The very unseasonal weather for the month of June continues and it has been very wet and windy for most of the past week impacting on a lot of fishing.  However, anglers are a hardy bunch and still catch a lot of fish in Ireland despite what our poor weather throws up at them.

Up in Co. Monaghan, Lough Muckno is still producing some fair coarse fishing in the difficult weather conditions.  Down on the Royal Canal at Enfield, the annual fishing festival took place and many anglers from home and the UK took part.  Pat Bartley from Lucan won the overall competition and there was good weights recorded over the two days despite the very clear water conditions.  Further down the canal at Mullingar, a red eared slider turtle was a surprise catch when a surprised angler caught it using sweetcorn three times in as many days.  Happily the turtle is now residing in a new home.  The bream fishing down on several loughs has been superb in the last few weeks and more bronze beauties were landed in the past week.   There was good match weights for anglers from home and abroad at the Anglers World Breffni Challenge held at a number of venues near Arvagh in Co. Cavan.

There was some nice pike fishing particularly with a fine fish of 24 lb. 6 oz reported at a competition on Lough Ree.  Elsewhere on the lough at Lanesborough, the local pike club held an instruction day for young anglers and several of them caught their first fish. There was some fine pike fishing for visiting father and son from Milan while fishing in the Boyle area while fishing with angling guide Bodo Funke taking fish to over 20 lb. Another visiting Father and son from Poland landed some fine big pike over 20 lb. while fishing on Lough Corrib.

The heavy rain in the past week has brought a lot of fresh salmon into our fisheries nationwide and catches have improved.  On the Cork Blackwater, there was a huge improvement in many of the fisheries and all the other Cork and Kerry salmon fisheries reported a big increase in rod catches.  On Lough Currane, the good fishing continued with some fine sea trout fishing reported also. One sea trout estimated at over 9 lb. was returned to grow bigger! The Owenmore Fishery in Co. Kerry fished well with 23 sea trout caught last week.  There was some salmon reported from Castleconnell and the River Mulkear.  There was a big run of grilse into the Galway Fishery and catches were very good.  Higher water levels brought a good run of salmon and sea trout into Lough Inagh and better fishing. There was good salmon fishing reported at the Erriff Fishery and fresh fish have run into the Delphi fishery and fishing has improved. Prospects look excellent on all these fisheries in the west. Up in Bangor Erris, there was very good salmon fishing on Carrowmore Lake despite bad weather conditions hampering angling at times during the week.  The bigger run of salmon into the River Moy brought a super rod catch of 500 fish for the week.  There was plenty of salmon reported from the Ballisodare Fishery.  In Donegal, over a hundred salmon up to 17 lb. recorded for the week for anglers fishing on the river Drowes and there was better salmon and sonaghan trout fishing reported from the Lough Melvin. Some nice salmon up to 11 lb. were reported from the Owenea River near Glenties, Co. Donegal.

Despite the poor weather there was a lot of sea angling in the past week and in Wicklow, specimen hunter, John Millerick caught his first specimen smoothhound while fishing on the “Lisin” and caught a lot of other species. There was plenty of bass action reported along the south coast now that the season is open again and many fish were recorded.  There was several sea angling competition reported from Waterford and Cork and at Aghada, well known specimen hunter Tony Tait, caught a super specimen pollack of 13 lb. 10 oz and wins our Catch of the Week.  There is another great U Tube clip on soft plastic fishing for Cod and Pollack off cork harbour this week by Jim Cloghessy and Kevin Murphy from Bella vista in Cobh.  Over in Kerry there was some excellent shore and small boat fishing reported.  Specimen hunter, Terry Jackson reports that he caught some wonderful big pollack on rough ground in the north.  In Red Bay in Antrim, a great range of species were taken on a tremendous day for Dutch anglers on Predator II.

While trout fishing is a little quieter now after the great Mayfly fishing there was still a lot of activity out there.  There was some nice trout fishing reported from the River Rye in the Carton House Fishery. There is still some good spent gnat fishing on Lough Sheelin and there is more evening fishing reported from Lough Owel with some good catches reported.  The weather seriously hampered fishing in the west but there was some action on Corrib and on Conn and Cullin when the weather allowed.  There was some rainbow trout fishing reported this week particularly at the Southern County Fishing Resort where a lady angler broke the fishery record with a 13.75 lb. Rainbow.  There was some good rainbow fishing reported from Lough Acalla near Kilconnell in Co. Galway.  Prospects look good for next week for more good fishing on both inland waters and at sea when the weather allows.

Tight lines especially in Ireland,
Paul Bourke
Catch, Photo, Release

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