The past week saw a continuation of the unsettled weather of late with breezy and wet conditions dominating. Heavy downpours and prolonged spells of rain resulted in localised flooding with water levels on the rise throughout the country.

High water levels impacted on salmon angling on a number of fisheries such as the River Erriff where anglers still managed to land a few sea trout and salmon considering the conditions. Elevated water levels were also reported from the River Laune in Co. Kerry, while a succession of floods combined with low angling effort impacted negatively on salmon angling on the Moy in the northwest. On the lakes the situation wasn’t much different with no salmon reported from Lough Currane and Carrowmore Lake mostly due to the windy and blustery conditions.

Over to trout fishing, where Peter Driver reports excellent angling from the Nore on both nymphs and dry flies in his latest Piscari-Fly newsletter.

Beautiful Nore brown

On the lakes, several competitions were held over the past weeks. Starting up in the northwest on Lough Melvin, Jack Wade, aged 16, of Loughrea in Galway won the 2025 World Youth Lough Open fly fishing championship, while 17-year-old Lisa O’Sullivan, from Bantry in Co. Cork scooped the Ladies’ Cup.

Going clockwise around the country, Bohernabreena Reservoir in the foothills of the Dublin Mountains was the venue for the Dublin Trout Anglers who fished their annual Ryder Cup competition catching some nice wild brownies. Down south some young Killarney anglers enjoyed a super day on Barfinnihy Lake during a juvenile competition organised by Killarney Salmon and Trout Angling Club.

Naoise keeping a watchful eye on Grandad Donal as the cast is prepared on Barfinnihy Lake

In the Midlands on Lough O’Flynn, the Baggots Cup was keenly contested with the boat team of Anthony Doyle & David Galvin coming up trumps, while further west the Mike Tiernan Memorial Cup, a collaborative effort between Foxford Angling Club and Tiernan Brothers angling shop, was held on Lough Conn.  The competition’s most novel and progressive feature was its core principle of catch and release which demonstrated that competitive spirit and environmental stewardship can go hand-in-hand.

The 6th International Womens Fly Fishing Day (IWFFD) is happening this Saturday 13th September. It is a day for women from all over the world who fly fish to celebrate being a part of this special community by sharing photos, videos and stories on the International Womens Fly Fishing Day FB page found at https://www.facebook.com/groups/573597536965118.

Flyfishing in Iceland
Flyfishing in Iceland

Women are encouraged to post at 11am in their respective time zones which allows the celebration to unfold globally, as one time zone’s morning is another’s afternoon. The day was co-founded by Maddy Kelly, an international angler from Northern Ireland, and Pamela Caldwell Dunlap, a fly fishing enthusiast from West Virginia. They connected online through a women’s fly-fishing group and discovered a shared mission to get more women involved in the sport. Check out the full story here.

In coarse angling the final FeederKing qualifier took place on Lough Sillan in Co. Cavan with great bags of skimmers, bream and roach got by the competitors. The Edenderry Coarse Angling Club brought their summer season to a close last weekend with their last match on the Grand Canal. The fishing didn’t disappoint and some decent bags including some fine tench were had which helped to finish the season on a positive note.

In advance of the upcoming festival in Portumna, the local coarse angling club held a club match at the ‘Town & Stic ups’ stretches last Sunday. The fishing was pretty impressive all round with the top bag caught by Morgan Lewis weighing in at 63lbs plus!

Impressive bags were also caught at Inniscarra Reservoir in Co. Cork during two recently held events: at the Granvilles Cup the top six anglers all weighed in over 40kg each with a winning bag of 46.660kg for John Fletcher, while the previously fished Centra 3 Day Match also saw some fantastic weights surpassing 50kg with Rory Jones finishing tops with an overall wight of 59.810kg!

Impressive bags such as this one were reported from Inniscarra

Surprisingly, we didn’t receive many pike reports this week. However, Paul Bourke and Senan Stanley of Irish Fishing Tours were in touch and reported some good predator action from Lough Derg including a number of nice pike and chunky perch.

Great Derg pike

Finally, over to sea angling where Kit Dunne of Wicklow Boat Charters has had a busy week species hunting but also facilitating scientist from University College Cork in their efforts tagging tope to monitor their movements in Irish waters. A total of ten tope were caught and tagged with satellite tags and conventional dart tags, and hopefully we can glean a lot of interesting data about this key angling species.

In the meantime, charter boats in the southwest were making the most of the few weather windows available. David Edwards of West Cork Charters reports of two small porbeagles and two blues, some nice bullhuss plus several other species such as cod and sea bass; not a bad result taking conditions into account.

Staying in the southwest,  David Norman of Angling Adventures West Cork together with his client, Stephen Traynor, braved the elements on their kayaks finding nice pollack and wrasse in some sheltered spots.

wrasse
Nice kayak-caught wrasse from West Cork

Further up the coast on the Dingle Peninsula, the latest Munster Shore League match took place at Ventry. The event saw a great turnout of 43 anglers with Barry Murphy winning the competition.

Concluding our angling update this week we are heading up to Donegal Bay where tuna boats struggled with the unfavourable conditions but despite the inclement weather a few bluefin were caught, tagged and released.

Donegal Bay was also the place where this week’s Catch of the Week was caught: a red bandfish! Not a rare species as such but a rare species to be caught by anglers as these fish live most of the time in burrows on the seabed. So a truly remarkable catch for small boat angler Anthony Kierans who initially went out fishing for squid but read the full story here.

This week’s Catch of the Week – a red bandfish

Other news

Inland Fisheries Ireland has this week announced a public consultation on the agency’s Statement of Strategy for the next five years (2026-2030).

Anglers and angling associations are some of the organisation’s key stakeholders and this document will guide IFI’s role in any future involvement with recreational angling and the angling sector.

To contribute to the public consultation, please take the time to review our Statement of Strategy Guidance Document and Make an Online Submission – which you can do here.

The public consultation will be open for submissions until Friday, October 17th, 2025.

Extract from the IFI Statement of Strategy

Blackwater fish kill

Inland Fisheries Ireland continues to investigate the large fish kill on the River Blackwater and is further deploying a range of operational activities to try to find a cause. Amongst other meausure, IFI has sent 28 brown trout specimens for extensive laboratory testing, from an affected stretch of the river, to identify any contaminants in their bodies. A detailed press release regarding IFI’s ongoing operations on the River Blackwater is available on www.fisheriesireland.ie.

 

And now the weather…

Early tonight, rain will clear eastwards and it will become dry for a time with clear spells. The weekend, however, will bring a mix of sunny spells and scattered showers, some heavy. They will gradually die out through Sunday afternoon and evening. Highest temperatures of 13 to 16°C with moderate to fresh and occasionally gusty southwest winds, decreasing light to moderate later. The outlook for next week is for more unsettled and changeable weather with spells of persistent or heavy rain and a possibility of strong winds towards midweek.

Don’t forget to double-check the forecast before heading off, and if you’re going to sea, check the tides.

Safe fishing to all and tight lines, especially here in Ireland.

IFI Staff
Catch, Photo, Release

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

All the angling news

International Womens Fly Fishing Day #IWFFD

Salmon Fishing Reports

Trout Fishing Reports

Coarse Angling Reports

Pike Fishing Report

Sea Angling Reports

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