Aoife Cassidy (aged 7) and father, Brian, from Belfast enjoyed a great day on Lough Sheelin last April 13th. The pair had chosen to spin from their boat using variety of spinners and plugs. Aoife picked a Rapala to fish with and got the surprise of her life when her rod began to to buck and the reel screech. After a heart stopping struggle the young girl eventually brought the fish to the side of her boat where it was deftly netted by her father. The trout was later weighed at 5lb 20z and measured 26.5″.
7 year old Aoife Cassidy from Belfast with her 5lb 2oz Lough Sheelin trout
The wait for the first salmon of the season is over. On Saturday James Keogh from Dublin landed the first fish of 2012, a fine 9lbs bar of silver, at the Garden Pool on Beat 9. The fish took a Cascade fly. Hearty congratulations to James! On Monday James returned for another try, and this time he landed 2 beautiful fresh fish, one of 8lbs and the second of 9lbs, from the Garden Pool and Sea Pool on Beat 9. Both fish took a Gold Cascade fly, and the second fish was caught in bright sunshine!
Water conditions are perfect at the moment and should continue so for the next while, with showery rain forecast for the week. With 3 fish caught in such a short period, it looks like a run of spring fish is underway, so book a rod now if you can!
Killian McCormack and a new personal best bream of 7lb 15oz
It was a busy weekend at Lanesborough with a number of anglers settled in for the long haul. Some like Paul Waghorne had the comfort of a real bed, but early starts. 5.30 am on Friday was cold but clear and though not many fish were caught by the anglers there were some big fish taken. Tim Collyer and Paul both caught tench with Tim managing a 5lb female. On the hot stretch, John Herriven again caught well during the night with two very good Bream in a mixed bag. The best bream weighed 7lb 2oz. As the day went on it became quite bright and no big bags were reported.
John Herriven, dressed for the cold, with his 7lb 2oz bream
On Saturday all that had changed. Killian McCormack recorded arguably the best catch of the year so far at Lanesborough with just over 90lbs made up of Bream, Hybrids and a solitary Tench. Whilst only having one big Bream, it was a specimen of 7lb 15oz, a new personal best. His travelling partner Damien Allchorne had as many fish, but in general were half the stamp of Killian’s and weighed 50lbs. Elsewhere, others fishing the stretch also caught well. After the sun came out, most of the anglers struggled and packed up or slept. Killian resumed angling to catch a good bag of mainly smaller Roach. Rory Wrightson had a very large Roach of 1lb 14.5oz from between the trees. A strong gusting wind blew up mid afternoon and this made conditions below the bridge difficult. Two anglers fishing near the beer table had three Tench and Steven Keogh managed two very small Tench before getting cold.
Killian McCormack and a new personal best bream of 7lb 15oz
Saturday night into early Sunday again fished well. Killian again came out tops with a 90lb bag – almost totally Bream. Damian had 75lbs net and Glenn put together a catch of 60lb. Paul again had a few tench in the early morning. Steven Keogh and Larry Kelly fished the morning session and a combined catch of 15 Tench. Some larger Rudd have appeared on Sundaywith John Finnegan and Rory Wrightson both claiming 1lb+ fish. Rory also had a Bream in excess of 5lb in a 40lb bag.
Three lads from Selbey in England, brothers Phil, Mark and their friend Kenny, had a hard week of it at the cottage. They caught a lot of small roach and some hybrids. I took Mark and Phil out pike fishing. Nothing too big turned up over the week but we had lots of small fish up to 10lb.
Phil Allford with one of his many pike
A group of French anglers who stayed at the cottage had a good week at the end of march putting together a catch of 437 pike between 4 of them for the week. They fished from dawn until dusk, never stopping, barely taking a half hour break for lunch.
Brian Bohan is author of Irish Dreams, an anglers guide to 420 Locations covering Leitrim, Cavan, Monaghan, Sligo, Roscommon, Longford and Westmeath. 350 Colour Photographs; 40 Detailed Maps; Directions to every Location.
Fishing has being very slow the last few weeks due to the cold north winds and temperatures as low as -2C on some nights which put the fish off feeding. Only the warmer spots like Lanesborough fished well. I took a trip there last Wednesday and had a nice day’s fishing up near the gusher beside the “Lone Bush”. I was fishing stick float, something that I’m only learning, and I also fished the pole. I ended up with about 60 lb of mostly roach hybrids and the odd rudd.
The winds have changed since and there has been some heavy rain rain. This will do the lakes and rivers the world of good as they were at very low summer levels. Some roachare showing sings of running the rivers now.
Three lads from Selbey in England, brothers Phil, Mark and their friend Kenny, had a hard week of it at the cottage. They caught a lot of small roach and some hybrids. Kenny enjoys his coarse fishing stuck at it. He ended up with some tench after a bit of baiting up while the rest us went pike fishing.
Brian Bohan with some early season tench
The Shemore club are out every Sunday and Wednesday match fishing. They are getting some good weights in deeper waters along the Shannon but the shallower waters not producing weights in the matches
The Leitrim Youth’s Coarse Fishing Club have just finished there under 18 and under 14 spring league full report on this next week.
I’ve had a few outings for tench over the last week or two. I’ve had a few fish have show up but it was still a little cold and the tench are being very finicky with only small baits being taken – single caster or double maggot on small hooks.
Brian Bohan is author of Irish Dreams, an anglers guide to 420 Locations covering Leitrim, Cavan, Monaghan, Sligo, Roscommon, Longford and Westmeath. 350 Colour Photographs; 40 Detailed Maps; Directions to every Location.
Peter Gleeson reports that with the mayfly hatch well underway, angling on Lough Derg has been reasonably good over the past week, despite the cold and often blustery conditions.
According to Peter hatches of mayfly are especially prevalent in the shallow areas of the lake, particularly, Church Bay, Dromineer Bay, Youghal Bay and Luska. Predictably the lower than average temperatures have so far militated against evening gnat fishing.
John Kennedy of the Garrykennedy Club won the annual competition for the Giblin Cup hosted by Scariff and Mountshannon Anglers on Sunday last (April 22nd). John’s trout of 4lbs 12ozs was caught in the calm at the back of Hare Island on a dry fly. He also had another fish on the same day of 1lb 14 ozs, also on dry.
Meanwhile, a total of 16 fish over the 14-inch size limit were weighed in for the fly competition hosted by the Garrykenny Club on Sunday last. Some were fish in the two to three and a half pounds category.
Traditional wet mayflies are proving effective in a good wave while dries such as wulffs are doing the business in the calmer areas off sheltered shores and on the lee of islands.
If weather conditions improve we could see the beginning of gnat fishing this coming weekend.
PG
Lough Derg boat hire
Giblins Angling Services
Boats for hire with or without 4hp engine, landing nets and life jackets. Address: Fishermans Paradise, Scarrif, Co. Clare. Tel: +353 (0)67 921851Mob: +353 (0)87 2580329 Email:[email protected]Web:www.fishermens-paradise.com
22/04/12 Water levels perfect for fishing at the moment. There were 5 seatrout caught ranging from 3/4 lb to 2 lbs weight. River conditions will continue to be ideal because of the rain forecast for next week.
Hopefully temperatures will rise which will make it more suitable. There are fresh fish in the lake and the boat is available.
The latest news from Ian Powell of Blackwater Lodge is that the river at Ballyduff is high and dirty. Though the upper river is currently unfishable there had been a good run of fresh fish over the weekend with the 2 sea-liced salmon reported from Killavullen on Saturday. One of these salmon weighed in at 14lb and looked like an early May fish.
Levels are starting to fall now upriver and hopefully there will be no more rain after Wednesday as forecast. Once the water settles anglers should be in for some superb sport.
Richie Meacle fished Sheelin last Thursday with his father. They had 4 trout, including this beautifully coloured fish, all of which were returned safely.
The weather last week made fishing on Lough Sheelin both difficult and challenging for anglers – dropping evening temperatures, north east winds and showers of hail were not inviting combinations but despite all this fishermen were not deterred and all days saw numbers of boats scattered across the lake. The continually changing wind directions particularly at the weekend made it hard to fish in the favourite spots and it was next to impossible to find a sheltered pocket to get stuck in.
4lbs Sheelin trout caught a few weeks ago on 31st March, 2012
Last Monday the lake was flat calm and although ‘the hands would drop off you with the cold’ the Sheelin trout were on the move, with large numbers rising particularly around the Sailors Garden and Bog Bay end of the lake. Huge hatches of olives were in evidence on most days, with good hatches of duck fly reported around Goreport on Sunday afternoon. There was a late rise of buzzer on Sunday night, but the buzzer is having difficulty due to the dipping temperatures.
A lot of anglers are fishing with olives but Sheelin trout will only feed on olives if they are splashing on the surface of the water if not the angler has to use another type of ‘fly’ poison.
One angler dragging a line landed himself a crayfish which he has not seen in the lake for ‘over thirty years’. Crayfish are good and indicative of clean water so although this was not the desired trout it still in itself was a lovely catch. The crayfish was carefully returned to the lake.
On Saturday April 14th film company Angling View Media visited Lough Sheelin. This company has been contracted to produce 7 promotional films on fishing within Ireland and Lough Sheelin has been chosen for one of these films.
Last year this team produced a film called ‘Follow the Fly’ which also contained extracts from Sheelin in it. Charlie Stewart and Richie Johnson along with their crew despite the cold were very happy with what they found and filmed the playing and landing of a beautiful wild 4½ – 4¾ lbs trout using a dabbler X olive combination in the Bog Bay area of the lake, they also lost another over 3 lb fish which was sufficient to bring this crew back later on in the season to continue filming.
Some catches
Richie Meacle fished Sheelin last Thursday with his father. They had 4 trout, including this beautifully coloured fish, all of which were returned safely.
Andrew Browne – Monday April 16th one trout at 2¾ lbs, wet fly fishing using a small olive in the Bog Bay area of the lake. Andrew had 4 fish on and although he admitted the fish were ‘hard got’ he had a ‘most enjoyable’ day.
2 Offaly men staying at Innyside guesthouse, Finea fished the lake on Wednesday and Thursday and caught 4 fish heaviest at 5lbs using a claret bumble in Sailor’s Garden.
Martin Connor, Armagh – 4 trout wet fly fishing, heaviest was 5 lbs.
Peter McArdle & Ken Kearns, Dundalk – 3 trout 1-1½ lbs, all returned, fishing with small olives in the Bog Bay end of the lake on Saturday April 21st. Both Peter and Ken saw a lot of small wild trout around the 9” mark but both anglers had difficulties negotiating the weather conditions with continually changing wind directions on that day.
Morris McDivitt, Donegal – Saturday April 21st using a dry olive one wild trout at 2½ lbs.
Brendan Carr, Belfast – one trout @ 2lbs using a buzzer. Some trout were moving on the buzzer on Saturday night April 21st. There was also a late rise on Sunday.
Cian & Darra Murtagh, Baileborough, Cavan – Friday April 20th three trout wet fly fishing around Stoney, heaviest fish was 4 lbs.
Gene Brady, Ballinagh, Cavan – Despite a biting North wind Gene landed 3 lovely wild trout last week @ 2½, 3 and 3½ lbs using olives around Sailor’s Garden.
Tony Devlin, Tyrone – using a ginger quill, one trout at 1½ lbs around Bog Bay and Goreport areas of the lake on Sunday April 22nd.
Tony was with a friend of his from Dublin – Christie and although Christie said the fishing on Sunday was ‘all bad’ for him he told me that when he was leaving Finea he just wanted to ‘go back’ on to the lake and no doubt he will in the near future. Both men reported fabulous hatches of olives.
Michael Kelly, Dublin – Wednesday April 18th – 8 trout averaging 2 – 4 lbs caught on mixes of large olives, buzzer, chernobyll and BF flies. Michael caught these fish throughout the day and left the lake at 7pm. Heaviest fish was caught on a ‘Pinky’. Thursday April 19th – 5 trout averaging 1½ – 3lbs in the Goreport/Bog Bay section of the lake, 3lb caught using a dry buzzer, 2 caught on a BF when the wind was up. Friday April 20th with a friend, 5 trout pulling wets averaged 1 – 2½ lbs, best was 3½ lbs caught in the evening just before a shower of hail.
Sheelin Classic trout competition
The popular Sheelin Classic trout competition now in its 8th year will be run on Lough Sheelin on Sunday June 10th 2012 – 11am to 6pm. There will be a 15” size limit and only 2 fish per competitor. This competition will involve an open draw for partners and entries must be in by June 1st. Entry fee is €65 for a boating angler and €85 for non boating. There will be numerous prizes:
1st 19ft Sheelin boat & trailer & crystal
2nd 5 hp 4 stroke outboard engine & crystal
3rd €54 & electric engine & crystal
Please contact Noel McLoughlin for further details @ 087 2179460
A catch and release policy is actively encouraged on this lake.
Brenda Montgomery, IFI
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There will be days when the fishing is better than one’s most optimistic forecast, others when it is far worse. Either is a gain over just staying home. Roderick Haig-Brown, Fisherman’s Spring, 1951
Anglers have expressed fears a river’s salmon and trout stocks will be wiped out by pollution which they claim is possibly emanating from a waste treatment plant and a speciality cheese factory. The Womanagh Angling and Development Association in East Cork have pointed the blame at Cork County Council and, to an extent, Dairygold. Locals claim the River Kiltha is being seriously harmed by emissions flowing from the agri co-op’s plant in Mogeely and the council’s waste water treatment plant at Castlemartyr. Irish Examiner, 21/04/12. Read the article ‘Anglers fear emissions will wipe out river’s fish‘.
