Scientists from UCC are doing research into Flapper Skate (previously known as Common Skate), a species that is scarce worldwide but found in pockets around the Irish coast. One of those areas is off the Cork coast, and the UCC team are investigating whether this area is a nursery ground for skate. They are asking for anyone who finds a skate egg (mermaids purse) to report it to them. As sea anglers will regularly spend time on beaches, you are well placed to assist the UCC team with their scientific work.
See the communication below from the team:
Hi all. My name is Danielle, and I am a marine biologist at the University College Cork and MaREI Centre.
Please help us find Ireland’s first flapper skate nursery by reporting any flapper eggcase (or ‘mermaid’s purse’) sightings. This Critically Endangered species is found in very few places in the world, one of which is Co. Cork. While we are just looking for flapper skate eggs (all rare skate eggs are bigger than your hand!), all mermaid’s purses can be reported via the Marine Dimensions website! https://marinedimensions.ie/purse-search-sightings-form/
There are 71 species of shark, skate and ray in Irish waters, many of which lay eggs. You’ve likely stumbled across many different species on the shoreline. Learn more here: https://marinedimensions.ie/purse-search-ireland/
Pictured are junior anglers from Newport Sea Angling Club in County Mayo. The youth angling initiative received funding under the Inland Fisheries Ireland Sponsorship Programme
Due to ongoing issues with the restoration of power following Storm Eowyn , the application deadline for the IFI Sponsorship Programme has been extended to February 7th. Any clubs who wish to apply for support to hold competitions, coaching events or other fisheries related initiatives should compete their applications in advance of this date.
Since 2012, Inland Fisheries Ireland has invited angling clubs and tourism organisations to apply for sponsorship support to ensure the smooth running of a variety of angling related events and initiatives.
A young angler from Newport Sea Angling Club enjoys fishing at the Annual National Junior Competition. Newport Sea Angling club were beneficiaries of the 2016 Sponsorship Fund.
The key drivers behind the IFI Sponsorship Programme have traditionally been to 1) increase participation in angling by recruitment of juvenile and novice anglers and 2) to maximise the potential of Ireland’s wild fisheries as world class venues for sustainable medium and large-scale angling competitions, thereby boosting the benefit of sustainable tourism in rural regions and extending the tourism season.
Due to storm Eowyn and the ongoing loss of power for many people around the country, the organisers of the Ireland’s Feeder King event have rescheduled the sale of tickets to the following:
Qualifiers 1- 4: Tickets will go on sale at 7pm, Wednesday February 5th.
Qualifiers 5 – 8: Tickets will go on sale at 7pm, Wednesday February 19th.
In episode 37 of the Lure Fishing Podcast, host Cormac Walsh catches up once again with top British bass angler Marc Cowling. Marc appeared on the show nearly two years previously and he is still one of the hardest working and knowledgeable anglers out there.
From expanding his business, working on lure development with Westin, updating his first book and catching lots of bass in between, Marc has loads of really useful tips and tricks to share; add the experiences Cormac and the podcast is must for any British or Irish angler chasing bass.
Here is a comprehensive report from Carrick Beach & Rockers SAC about the opening leg of their master angler competition. Check it out below…
Bay of plenty….or not!
Yesterday seen the opening leg of the master angler competition to be held at Redbay as a rover match.
Conditions looked comparatively calm as opposed to the preceding 24 hours. 17 seniors and 1 junior angler braved the cold and unfortunately, were not rewarded for their efforts.
Low water was at around 2pm and the match kicked off at 1pm. Hopes were not high amongst many anglers as a few club members had fished this mark the previous week during daytime conditions and the fishing was, il keep it polite, really, really poor.
1pm arrived and baits were sent seaward with a few anglers getting bites from the off with nothing much materialising from them. A few small dabs were landed alongside undersized whiting. Muttely picked up a bass of 32cm during daylight and Karl landed a 29cm flounder and undersized dab double shot. George who was beside him then lifted into a good fish but had been casting out over a submerged rock line and as the fish dived for cover on the retrieve, it snagged him up and a bit of over enthusiasm on George’s part led to that dreaded **CRACK** a slack line…
Small sea bass
Approaching darkness and signs were poor all across the bay as no reports of counting fish were posted to the WhatsApp group, darkness should be the make-or-break time in the match with the fish expected to turn on under the cover of darkness. Having only around 1 hour of darkness it was going to be important to make the most of it but the fishing gods had other ideas. Just as the bites started coming on it seemed like storm Éowyn had done an about turn and breezed back to the bay, the wind picked up, the swells picked up and there was a real healthy chop on the water. The bites were there still for anyone looking closely enough at their rod tips but again very few hook ups (from my personal experience) we were later to find out there were plenty of small whiting about and these little guys are like piranha, nipping and tearing baits off the hook. Karl had another coalie during darkness and losing another good fish which felt like another coalie on the very last cast. There were a number of fish caught but the vast majority were undersized which is unusual for this area.
Tiny dab
18 anglers fished with 10 blank score cards returned and only 7 anglers with fish!
1st place with 4 fish was Brian Taylor
2nd with 3 fish was Chris Pritchard
3rs with 2 fish Karl McCullough
4th with 2 fish was Bobby Laughlin
5th with 2 fish David Douglas
6th with 1 fish was Alan Nelson
7th with 1 fish Matt McMurtry
Longest fish went to Brian Taylor for his 32cm bass.
John Shields with the first salmon of 2025, a 10lb fish caught on the Drowses
News just in from our colleagues in Donegal is that the first salmon of the season was just caught on the River Drowes. The Drowes, which open on January 1st, regularly produced the first fish of the year.
This year it was lucky angler John Shields from Derry who took the honours. John was fish a worm in the Mill Pool. The fish gave a good account of itself and after landing was found to be 10lb.
John Shields with the first salmon of 2025, a 10lb fish caught on the Drowses
Shane Gallagher tells us that water levels had risen following storm Eowyn which caused extensive damage locally.
Power and phone lines were restored at the fishery only yesterday. Many trees were uprooted during the storm, including along the river bank. Care should be taken by anglers as work continues to remove the very many downed trees, especially as high winds are forecast at times over the bank holiday weekend.
The Drowes Fishery is one of Ireland’s premier spring salmon and grilse fisheries. The river is some 5 miles in length, with over 70 named pools, flowing from Lough Melvin at Lareen Bay and entering the sea at Tullaghan, just outside Bundoran. The Drowes has a wide variety of water suitable for all fishing methods, including several miles of good fly water and deeper slower moving pools suitable for spinning and bait fishing.
Accommodation also available
Boat hire
Boat and outboards are available to hire for Lough Melvin.
Tackle shop
Salmon licences and tackle for sale in the fishery office.
Some weather windows in between the winter Atlantic storms allowed the Mariners to get out and about with some great catches on the shore.
Nice flounder for Cormac
Some nice flounders and turbot on the beach for Cormac but also a run of trout shoals with both rods hopping for Gavin and Proinnsias which kept anglers busy while unhooking and releasing during the pandemonium of the takes.
Transition Year students Nikita Greidans and Jack Keenahan are working together at Blackwood Bait and Tackle. As part of their Transition Year they are supplying reports to the Irish Angling Update…
I have recently started entering some local matches during the summer and when I started, I knew almost nothing about it. Therefore, I decided to make this blog post to help those people who are also just starting out.
What you will need
To get started the only must haves are a float or feeder rod with your preferred setup (personally I use a waggler or pole setup for match fishing), some bait of your choice (I personally bring a couple of options for bait so I can decide on the day. It’s usually maggots and sweetcorn) and a keepnet.
If you have all of those you can enter a match, but personally I like to have a few more pieces of equipment, I like to have a second rod or a whip so I can easily change my method depending on what’s working on the day.
I also think that ground bait is a must have, I like to use either Sensas or our own Blackwood bait and tackle crumb-based ground bait.
Some general rules
Most coarse fishing matches have a similar rule set, these rules include:
One rod in the water at a time per angler
You cannot put bait in the water before the set time for all in
If you hook into a fish in the last few minutes of the competition and it hasn’t been landed at the time of all out, you may play the fish and land it and it will still count towards your total weight in fish
All fish caught must be placed in a keepnet to be weighed at the end of the competition
All fish must be safely released
Double checking the rules with a match official
Advice for fishing matches
When fishing a match, you must be adaptable, if you are fishing on the bottom and the big fish aren’t there or aren’t feeding on the bottom you need to change tactics, either shallow your float or change to something else completely. You must also remember not every competition is going to go your way, some days will be bad, you might even blank but if you do, don’t worry about it because that’s fishing and blanks happen and the best piece of advice I can give is don’t be afraid to try something different. If everyone is fishing a feeder and it’s not working for you or you’re not confident fishing a feeder don’t be afraid to tie on a float instead or use a whip or pole.
How I use ground bait
To start I pour half my bag of ground bait into my bucket. Then I wet the ground bait using water from the lake or canal I’m fishing, I know I have enough water in it when the ground bait is slightly sticky and slopy and clumps into balls when you clench it in your hand. Once the ground bait is ready if I’m fishing a waggler, I clump the ground bait into a ball about the size of your fist and throw it next to my float. If I’m using my pole, I prepare my ground bait the same way, but I clench it into a smaller ball and put it in my pole cup with some sweetcorn or maggots and drop the bait over my float.
How I fish a match
When I fish a match, I like to start by fishing my pole or a waggler setup, I use a 0.75g pole float or a 6bb waggler.
For the first 45 minutes to an hour of the competition I fish with my bait on the bottom to target the bigger fish, if I’m catching fish on the bottom I will stick with it for the remainder of the competition, if not I shallow my float to about half the depth of the water to target smaller silvers and perch.
At the start of the match the first thing I do is put in a ball of ground bait and for the first hour I put ground bait in my swim every 15 minutes to build up a swim then after the first hour, I reduce to feeding every half hour but I increase the amount I feed.
In the last 30 minutes of the competition I focus on catching a larger volume of small fish rather than big fish, so I shallow my float to about a quarter of the depth of the water and feed a small number of maggots every few minutes to keep the small fish feeding.
The last thing I always do while fishing a match is changing my bait often, especially if I’m using worms or maggots. Having fresh hook bait is vitally important, a fresh wiggly maggot is much more enticing to a fish than a nibbled dead one, so keeping your bait fresh will give you a much higher chance of catching, especially if you’re targeting the smaller fish.
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Well, there’s only one show in town right now, as record-breaking winds are currently lashing the whole country, with the result that red warnings have been in place across most counties over the past 12 hours or so. Prior to storm Éowyn hitting us, it had been a relatively dry week, with temperatures about average for the time of year and reasonable amounts of sunshine. You would think that sounds like angling weather… but that doesn’t seem to have been the case…
It appears the coming storm must have affected a large cohort of anglers, as fishing reports are very thin on the ground this week. We’ll begin with sea angling, and head to the east coast, where South Shore SAC held the first Master Angler competition of the year last weekend. It was a tough enough day on the beach as the flatties were hard to tempt, but Ramunas Butkus did manage to land 15 fish to take the win, and Des Farrelly landed a blistering bass of 8.5lb that set tongues wagging all along the beach… Down on the south coast, Cobh SAC held the third leg of their Light Lines competition, with 32 anglers competing, spread over four boats. Tomasz Kujawa made the most of the favourable weather conditions to boat 105 fish and take the prize on the day.
Des Farrely’s super 8.5lb bass was the talk of the beach at the South Shore SAC event
To pike angling now, and Dan O’Neill covers a number of topics in his latest River Whispers blog, one of which is how to set up for fly fishing for pike. Dan is a dab hand at all things fly fishing, and he gives some useful tips on the type of tackle needed to cast a pike fly. Up in Co. Cavan, O’Casey’s Pike Angling Club had their first league outing of the year on a lake venue. With pleasant conditions and some nice cloud cover, the fishing was pretty good, and Daron Reynolds had an active day, bagging 12 fish for 26lb+ to take the win on the day. We wrap up the pike angling news down in the Clare area, where young angler Leon Ryan went looking to catch his first pike with his dad, Edward, and angling guide Damien Culliney. He was over the moon when he landed his first-ever pike, but he didn’t rest on his laurels, as he kept at it until he hit the jackpot again, this time with a super pike that measured 105 cm. Leon’s feat wins him this week’s Catch of the Week.
Catch of the Week winner Leon with his 105cm pike
Angling guide Damien Culliney wasn’t only focused on pike recently, as he has a fondness for chasing large perch too. He brought a good friend, Ed, and his son, Louis, out for a day chasing the stripy predator and managed to land 30 fish in a short session, with two of them breaking the 40cm mark.
Chunky perch for Ed and Louis
On the coarse angling scene, the VDE Baggers made the trip to Muckno for the latest round of their winter league in the hope of finding plenty of small roach to fill their keepnets. But things didn’t work out as planned, as the roach were very scarce, and the winning weight went to Krzysztof Ratkowski, who managed to find a few skimmers at range to bolster his bag of 1.64kg. Dan O’Neill also takes a look into coarse angling this week, as his River Whispers blog discusses tactics and setup for targeting roach with a float rod.
A nice winter roach
To the salmon scene now, and the residents of Waterville, Co. Kerry will have been delighted to get back on the water as the 2025 angling season on Lough Currane got underway last week. Unfortunately, the fishing was pretty second-rate, but the BBQ looked first-class!
What else would you do if the fish weren’t biting on opening day on Lough Currane…?
Storm Éowyn will continue to have an impact for much of the day, with storm-force and even hurricane-force winds in coastal areas of the west and north. Winds will start to moderate tonight, and some scattered showers will spread from the southwest. Saturday will start cold and crisp, with frost and ice in places. Showers will then develop, with some hail and thunderstorms possible in places. Saturday night will remain chilly with some wintry showers, and Sunday will be a wet and windy day across much of the country. This pattern of cool, blustery, showery weather will continue until at least the middle of next week.
Sally Barnes is a remarkable woman who has been at the forefront of the Irish artisan food revolution since the 1980s, when she first started smoking wild salmon.
But what has a smoker got to do with fly fishing? Sally, who has been married to a fisherman, and lives on the west Cork coast, has seen and experienced first-hand the decline the Atlantic salmon has undergone in modern times.
Sally’s story is a remarkable one, and her insights are perceptive and well worth listening to for anyone concerned about our changing environment and its effects on the Atlantic salmon.
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Sally Barnes is a remarkable woman who has been at the forefront of the Irish artisan food revolution since the 1980s, when she first started smoking wild salmon.
