We may be into November, but the settled spell of weather has been kind to charter boat fishing, extending the season. It may be cloudy but the light winds have been great for getting offshore and hitting the reefs. Skipper John Fleming has been doing just that, with a trip at the weekend producing some fine fish on the deeper reefs. John reports a good stamp of fish going, mainly pollock, with some nice wrasse, coalies, and scad through them as well.
Quite a cold and grey day at sea but it was nice for to finally be calm!
John has some weekend availability in November, and if this settled spell lasts it could be well worth booking a trip. Check out the contact details below.
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Go fishing…
To book fishing with John aboard the Brazen Hussy II, give him a call on 087 7571320
A regular day is between 9am- 6pm from either Rossaveal, Spiddal or Galway depending on species being sought after. Fishing on the inshore reefs for pollock, cod, ling, wrasse, conger eel and mackerel can be reached in 10 minutes from departure, while our offshore reef marks are within 45 minutes of departure. Our ground fishing for tope, spurdog, ray, bullhuss, turbot, plaice and the giant common skate can all be reached within the hour which ensures the most amount of time is spent fishing.
The shark season usually starts at the end of June and runs into late October, this is the ultimate angling adrenaline rush with these hard fighting blue and porbeagle sharks all being tagged and released safely.
Package deals available
Kevin Lyons hosted regular guestJohn from Kilkenny to Melview Lodge this week. They decided they were just going to be using dead baits this time around to see what the two days would throw up.
John with his first Pike of the day.
Kevin said: “both mornings started slow enough, but I think this had a little to do with the weather conditions. However, we did manage to bring some pike to the boat, with the biggest being 96cm, lots of laughs and funny moments over the two days, and I’m sure myself and John will be doing all again very soon. Thanks John for another weekend to remember, hope to see you again soon.”
Kevin has over 30 years experience of fishing in Ireland and is happy to offer a guided tour on your arrival, and to advise where the on-form waters in the area are. We can arrange your bait order so it’s here when you arrive. Melview offers free use of 17ft lake boats with engines to our guests (pay fuel only) and Kevin is happy to assist with any pre-baiting requests. Maps and other information regarding fishing are also available.
he stormy, unsettled conditions of late took a break this week with calmer and somewhat milder autumnal weather prevailing for the past few days. As water temperatures are still quite high for the time of year, these more settled conditions provided some quality fishing for local and visiting anglers alike.
Starting with pike fishing, twenty-one teams from all corners of the island of Ireland fished the “Pike Master Ireland” competition last Sunday. This competition is unique, because instead of taking place on one competition venue, it is held on numerous venues anywhere in Ireland, with anglers recording their fish in real time on an app, downloaded in advance. Unfortunately, conditions on the day did not encourage the pike to feed hard, but some of the teams did have some really good fishing during the competition with team Palkozjia scooping first prize. Runners up were team Reelax Predator Fishing leaving team Carlow Predator Angler in third place.
Bodo Funke of Angling Services Ireland based in Boyle was in touch again reporting on an excellent week’s pike action for a trio from Italy with several pike over the 1 metre mark best at 106cm, while Kevin Lyons of Melview Fishing Lodge also sent in a great report. Kevin hosted a group of French anglers for a week who enjoyed some fantastic pike fishing in the Longford area including a considerable number of one metre plus fish and many in the 90s. The fish of the trip, however, was caught by first-time visitor Matthieu measuring 118cm and deserves to win our Catch of the Week.
Over to coarse angling, where several winter league matches were fished over the past week. Starting in the North, the VDE Baggers regular competition haunt, the Newry Canal, has been out of sorts of late, so they decided to head for a new venue for the third round of their winter league. It was a decision that paid off, with roach, skimmers and hybrids all feeding avidly. The tightly contested match was won by Artur Bojczewski with a bag of 5.45kg ahead of Aaron Nabc Hutchman (5.34kg) and Grzegorz Bojczewski (4.75kg).
Concluding our coarse fishing news for this week we would like to announce that Oakland’s Winter Matches will start Sunday, 3rd November. All matches will be run as open matches with an optional league for anyone who’s interested.
For a good while sea angling has been hampered by unfavourable sea and weather conditions…therefore it is great to see some encouraging sea angling reports coming in from around our coasts. Starting in the south, Jim Clohessy reports of heart-stopping blue shark action while fishing for ling over some wrecks in East Cork. Skipper Sean Maguire fishing out of Carrigaholt, Co. Clare had a group of Latvian anglers out at the weekend, and they found plenty of pollack feeding well, probably fattening up ahead of winter.
Dan O’Neill is back with the 10th instalment of his River Whispers series. There’s a lot in this week’s edition, so we’ve split it into 2 articles. Read a comprehensive run down from Dan on how to set up for flyfishing, with some great information for beginners and improvers, followed by an interview with international angler David O’Donovan, and all about lure fishing for perch, including an interview with Marcin Kantor here.
Finally, we would like to draw your attention to the latest episode of the popular Ireland on the Fly Podcast. This time, Tom and Daire review this year’s salmon season and who better to talk to than one of the most knowledgeable salmon anglers there is, Paddy McDonnell.
Other news
Irish Fly Fair
The 12th annual Irish Fly Fair and International Angling Show is back in Fermanagh this month. This prestigious event will be held at the fabulous four-star Killyhevlin Hotel and grounds overlooking majestic Lough Erne. Dates are set for 16th and the 17th of November and doors open at 10am both days.
Salmon Logbooks
We would like to take this opportunity to remind all salmon and sea trout anglers to return their angling logbooks (setting out their fishing and catch record) and any unused gill tags.
Agus anois an aimsir…
Staying largely cloudy tonight with mist and some patches of drizzle, although most areas will stay dry. Lowest temperatures of 7 to 10 degrees with light south to southeast or variable winds. Saturday will be mostly cloudy with just limited sunny breaks. It will generally be dry with just a few spots of drizzle. Highest temperatures of 12 to 15 degrees in light and variable winds. High pressure will continue to dominate for the the next few days bringing generally mild and settled weather. Perhaps a change is in store for Tuesday with a band of rain likely to move in across southwestern counties by the afternoon, while cloudy conditions persist elsewhere. Highest temperatures of 13 to 16 degrees.
If you have an angling story to share with the Irish Angling Update please send it to [email protected] and don’t forget that all of our fishing reports are available on our dedicated Angling Ireland Facebook page.
It’s time this week on Ireland on the Fly for their salmon review of the season and who better to talk to than one of the most knowledgeable salmon anglers there is, Paddy McDonnell.
Paddy gives an excellent run through of the season on the Moy, as well as the Owenduff, Owenmore and Carraghmore, plus they get into seal predation, coping with the conditions, the place and importance of the salmon in Irish culture and the vexed question of hatcheries – to hatch or not to hatch.
Last week Killybegs Mariners fished outing no 5 of their winter league. Read their report below…
Mariners trekked west last night on a beautiful still starlit night beside the airport with the planes landing and taking off over us the only sign of the outside world with 20 anglers lighting up our own runway on the sand.
A good roaring surf was here as usual even with little wind and small tides and there was some very big fish hooked for a beach session. There were good coleys of 37cm for Pat C, 36cm for Cormac B, 35cm for both Darren and Brian. Big pollack of 70cm for John B and 55cm for Aaron. Trout to 37cm for Shane and some great flounders of 41cm for both Cara and John C.
Huge beach pollack of 70cm for John BurkeFlounder of 41cm for John Cunningham on the way to 2nd overall
A total of 8 different species were got on the night with longest flattie prize outside of the top two places being 41cm for Cara Boyle.
2nd place overall with 4 species of flounder to 41cm, dog, turbot and plaice and 192pts was John Cunningham.
And in 1st overall with a few flounders and turbot along with trout for 199pts winning was Shane Cunningham.
Well done to all out enjoying the fishing!
Meanwhile, plenty of bass going for our members with some nice fish for Proinnsias this week.
Wednesdays run was a while in the planning. All summer Alex and myself failed to get a day fishing but the weather and work aligned for us this week and the plan was set in motion. Back to the wrecks we’d go. Of course we’d have to catch some fresh mackerel too. These proved to be a struggle (they shouldn’t be). But we were losing valuable fishing time on already shortened days.
Luckily Alex packed a few mackerel that he had frozen down. This proves to be a trip saver as after 90 mins we had only four small mackerel.
We cruised offshore at a steady 24 knots in grey but lovely conditions. Wrecks can be strange places to fish. Some can appear dead and spring to life… sometimes the bite can switch from manic to nothing in a second.
Our wreck was slow to get going. I was fishing big baits on a single hooked paternoster. The drift was slow in the weak wind and tide. It saved on tackle losses. Alex had a few fine fish before I got off the mark.
Fine ling
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On my second fish I thought I saw a flash of blue under the boat. The next fish confirmed the presence of a marauding shark. It managed a good chunk from my fish, a really decent ling.
On the next fish we counted three more blue shark – Alex was grabbing for my heavy popping rod (Penn Battalion with Slammer 8500). Free lined bait was enough… a lump of ling guts (we were short on mackerel). He had a great tussle with two sharks. It was some laugh and craic. Blues can fight well. These were hit early and they fought like demons. At one stage we thought a blue was going to attack a hooked shark – blue on blue if you will. Alex fought them aggressively so there was no wrapping.
Cranky blues
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East cork blue shark
They were both bruisers of shark and the second one would threaten the specimen length. We decided on the more prudent course of releasing at the side of the boat. Shark – another annual itch scratched for Alex. I must say the sharks seemed particularly active (read: cranky) and really aggressive. The water temp was just touching 13°. After two super fish the skipper wanted to go back to the wreck.
We went back to our wreck and tried the area around looking for smaller species. Our bait situation was desperate so we decided to head to try some deep ground a bit more inshore. A spurdog and the smallest doggy we’ve ever seen later, we were running out of light.
In the early part of the day there was not much life about. Soon there were tons of dolphins. The grey conditions made it hard to see birds working at distance.
It’s November. It’s still mild. There’s plenty happening on the water. We’ll not declare it winter yet!
French pike anglers Camel, Quentin, Alain, Ltiffes, Mathieu, Sebastien, Pascal Jr, Loic and Pascal senior were over to stay with host Kevin at Melview Fishing Lodge in Longford. Six out of the group of ten had never fished in Ireland before. However Pascal and Alain and a couple of others had stayed a few times with Kevin. There was a slow start to the first day but still a few good pike to over the 1m and a few in the high 90s.
Camel with his first ever Irish pike
As the week went on and they had familiarised themselves with the water, they were catching more pike of 1m plus. The biggest pike, however, went to Mathieu with a cracking fish of 118cm…so well done to him with it being his first ever trip to Ireland.
Mathieu with a cracking pike
Kevin said, I couldn’t pass up the chance to show them some good old Irish hospitality of the local watering holes in the town. It was a great week with lots of fun and laughter with great company, thank you again guys and hope to see you back again soon!
Kevin has over 30 years experience of fishing in Ireland and is happy to offer a guided tour on your arrival, and to advise where the on-form waters in the area are. We can arrange your bait order so it’s here when you arrive. Melview offers free use of 17ft lake boats with engines to our guests (pay fuel only) and Kevin is happy to assist with any pre-baiting requests. Maps and other information regarding fishing are also available.
Killybegs Fishing Trips were out on the water again chasing big bluefin tuna. Read their report below…
Weather just settled enough for us to get out at the tuna again. We had a very quiet morning with just one swipe but no hook ups, but the last couple of hours we managed two fish, the 1st was a 220lb fish and the 2nd a 300lb fish, both were very lively!
A few days earlier we got back out after the weather finally settled for at least one day. It was a successful day too, with three fish to the boat and lost another two…nothing massive but very lively. First fish was about 180lb, 2nd fish was about 150lb and the 3rd was 300lb.
With more settled weather promised and 11 days to go before the bluefin season will close, anglers can expect some more tuna action reported from Donegal Bay over the next few days…
First timers Sergio, Davide and Marco enjoyed an action packed week while fishing with Angling Services Ireland. For the trio from Italy it was the first time fishing for pike in Ireland and what a great trip they had. Conditions had settled after the stormy weather of late and pike were in taking mood again. As a result, the accomplished lure anglers caught several fish over the 1 metre mark best at 106cm plus many in the upper 90s making their first visit to the Boyle area a great success.
Interesting colours on this one…Mahi Mahi in the lake?
Go Fishing
Bodo Funke, Angling Services, Ireland
Pike, Game and Coarse fishing Guide
Notes: Angling Services Ireland are based in Boyle, Co. Roscommon, in the North-West of Ireland, an area with many superb angling opportunities.
The Proprietor Bodo Funke holds the Marine and Countryside Guiding Certificate (achieved with distinction) and his expertise and local knowledge will be to your avail when you go on a guided angling trip or angling holiday with Angling Services Ireland. Pike fishing, Fly-fishing for Pike, Game fishing for wild Brown Trout, Float- tubing, Coarse fishing. Salmon fishing and Sea-angling can be organised.
The Youths and Juniors World Championships in Shore Angling are just days away, and some teams have already arrived in Wexford! World level anglers from 9 countries are out practicing along the Wexford coastline, getting ready for the big event starting on November 2nd, with the competition days from Tuesday 5th to Friday 8th. Teams in the U16 and U21 age categories will battle it out on the beaches hoping to be crowned world champions and Inland Fisheries Ireland are proud to sponsor the Irish teams.
The Irish competitors
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Stay tuned for more updates as we get closer to the competition. As ever, good luck to all of the teams, but better luck to the Irish ones.
