymphs and nymphing deep, as Roger was getting good numbers on a Black Frenchie nymph.
Mark was into fish straight away with nymphs on the new Piscari Venator rod. Water clarity appeared clear in shallows, but deeper pools showed more clouded, so silver-beaded Black Frenchies seemed to be out-catching other pheasant tail nymphs as they were more visible to the fish. They then fished a nice pool Mark knows holds a good number of fish, and both caught some great numbers, finishing up with 40+ fish each over the 8-inch mark. Not a bad way to spend 3 hours on a Sunday morning to blow off some winter cobwebs before work.
Ricky Croke was out with 2 of his mates, Lacey and Wikus, in Kilmacow. The river was down a good 4 inches, and the fish are moving into some of the slower runs. Tight line dry dropper was working well with the same nymphs as last week. “I’m pretty sure I now hold the world record for the smallest trout ever caught on a fly rod” Ricky said
Ricky said he used the same klink for 3 hours after treating it with Dry-X and bar having to blow off some of the excess water at the end, she stayed floating without any other product, even after 2 different fish took it and brought it under.