Home Trout fishing reports Buzzer breakdowns on Lough Sheelin

Buzzer breakdowns on Lough Sheelin

April 29, 2025

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Lough Sheelin angling report, April 21st – April 27th 2025

“He conquers who endures.”

Persius

The fishing gods played havoc on Sheelin for the bulk of the week gone by. Lough Sheelin was predictably busy on the bank holiday Monday but rough southwesterly winds left anglers searching for shelter and quitting the lake early. The aquatic gods threw a bucket of cold water over everything after the holiday weekend by producing heavy downpours with southwesterly winds racing down the lake at uncomfortable speeds on Tuesday. The meteorological cat and mouse game continued as, after the despair and disappointment of early week, Wednesday was a better day with sporadic hatches of buzzer appearing with sympathetic light northerly breezes and daytime temperatures climbing to 17 degrees, giving us all the illusion that finally the weather was on the turn by being conducive to buzzer fishing. Hopes were soon dashed as cold easterlies hit in on Thursday destroying any surface hatches and pulling the water temperatures back down to 11 degrees and then on Friday the rain returned with a vengeance. The weekend of April 26th and 27th saw a marked improvement with the much desired moderate south westerlies returning along with a daytime warmth reaching 18 degrees.

It has been a very frustrating fishing week with nothing steady happening, buzzer hatches were sparse, localised and brief. The hiccuping start to the buzzer fishing here is all down to our unpredictable Irish weather which jumped from winter-like conditions to a sudden burst of summer.

Lake levels have risen and the water is discoloured in sections particularly where the wind was blowing into the shoreline which again added another stumbling block to piscatorial successes. The lake was busy both on Saturday and Sunday with the majority of anglers focussing on the silted areas of Goreport, Bog Bay, Corru, Rusheen and Sailors Garden – all on the hunt for buzzer taking trout.

The fly anglers have now surpassed the spinners with the sound of that welcome whip cast through the air as lines with teams of wets were aimed at the trout looking up to feed on some stage of the buzzers or chironomid dipterans lifecycle. Most of the action is happening below the surface so teams of wets using droppers of the Blank Buster Buzzer, Flashback and Epoxy were favoured. Tungsten Depth Charge Buzzers as point flies with a team in size 8 and on droppers in smaller sizes. Beadhead Buzzers use brass beads to take the buzzers down, slower sinking than tungsten beads, these take the set up down at a slower rate than normal patterns. The Emergers that were responsible for some catches were the Shipman’s, CDC Emergers, Shuttlecock Black CDC and Assassin.

The term buzzer refers to anglers flies which imitate the pupa of the midge and not the air borne adult. Boring as this kind of fishing might be to some anglers, buzzers account for 50% of a trout’s diet and are one of the few insects that are present in all their forms (larvae, pupa and adult) on virtually every day of the year but of course it is the heat that really brings on a hatch. Over the years as fly tyers develop new patterns, the term buzzer has evolved to encompass all manner of different flies and there is now a vast and mesmerising choice of colours and dressings that represent different stages of the lifecycle.

Buzzers have to be fished slow and this is the crux for most, patience is tested and for many it is the ‘chuck and duck’ of the team of wets and the visual surface action of the dry flies that is much more appealing than a slow and painful retrieve. The truth of the matter is that this is the main buzzer season here, admittedly sluggish to get started this year but it is this section of fishing that brings up the Sheelin visions of big well conditioned trout. After feeding down at the bottom of the lake the trout will now be looking towards the surface to see what other food is around. Buzzers can be fished on a floating line under a bung or if on a drift using an intermediate or slow sink. Buzzers ascends from the lake bed slower than other nymphs so it is this slowness that has to be imitated. A combination worth a try would be a buzzer on the point with a Kate Mclaren and Green Peter on the droppers, fished very slowly. Suspended buzzer patterns are also good.

The flies that worked best were the Bits-type patterns in claret, fiery, black, ginger, orange, hare’s ear, olive and grey, the Klinkhammer, Grey Duster, Nymphs – Pheasant Tail, Diawl Bach, Hare’s Ear and Olive in sizes 12 and 14, Mini Muddler as a top dropper, Epoxy Buzzer, Shipmans Buzzer, Flashback Buzzers, CDC Emergers, Greenwell’s Glory, Bibios, Black Pennells, Connemara Black and Stimulators.

Some catches this week were down to the larger flies of Black & Gold Humungous, Silver Humungous, Black Minkies with a flash of silver, Snakes, Woolly Buggers and Cats Whiskers using heavy lines. The Dabblers are still there in Claret, Pearly, Silver, Green, Peter Ross and Silver.

The best fishing areas for this week have been in the silted areas of Bog Bay, Sailors, Goreport, Finea, Corru and Rusheen. Other areas were at the back of Church Island, Merry point and Goreport. All fishing location choices were governed by wind direction.

Lough Sheelin is on the cusp of her fishing season, as the weather warms the insect life will blossom here and with that the interest of the trout. Sheelin is a wild brown fishery so although a difficult, whimsical stretch of fishing water will always offer the angler that chance of a trout weight of a lifetime.

The Lures and Flies

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Sooty & Sweep and Silver Invicta, size 14

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.