The lower Blackwater is starting to come right with 19 salmon reported to day on my beats mostly on spinner. Any fish taken on fly was up stream of mallow.
A couple of fine fish
A Pleased angler
Philip Maher, Fish Hunt,
Paul Whelan reports from Fort William Fishery:
July 23rd: Water levels are in perfect order and ideal for fly and spin. 2 fish taken over the weekend by John Brock from the U.K. John landed 2 fine grilse off the Castle beat whick were 4lbs & 6lbs each. There is a nice few fish been seen running the beats but they are on a mission.
Forecast for the coming week is for showers but not enough to upset water levels.
For Information and Bookings Contact
Paul Whelan,
Fishery Manager,
Fort William Estate,
Glencairn,
Lismore,
Co. Waterford
Ireland
July 20th: Joe Lonergan from Ardfinnan, Co. Tipperary landed the Biggest Fish of the Season on the Lodge Fishery to date. It weighed 18.1lb. and he caught it on spinner on the Island Stream on Kents on the lower river.
Joe Lonergan with his 18.1lb Salmon
July 23rd: Fishing remains consistent. We had 4 fish caught on Saturday (3 on the upper river). Yesterday (Sunday), there were 6 fish caught to 11.2lb. One angler had 2 sea-liced fish to 10.7lb., and lost 2 more – one of which was 15-20lb. All were hooked on spinner.
Ned O’Reilly rattled the scales recently during a Mullingar Coarse Anglers match competition. Ned produced a beautiful bream weighing 7lbs 12oz.Its a super looking fish, and a cracking photo. Mullingar Coarse Anglers have quite a few match competitions, and new members are more that welcome to join. If interested drop me an e- mail or text and I will forward contact details. Ned O'Reilly with his 7lb 12oz Bream
Michael Flanagan
Pike and Trout angling guide. Telephone: +353 (0)44 9348969 or +353 (0)87 2797270 Fax: +353 (0)44 9342781 Email:mick@midlandangling.comWeb:www.midlandangling.com
Last Saturday Gian Luca Negri dropped down to Mullingar for a bit of pike fishing with his Dad Stefano, and younger brother Pietro. Gian Luca is working and living in Dublin and his family were over for a few days break from Alessandria in Turin, Italy. We ventured out on Lene and had a super day boating many pike; with Stefano producing the best fish up on 15lbs. Pietro also was in the thick of the action and landed a few beautiful pike. Gian Luca is very keen on fly-fishing for pike, and we are planning a few more trips across the Midlands with pike and trout our target fish.
A fine Bass for a Dutch visitor fishing with "Eire Bass" angling guide Richie Ryan
Bass Guide Richie Ryan “Eire Bass” reports on some good bass and cod fishing for his Dutch clients in the Cork Harbour area in the past week. A fine Bass for a Dutch visitor Cees Van Breugel, from the Hague fishing with "Eire Bass" angling guide Richie Ryan
On the first trip, Ad and Cees Van Breugel from the Hague in the Netherlands booked Eire Bass guide Richie Ryan last year during the closed bass season. They were so impressed by the fishing in Cork Harbour and in particular the cod fishing that they booked again this year in the open season. The challenge was to get each of them their first bass. As the pictures show they succeeded in their quest. The cod fishing was not as good as 2011 but overall they were very happy with their week’s fishing with the Eire Bass guide. Another good bass for a Dutch visitor Ad Van Breugel from the Hague fishing with "Eire Bass" angling guide Richie Ryan
Eire Bass guide Richie Ryan was out on another day with the returning Dutch clients Ad and Cees Van Breugel. This fine 13 lb. cod was caught by son Ad. He is 6 ft 7 inches tall, so the cod might not look that big! Ad Van Breugel from the Hague with a lovely coloured cod fishing with "Eire Bass" angling guide Richie Ryan
Last year they had a huge amount of cod and dad Cees was nearly crying as each cod was returned to fight another day. The hotel can only cook so much fish for guests! You see, they catch more than bass at Eire Bass. If you want to book Richie then go to http://www.corkbass.com/
Donal Geary, Sea Fishing Cobh sends us this report:
On Saturday Morning in beautiful sunshine and no wind, we headed for the area north of the ling rocks. as my 5 English anglers wanted to do some species fishing. A couple of the boys asked if maybe they could put out a shark trace while also bottom fishing. We started our drift about 2 miles north of the rocks and while the boys were immediately into the bottom fishing . I was setting up the 3 rods …with shark tackle and baloons. I also made a fine bag of rubby dubby with some mackeral left over from the previous day, some bran and fish oil from last year.
I was not very optimistic about our chances as I hadn’t heard of any blues been landed this year and also the scarcity of mackeral. The bottom fishing was good and getting better as we drifted slowly towards the rock, landing Ling, pollack, haddock, whiting, coalies, cod and some lovely red gurnard which I had for dinner that evening.
At about 2 o clock we were only about one mile off the rock the tide turned and we began to drift slowly back in the direction of Cork harbour.The bottom fishing was so good that the shark rods were forgotten until one of the ratchets let a scream and everyone rushed to get all the bottom gear in to give the shark a clear run but after the initail run he lost interest and came to the surface for a look around.
After about 20 minutes Barry’s rod took a good run and this time the fish was hooked,and after about 30 minutes of gentle coaxing with 30lb. braid an elated Barry boated his first ever blue shark of 60lbs. Steve and Paul had unsuccessful hookups before Barry again had a mighty scrap with a fish of 80lbs. which was boated and photographed before being released alive to the water. I arrived back at the pier in Cobh with 5 very satisfied and thirsty anglers.
On sunday the weather took a turn for the worst so we decided to stay within the shelter of the harbour and we had a very relaxing day. Fishing was poor as we were fishing an ebb tide for most of the day, between cups of Coffee and plenty of jokes we had a number of dabs, whiting and dogs before finishing the day with 3 Blonde rays to put the icing on the holiday for 5 very happy customers.
On Sunday night we met up again in Pauls (Ryans) where postmortems were held and most importantly dates were decided for a return in 2013.
Mullingar angler, Kenny Kiernan landed a super trout from Ennell last week, as darkness fell on Ennell.
Kenny Kiernan with a fine Ennell trout
Slowly but surely the Peters are starting to pop up on Ennell and some huge wild trout are moving late into the night. Great news as the first night competition on Ennell will be fished Friday night July 27th. Fishing is from 7 pm-11 pm and top prize is the Jimmy Nea Cup. Boat & Engine hire contact Pete Ganly Lilliput Boat Hire on 087-6492866.
JOHNNY OWENS CUP. Derravaragh Anglers will host the Johnny Owens Cup this coming Sunday July 29th. Fishing is from 11 am and check in at Donore Shore. Hopefully some of the big Derravaragh pike will come on the feed, and we will get a few nice photographs of anglers with their prized catch.
PIKE COMPETITIONS. Lough Derravaragh Anglers will host the Inter Lake Pike competition on Saturday August 4th.Fishing is from 11am with check in at Donore Shore. Boat & Engine Hire please contact Karl on 085-8003525, if you are interested in fishing this event or entering a team please contact Joe Keena on 086-8722449. Lough Glore Anglers had planned to fish a pike competition on Sunday August 5th. This has being cancelled, and will be fished at a later date.
Des Chew with another fine Hound, on peeler crab of course.
July 23rd: Wicklow Boat Charter’s skipper Kit Dunne reports on an exceptional week of fishing including Smooth-Hounds to 14lb, near specimen Tope, Thornback and Homelyn Ray, Bull-Huss and Gurnards in numbers.
The great fishing started with a group from ESB, targeting tope they got what they came for with 2 notable fish reaching the 154cm and 156cm lengths, they were clearly 40lb plus with one fish measuring a 60cm girt. Eric Salmon’s group and John Mellerick’s group bagged many Smooth-Hounds, with some guys recording their 3 Hounds for 1012. The week just got better when Clyde’s group from C&J Angling set out to target tope, we planned this trip in detail and it paid off, 15 tope were landed, some tagged , and all released.
Clyde with his fine Tope, one of his 5 that day !
A fine pair, there was another one on while these two were landed.
Then with big thanks to the IFI for the Mike Thrussell Total Sea Fishing magazine visit. We planned 5 days fishing out of Wicklow to target animals. On the slack tides of Day 1 Smooth-Hound were the target, and specifically specimen weight Hounds. Loaded with peeler we agreed a, “peeler only”, bait strategy to keep dogs to a minimum. Sitting right on my favoured Hound mark we landed at least 80 Hounds that day, at least 15 were of specimen weight, one taken by Mike himself, and the notable prize fish of the day was a 14lb Hound caught by fishing legend Norman Dunlop.
Me and Mike Thrussell with the first Tope of the day.
Day 2 we targeted the Huss, Ray, Gurnard and Tope, we managed to bag all of these species with 15 Huss taken, 5 Ray and 2 tope. With no major record breakers in the Tope department we set out the following Friday in bigger tides to target the bigger fish. We fished my favourite inshore mark, and landed numerous Tope on Day 3, the first one taken by Mike himself on a down tide flowing trace. About one hour later I managed to land a fine Tope on my uptide rig, weighing in at approx 36lb he measured in at 158cm long, a mere 2cm off the specimen length threshold. 5 Tope were landed, including one for Willie Walsh and Gerry O Connor. Day 4 was now a case of, “what would you like today lads”, we agreed to go back after the Hounds in search of more specimen size fish and a possible record fish ! After a relaxed start that morning we managed to take over 100 hounds to the boat, 17 of which were taken by Mike Thrussell himself, in what was a very strong tide. Day 5 was abandoned as we had more than enough done in the 4 Days, many thanks to the IFI team for making it happen.
Des Chew with another fine Hound, on peeler crab of course.Dan Cantanase with his tope of 1540mm long, 600mm girt, what a fish.
Bray Outcasts were out with me on the Sunday, they set out to prove a few things, Hounds will take baited red feathers – they did ! and Gurnard will take a soft plastic – they did, well done lads. They also landed Tope, Huss and ray, many Hounds, one to specimen size.
Neil Driver Bray Outcasts with his fine Thornback Ray.John Mellerick with his fine specimen Smoth-Hound
Darragh and Niamh Duncan from Mullingar wait ‘patiently’ for Dad Andy to bring their life jackets so they can go out fishing on Sheelin
Lough Sheelin Report by Brenda Montgomery, IFI from July 15th to July 22nd 2012 Rain! whose soft architectural hands have power to cut stones,
and chisel to shapes of grandeur the very mountains. ~Henry Ward Beecher
Wet weather predominated the earlier part of the week with the disappointing return of rises in the lake’s level but this fortunately this did not deter some of the Sheelin anglers and the lake fished well this week with a very happy 9 year old – Shane Fitzsimons from Crover catching a 2lb trout using a silver dabbler on Monday last in Kilnahard. Hurry up Daddy! Darragh and Niamh Duncan from Mullingar wait ‘patiently’ for Dad Andy to bring their life jackets so they can go out fishing on Sheelin
Last weekend Sheelin was in competition with its sister lake – Lough Ennell with the appearance of the green peter but although large numbers of anglers fished Ennell, Lough Sheelin still held its own among the angling fraternity and boasted up to 30 boats on Saturday evening last. It was interesting to find a number of Mullingar anglers crossing over to us because they wanted to escape the frenzy of Ennell because they needed ‘the peace and calm’ of Sheelin.
This year saw an ‘explosion’ of green peter on the lake and although this fly was not as big in numbers as on other lakes this is a considerable improvement and a real step forward for Sheelin as in previous years the peter was only in evidence in mere handfuls. The top half of the lake saw the biggest hatches and there were some nice trout caught using the ‘green peter’.
There are still hatches of mayfly mainly around the western shore, in Orangefield towards Watty’s rock, these hatches are small and scattered. The sedges are coming and going on the lake, some days are very good while others the sedge seems to have disappeared. Saturday evening saw a massive hatch from Lynch’s pt down to Watty’s rock and although a small brown sedge can be successful, the trout only seem to be coming up the once and if there’s no strike then that’s it for the angler, the opportunity is gone. Evening fishing from 6pm onwards achieved the best results.
The favourite flies used were the silver invicta, dabblers, welshman’s button, green peter, brown sedge, murrough, klinkhammers and stimulators, also for the spinners the tasmanian devil struck gold a few times for some anglers.
Some interesting flies to appear on the radar this week were the Nailer, the Alexandra also called ‘the lady of the lake’ and the Goats Toe. Both the Nailer and the Alexandra have an interesting history in that both were such killers in the mid 1800’s that they were banned on some waters. The Stimulator Alexandra Getting into a Knot !...It's not as easy as it looks….Fly casting classes held on Saturday at Lough Sheelin
Still Learning!
It was good to see fishermen from the Mallusk Angling Club, Belfast back with us again, these anglers hold their own private friendly competitions maybe twice or three times on the lake during the season.
The Lough Sheelin Trout Protection Association will be hosting The McDonald Cup on Sunday August 12th from 12 noon to 6pm starting from Kilnahard Pier, entry fee is €20. In line with this club’s strong conservation policy this annual competition will be changed this year to become a Catch & Release Competition – each boat will be supplied with a measure board and it is the angler who catches the longest fish who will win this coveted cup. As a gesture of thanks to all members and non members who support this club and all its past and ongoing development and conservation work for this lake and its
catchment all other prizes with be presented on the basis of a draw. This competition will be followed by a Bar -B -Q on Kilnahard pier. For further details please contact Eamon Ross @ 087 9436655 or Thomas Lynch @ 087 9132033 A catch and release policy is actively encouraged on this lake Please remember anglers that the size limit on this lake is 35.5 cm (14 inches) – we need our small fish alive……. Total catches recorded for the week: 26 Heaviest fish caught for the week was a 4½ lb trout caught by Meath man Billy Carolan on Saturday July 21st using a Welshman’s button.
Our deepest sympathies go to the McCabes of Sheelin Boats on the tragic death on Sunday last of 21 year old Joanne
‘Out of the mists of Sheelin’
Michael Kelly, Dublin with his 4 lb trout caught this week on an LF (dry fly)
Selection of Catches:
Arter Novikov, Tallaght – Saturday July 21st using a Tasmanian devil
near Church island one trout at 2lbs.
Darren Savage, Wexford – one trout at 1¾ lbs using a green peter.
Peter McArdle, Dundalk – July 17th in the afternoon 3 trout on a stimulator
average weights 1½ – 2 lbs.
Shane Fitzsimons, Crover, Cavan – July 16th on a silver dabbler one trout
at 2lbs in Kilnahard.
Mickey McCluskey, Donegal – on Friday July 20th three trout – 2,2
and 3lbs, all on the green peter.
Liam from Dublin caught a nice 1½ lb trout using a silver dabbler on
Friday last.
