Brian Curran, fishery manager at Costello & Fermoyle, reviews the 2023 season:
The angling year at Costello & Fermoyle opened on 1st February with high water levels which pertained for several months. Little angling effort took place and as the season moved on, a small number of springers were seen buy not caught.
May saw warm weather, low water levels and little rain. The result was the closing of the system from June 7th to July 8th under advice from IFI as water temperatures had gone above 20°C.
Finally rain started to fall about the 6th July and good numbers of salmon and sea trout were seen running that evening as water levels rose and temperatures dropped.
The fishery reopened and local angler Geoffrey Fitzjohn had the first salmon of the year, a fine 5lb from beat 1 at 1.30p.m. while Brian Kerr had a 3½lb salmon shortly afterwards. Up at the Butt of Fermoyle, Seamus Lowry opened the sea trout catches with 3 fish. The next day Rory Campbell had a 4lb grilse and 9 sea trout on Beat 1.
Catches continued with 11 salmon for July, 6 in August and 1 in September with most of the 18 returned.
Sea trout remained good for the season and fresh sea trout were running in from the sea while the angling season was open to the end of September.
Best sea trout caught and released by a male angler was 4 lbs by local angler Michael Dillon from Inverin on August 10th on Lough Carrick while the best sea trout caught and released by a female angler was taken on Glenicmurrin on 29th August by Michala Walsh and weighted about 3½lbs. This was one of 21 seatrout caught with her partner on that day.
Overall the season was poor for salmon due to poor weather conditions in May / June but sea trout showed a big increase with a catch figure of 842 for 2023 as opposed to 304 for 2022.
Brian E. Curran
Fishery manager
Irelandwestangling.ie
Tel: +353872509722
Go fishing…
