Lough Sheelin angling report May 26th to June 1st 2025
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”
Thomas A.Edison
It has been another week of pain and mental torture on Lough Sheelin as anglers struggled against changing wind directions, drops in temperatures and finicky trout.
Lough Sheelin played fast and loose with her anglers by producing a very promising start to the week with large hatches of Mayfly, big falls of spent, trout surface feeding and then the refusals. Up to Wednesday trout were reported to be surface feeding and taking the greens and later the spent. South westerly winds, cloudy conditions and drops in daytime temperatures to 16 degrees produced a much more promising scenario for trout fishing.
Piscatorial hopes for many were crushed as the week ended in downpours and strong blustery northerly winds which effectively produced empty car parks and a quiet lake. This week gone by, encompassing the end of May and the beginning of June still held hope of the last hurrah for the 2025 mayfly season here but although some lovely fish were caught on dry and wet fly patterns in the earlier part of the week, the new month started like a damp squib and anglers struggled once again, continually reporting very few trout surfacing.
In certain regions of the United States Mayflies are sometimes referred to as “Canadian soldiers” this nickname probably earned from the large swarms of these aquatic insects which emerge from the lakes, resembling a swarm of “soldiers” marching in unison. Sheelin had her own battalion of soldiers this year and it will be a year forever remembered not by the trout catches but for a Mayfly hatch that was a Goliath event with clouds of insects blanketing the lake both at the hatching stage and at the grand finale of spent – a gold sheen of silken crumpled forms draped across the surface water.
Now, into June it feels as if we have been robbed of something, the anti-climax is unpalatable and now the fishing season has moved on without giving us our ‘duffer’s fortnight’, leaving anglers with crushed dreams and nagging frustration. This was supposed to be the ‘easy to catch’ time and it was far from that as the weather refused to behave and the trout happily fed sub surface on the abundance of food and sure why would they be bothered with those carefully put together teams of wets or dries skimming the surfaces when there is all that good stuff below the waves.
After the Mayfly hatch, several insects can become important for trout fishing. There were plenty of hatches of sedges or Caddisflies and these can be a crucial food source for the fish. Some stonefly species emerge after the Mayfly hatch and trout often key into these large, nutritious insects. We also have the terrestrials coming along – grasshoppers, beetles and ants which can offer a tempting alternative and then there are buzzers which have always formed a staple food source.
Popular fly patterns that were used were the Elk Hair Caddis, the Stimulator, the Wulffs in Green, Grey and Royal, the Nymphs (Pheasant Tail, Hare’s Ear, Gold-Ribbed Hare’s Ear and Prince), Dabblers in Claret and Green, Spent Gnat patterns, the Gosling, Buzzer patterns and the Hopper patterns.
Lough Sheelin is a wild brown trout fishery, wild by definition means untamed and uncontrolled, unpredictable and chaotic, an erratic and mercurial expanse of water and this year’s Mayfly has been the epiphany of all of the above.
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.
Sheelin Fishing Guides:
John Mulvany johnmulvanyfishing@gmail.com 086 2490076
Heaviest trout: an 8 lb trout caught by Stephen Devaney, Northern Ireland on a Royal Wulff at Bog Bay
Number of trout recorded: 25
Selection of catches:
Pat Bannon, Cavan – one trout at 5lbs on a Spent Gnat pattern.
Thomas Lynch, Cavan – one trout at over 6lbs on a Spent Gnat pattern at Bog Bay, May 27th.
Cian Cullen – 1 trout at 3lbs
Eamon Ross, Cavan – 1 trout at 3lbs.
Ian Davison – 1 trout at over 3lbs on a Mayfly pattern.
