Winner Kevin Johnson receiving his prize at Arva Festival
Alice MurtaghIFI from the Corlesmore office reports:
The annual Arva Festival took place last week with 73 anglers fishing Rockfield, Glasshouse, Tesses shore, Kevins Shore, Corfree, Dernaferst and Gulladoo Steps. Fishing was good at all venues and the following is a list of the winners:-
1st. Kevin Johnson 55.030kg
2nd. Neil Mallinson 50.710kg
3rd. Wayne Easter 50.010kg
4th. Carl Heptinstall 48.430kg
5th. Paul Danby 45.170kg
6th. Neil Parkinson 45.120kg
Winner Kevin Johnson receiving his prize at Arva Festival
Alice Murtagh Inland Fisheries Ireland – Corlesmore Office, Arva, Co. Cavan [email protected]
Tel: +353 (0)49 4337174
From empty rivers to crowded seas, fishing this week, as ever, was very reliant on the weather. And the weather threw everything at us. It had more twists than a rattle snake with a hernia. Flooding affected many areas badly with rivers discoloured and many roads impassable. Sunny weather did keep spirits high in the north west of the country as all eyes were on Donegal Bay with 14 nations taking place in the prestigious World Boat Angling Championships. A fantastic showcase of the best sea fishing in Ireland…..
Heavy rain and floods impacted badly on the salmon fishing this week making many rivers unfishable. The Laune saw water levels rise to a massive 2.3 M at the Bridge and about 5 feet at Johnston’s. Currane was likewise with 36 mm of rainfall on Monday. All the locals headed to the River Inny and Commeragh. There was a good 9lb salmon caught before the flood by a German angler and a number of smaller sea trout. Over at Owenea fishery the bottom four pools were blue with seatrout, probably the tide that drove them in. The river should fish well in coming days. West Cork Rivers Ilen, Coomhola and Ouvane didn’t fare too badly, with the Ilen doing best with 14 fish reported, the best being 12lbs on worms. The Bandon and the Lee were unfishable. The Munster Blackwater changed it’s colour to beige this week but not before Fort William had a cracking fish of 8lbs at Glenmore on fly bringing it to 10 fish in 5 days.
Delphi downpours fought back anglers but the courageous were rewarded with salmon upto 12lbs 11ozs. Unfortunately Delphi lost one of their dear friends this week, Mr. John Mill who was featured recently as he caught his 200th Delphi salmon. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam.
Erriff reported a nice 4lb grilse for a French angler on a small black fly from the Middle Garden Pool, which he returned plus a few nice sea trout averaging 1½lbs. Massive flooding at Kylemore put an end to anyone venturing out fishing.
Patrick Releasing His Salmon Back to the Waters of the River Boyne is our ‘Catch of the Week’ winner
Patrick Jones from New Caledonia fished on the River Boyne over the weekend. Guided by Peter Cunningham, Patrick was delighted to land and release his first Wild Atlantic Irish Salmon was estimated to be around 14lbs in weigh. This super fish wins our ‘Catch of the Week’.
The Moy like its neighbouring Galway Rivers had extremely high water levels. One classy German angler did catch a 6 lb fish on Gannon’s on the worm. 130 salmon were reported for the Moy system this week. The Drowes dropped back to 0.49m and could actually do with some rain. 3 salmon on prawn were caught while the Owenea was very quiet.
Lough Corrib saw some great late season fishing. The Oughterard area has some excellent weights, Galway father and son team Harry and Kevin O’Toole caught 10 trout for an estimated 15lbs on wet flies and 9 trout with an estimated weight of 30lbs on a mixture of wets and dries respectively. Many other anglers had trout ranging in the 11 to 12 inch bracket. Again Loughs Mask and Carra enjoyed late season sport with some outstanding dry-fly fishing. The Vintners Federation Trout Fishing Competition on Lough Mask was won by well known competition angler, Basil Shields from Oughterard, with 5 fish for 4.255kg over the 2 days.
There was tough conditions on Emy Lough Sunday for the Pillar House Cup, the winner was Martin McKenna, Emy Anglers PRO with a fish weighing 1¾ lbs. A 6.5lb Sheelin beauty caught on a minkie was the pride of Brian McAvinney and on Lough Melvin H.F. McCloy reported 14 good Sonaghan to the boat in one day. Lough Derg was lonely and without the anglers the trout enjoyed a feast of a local black fly – reed smuts – which are hatched.
The Final of the Southside Angling Junior National Pike Championships was held recently on 2 adjoining lakes near Shercock in County Cavan. IFPAC are doing great work to encourage young anglers into pike fishing. In all 33 boys and girls qualified to fish in the Final. There were 3 sections Under 8, Under 13 and Under 18. Super fun and great fishing was had with Cliodhna McKenna winning in U8, Jack McQuaid in U13 and Jake Fisher in U18. The Ardee A team came first in the All Ireland Inter Club Team event.
Sea fishing was the highlight of the week with the World Boat Angling Championship making headlines. Donegal Bay was a hive of activity as 14 nations descended on Bundoran. A huge céad míle Fáilte awaited them. Ireland, Belgium, Croatia, England, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, San Marino, Slovenia, Spain and Wales are taking place. Day 1 saw big Bluefin Tuna breaching the surface of the water welcoming their guests. A variety of wrasse, pollack, dogfish, ling, coalfish, and an odd conger, to name a few, were landed by the 70 anglers fishing from 9 charter boats. All angling is done at anchor and is bait only. Today, Thursday saw sunny skies with England out in front at present and Italy following closely. We wish the best to our Boys in Green and all competitors. RTE sent Teresa Mannion to cover the event and viewers got a chance to see the stunning scenes around the North West Coast and get a glimpse of the anglers at work. Irish team manager Kit Dunne spoke to Teresa about the 30 varieties of species available in Donegal Bay while Bundoran Tourist Officer Shane Smith is delighted with the attention this brings to Ireland and how much it means to the economy.
In other sea fishing news Kerry took on the blues and conquered them catching a 7ft+ shark. Eugene Farrelly was fishing the waters 20 miles off the Kerry coast onboard Des Sugrue boat. Carrigaholt skipper Luke Aston had some cracking blues also and topped the week off with cod and tope. Further up the coast in Galway the Brazen Hussy 2 had similar catches and Kayak angler Gary Robinson had pollock, ballan wrasse, mackerel and scad while out in Connemara. Fellow kayaker and blogger Steven Neely, who is back from his travels had some fine fat wrasse and pollack around Donegal and over on the far coast Red Bay skipper Hamish Currie boated a couple of nice porbeagle sharks with his Dutch clients.
A very successful World Pairs ended on Friday. Rain at Brackley Lake didn’t stop anglers putting in an excellent performance. Brothers Phil and Steve Ringer won the Team event and Phil took the individual event too. Well done to them both as it had been a hard week with an unfortunate car accident on the way to one of the events. Phil’s individual score was 68.330kg and the Leading Pairs result for Phil and Steve was 123.055kg. The World Pairs is one of the most exciting fixtures in the world of coarse angling.
Melview Lodge guest had some super catches of roach; bream to 252lb in one session and some cracking hybrids. It’s no wonder they return year after year. East Clare Lakes also report a good number roach but small in size. The annual Arva Festival took place last week with 73 anglers fishing Rockfield, Glasshouse, Tesses shore, Kevins Shore, Corfree, Dernaferst and Gulladoo Steps. Kevin Johnson was the winner with 55.03kgs.
Notification of a temporary closure of part of the River Suck fishery near Ballymoe, County Galway. The section of the River Suck fishery from Cloonroughan to Cloondacarra Bridge, through Cloontrask Townland is temporarily closed from 16/09/2015 to 30/09/2015, to facilitate necessary maintenance on the Suck Valley Way.
Tonight, there will be some further scattered showers at first, but they’ll become confined mainly to coastal areas of the southwest, west and north overnight, with clear spells developing.
Friday night will be dry with clear spells and slackening winds; it will be rather cool with fog patches forming inland. Saturday will be a dry day with sunny spells in all areas. Temperatures well up to normal for the time of year as light, variable breezes become moderate, southerly during the day. However, a band of rain will come into western counties from the Atlantic on Saturday night and southerly winds will increase fresh to strong by Sunday morning. This rain band will spread eastwards across the country during Sunday and it will remain quite breezy. The rain will continue in many places early on Sunday night but will clear eastwards later in the night; winds veering southwest will slacken as this occurs.
The early days of next week are likely to be unsettled with rain or showers affecting all areas. It is not likely to be too windy but temperatures will dip below normal yet again.
Skipper John Fleming of Blue Shark Angling Galway tells us he had absolutely cracking lure fishing in Galway Bay over the last week wtih all fish a decent average and a lot of cod showing.
Yesterday John had 15 blues which were all tagged and released and as many more dropped runs. Fantastic sport with sharks circling the boat all day!
Phil Rogers, Tony Clawson and Les Humphreys from the UK where here once again for their annual fishing trip to Ireland and Melview Lodge, They fished two venues during their trip using a feeder approach. Prebaiting each evening produced some good fish for them, venue one produced lots of Hybrids and big Roach along with a few Bream. However venue two produced some fine catches of Bream to 252lb in one session between them, and the total for their six days was 750lb which was not bad considering some of easterly winds they had while fishing. Feeder fishing between 35 and 50 yards into depths ranging from 12 to 28 feet produced well for them, all in all a good week for them and we hope to see them again next year. Well done Lads.
Phil Rogers, Tony Clawson and Les Humphreys with one of their catches of Bream.
Nigel Barnes from Preston who has been coming over to Melview Lodge now for some 10 years decided his would start on one of the places he knows very well that in the past have produced some good Bream and Tench, however this time it produced plenty of Roach along with a couple of Tench. This seemed to go on for a few days until he decided to finish his holiday with a few days fishing on the River Shannon, using the feeder approach he managed some cracking Hybrids and big Roach. Kevin said if had not been for the Pike problems he would have had a shed full, well done mate.
All fish returned unharmed.
Nigel Barnes with a great catch of Hybrids and Roach.
Lindsey Clarke reports from Owenea Fishery – Monday 7th Sept to Sunday 13th September 2015.
Water levels were low on the Owenea all week until Saturday when we received a fair flood (0.26m) though by Sunday the river had fallen rapidly and the gauge only read 0.14m. The fishery was understandably quiet and only 5 visiting rods fished, all at the weekend. The only salmon catch I have heard of to date was Bill Murray who recorded a 5lb grilse caught on a fly from beat 5 on Sunday.
Lindsey Clarke reports from the RIVER DROWES – Monday 7th Sept to Sunday 13th September 2015.
The Drowes had nice water levels at the start of the week with the gauge reading 0.55m. As the week progressed the river steadily fell and by Sunday the gauge had dropped to 0.49m. Some rain is desirable to raise water levels again. The fishery was quiet with few rods fishing but those rods that fished seemed to report a bit of action. The best catch we have heard of was Marty King on Saturday who landed 3 salmon on prawn from the Wash Stones and Money Hole with 2 of these released again.
For info/bookings etc on the Drowes Fishery & Lough Melvin see the website: http://www.drowessalmonfishery.com/ or Tel: +353 (0)71 9841055 (8 am to 12 noon).
Lindsey Clarke reports from LOUGH MELVIN – Monday 7th Sept to Sunday 13th September 2015.
There was little salmon angling effort on Melvin this week as is usual for this time of the season. The trout fishing remained good over the deeps with decent catches of Sonaghan reported. H.F. McCloy reported 14 good Sonaghan to the boat one day over the week, fishing wet daddies and dabblers. Mostly taken from deep drifts off school house and church island.
A good pollack caught on the Malin Waters Media Boat yesterday
Today the sun shone on Donegal Bay but not, it seems, on Ireland’s fortunes in the World Boat Fishing Championships being fished from Bundan and Mullughmore. Dave Roe fished hard to win his boat but his points are not enough to help Ireland up the rankings.
A good pollack caught on the Malin Waters Media Boat yesterday
In general there was a good deal of change across the rankings and the English anglers did particularly well taking first place on 3 boats. Italy managed to maintain their momentum with some strong performances including one first place. Croatia are proving to the the surprise of the competition with another strong performance that saw them take 2nd place. Meanwhile hotly tipped Spain produced a top 5 finish but overall have yet to perform to their capabilities.
By then end of Day 2 the scores were counted and for the day the new overall ranking looked like this:
England
Italy
Slovenia
Croatia
France
Ireland are in 6th place overall, but it will be hard for the Boys in Green to get a top 5 finish let alone a place on the podium at this stage.
General Team Ranking
Going into the last day both England and Italy will have three anglers each in the Top 10 individual rankings!
Notification of a temporary closure of part of the River Suck fishery near Ballymoe, County Galway.
The section of the River Suck fishery from Cloonroughan to Cloondacarra Bridge, through Cloontrask Townland is temporarily closed from 16/09/2015 to 30/9/2015, to facilitate necessary maintenance on the Suck Valley Way.
Suitable diversion/access can be followed from the Suck Valley Way maps at www.suckvalleywaywalks.ie
09/09/2015: Nice fishing for Tope today in estuary today. Also had a couple of Turbot, small but nice to see
10/09/2015:We got in a shark drift today. Started with in a couple of miles of the shore and got blown quickly off in a fresh south easterly wind. We had 7 blues in the boat and plenty fish off the bottom.
11/09/2015: Well it was singing in the rain today. But also catching Tope in the rain!
12/09/2015: I was out today looking for Blue Shark. We only had one in the boat about 40 lb but we again lost a big fish when it throw the hook. Fishing off the bottom was very good with plenty Pollack and some good Cod which was nice to see.
13/09/2015: Out today after whitefish. Nice bit of Cod coming on to the ground.
Clare Dragoon is a LOCHIN 366 powered by 650HP engine that operates out of Carrigaholt Co. Clare.
I have some offers up on my web site www.fishandstay.com and if anybody is interested in putting a trip together please do get in touch. Also I Twitter from the boat on @fishandstay and try to update my face book page www.facebook.com/CarrigaholtSeaAngling fairly often!
To experience some of the best deep sea fishing available in Ireland contact Luke. Telephone: +353 65 9058209 or +353 87 6367544 Email:[email protected]Web:www.fishandstay.com
10/09/2015: We got in a shark drift today. Started with in a couple of miles of the shore and got blown quickly off in a fresh south easterly wind. We had 7 blues in the boat and plenty fish off the bottom.
11/09/2015: Well it was singing in the rain today. But also catching Tope in the rain!
12/09/2015: I was out today looking for Blue Shark. We only had one in the boat about 40 lb but we again lost a big fish when it throw the hook. Fishing off the bottom was very good with plenty Pollack and some good Cod which was nice to see.
13/09/2015: Out today after whitefish. Nice bit of Cod coming on to the ground.
