Home Trout fishing reports Sheelin anglers find gold at the end of the rainbow

Sheelin anglers find gold at the end of the rainbow

April 11, 2023

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Lough Sheelin angling report April 3rd – April 9th

“Success in not final, failure is not fatal, it is the courage to continue that counts”

Winston Churchill

Although moving towards mid-April, we are still in early season on Lough Sheelin and for this week that meant early season trout tactics and less than prime fishing conditions. An ideal springtime trout fishing day would be one that opens with sunny skies before transitioning to a cloudy afternoon that promises to make the trout less spooky as they feed in the warmer shallows down along Holywell, Crover, Merry point and around by the Stony Islands. Putting to one side this piscatorial fantasy, the water levels are still stubbornly high here and are slow to recede due to the sporadic downpours. Some boat owners have been caught out with the volumes of rain and many boats are being flooded and, in some cases, have sunk. One boat, with the unfortunate name ‘The Floater’ is almost totally submerged at Goreport with only the bow sticking forlornly out of the waves, something like an extract from ‘The Titantic’.

Despite flood levels, water temperatures are still climbing and are clinging by the fingertips to 10°C from top to bottom.

The experts tell us that trout become much more active at above 10°C but although trout are moving up through the layers with the odd one going air borne, things are still a little slow in the transition and emergence department. Day time temperatures peaked at 15°C on some days and with this heat came good hatches of duck fly, spoilt only by strong gusty predominantly southerly winds. It is very difficult to get the right mix this early in the season and although there were plenty of buzzer hatching, they seemed to be all around the office at Kilnahard with a reluctance to get out on the water where their presence was most needed. Sheltered areas, away from the chill and chop of the waves resulted in a nice little bit of duck fly fishing with some traditional wet flies – the Cruncher, Sooty Olive, Black Pennell, Dunkeld and Mallard & Claret.

Met Eireann promises a rise in temperatures and with this month forging ahead, happily leaving winter behind, buzzer fishing should take off in earnest.

13 year old Victoria Sakowicz with her Sheelin catch

Buzzers and duck flies are all members of the globally distributed family Chironomidae, non-biting midges. Interestingly in certain parts of the world (not at Sheelin) they can be called lake flies, sand flies, muffleheads or chizzywinks but whatever the name, anglers are generally referring to large midge pupae or adults in slow or still water. An angler who ignores the opportunities buzzer fishing bring on Lough Sheelin does so at his peril, as buzzers make up an enormous part of a trout diet and buzzer imitations particularly from mid-April on will work just as well as lures and produce excellent fishing here. The easiest way to track down a hatch’s coordinates is to actually spot the midges flying off the water. Epoxy buzzer patterns imitate the midge’s shiny, gas-filled body and patterns that imitate the bursting out or emergence from pupae to adult. Many buzzers do not survive long enough to get past the pupal stage as the trout are very fond of feasting on these bugs as they writhe and squiggle upwards towards the surface.

There are a mind boggling selection of buzzer patterns but some of the best ones are the Shuttlecock black CDC buzzer (great for to imitate emerging buzzers, letting it drift when the trout are rising to buzzers), a single buzzer on a shortish leader, Silver Bead Black & Gold buzzer (on its own or in a team, the bead gets the imitation down into the water) and a single adult Black Buzzer fished on the surface or pulled to sink below the surface film. When fishing with buzzers, it is important that you retrieve the flies very slowly. This is an art that cannot be rushed.

There were some nice trout caught this week, mainly by casting lures with a small amount of flinging of flies. Successful lures ranged from large to medium, all of which were brightly coloured with some not looking out of place in a hair piece shop. Other popular lures were the Humungus, the Minkies, Snakes and Cats Whiskers. The trout were all in great condition, ranging in colour from butter yellow with well defined spots to a pale silver sprinkled with smaller markings. Angling numbers averaged forty plus on Saturday and Sunday with week days sporting smaller numbers.

The heaviest fish caught was by Dublin angler, Mervyn Clarke using a Silver Dabbler. The Dabblers are still going strong on this lake with the Sooty, Claret, Silver, Golden Olive, Pearly and Green being the most popular. I am reliably told that once you have a dabbler on your cast and you can get that cast over a fish then you will catch.

The best areas for fishing successes were Holywell, Crover Shore, Goreport, Bog Bay, Stony and at the back of Church Island.

Pat Gallagher’s 5.5lb trout caught on a Golden Olive Dabbler

Please remember anglers to abide by BYE-LAW 949 which strictly prohibits from June 14^th, 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 1^st to June 16^th (inclusive).
To fish or to attempt to take or to fish for, fish of any kind other than during the period from March 1^st to October 12^th in any year.