Winners of the first Pike World Cup where 10 year old Ciara Corcoran (who did catch a last day pike of 101cms) and her father Padraigh from Roscommon
Pike anglers tackling the Lough Ree International Pike Festival from Coosan point could be sharing a massive €20,000 cash prize fund!
Every cent received in entry fees during the three-day boat angling event. Last April 30 anglers shared a daily and overall prize more than €18,000 and it looks likely that there will be even more talented anglers afloat on the prolific lough this year.
Winners of the first Pike World Cup where 10 year old Ciara Corcoran (who did catch a last day pike of 101cms) and her father Padraigh from Roscommon
And of course we have the World Cup, which goes to the boat with the longest total length of pike over all three days by counting one fish each day. There will be a trophy for each angler in the boat and they will win back their entry fees too.
We have reduced the entry fees – this year it costs €100 for three days on April 18, 19 and 20.
Leigh Maitland had another very good day on Fri 30th March in Lanesborough…
He set off early on Friday morning so he could be ready to fish at first light and hoped to hear a bit of surface activity from the larger fish in low light to see if they had moved in yet, as recent reports hadn’t been very positive.
He only heard maybe 3-4 fish topping which got him thinking, so he opted to fish the pole over the feeder as it gave him a few different bait presentation options to tempt the few wary fish that seemed to be there. He chose to fish at 11m simply because its comfortable and Leigh knows from previous experience its easy to get the fish this close if you feed correctly.
He kept things very simple and set up only 2 rigs, one was a 4 g flat float for pinning the bait to the bottom set about 30 cm over depth and the other was a 1.5 g bubble for running through at a slightly slower pace than the current set slightly off bottom, each of these was set up on 0.16 mm Browning Hybrid Mono main line and 0.14 mm Browning Cenex line for hook length, both rigs had size 14 hooks to start off with and later upped to a 12 (serie18).
Bait for the day consisted of, 4 pints of Hemp, 2 pints of Maggots, 1 pint of Pinkies, 1 tin of Sweetcorn and approximately 7 kg of ground bait ( 50% Brown Crumb, 25% VDE Gold Pro 25% VDE Secret). Leigh normally would have a few pints of casters in the mix but due to the great weather he had sold out.
Good catch at Lanesborough
Once ready he made only 5 Orange sized hard balls of ground bait laced with a handful each of Pinkie and Hemp, he cupped these in at 11m as he was still a little on the cautious side due to the little activity mentioned earlier, after 5 run throughs and 4 Roach to 6oz, Leigh felt he could start to up the feed a little so for every second fish he introduced a golf ball sized nugget of ground bait, this then started to produce roach to 1 lb 8 oz with an average fish of 8-10 oz every run through, after a few hours he started to lose some very big fish so switched to the flat float with sweetcorn as a hook bait, straight away he bagged my first Tench of about 3 lb 8 oz followed by some decent bream to 3 lbs. when this method slowed down Leigh just switch back, get some feed in, attracting the roach then the bigger fish would follow.
It is very easy to go to Lanesborough and fish a feeder for the bigger fish but for a busy day and to test your self try the pole, big fish in running water and a light elastic is great fun !!
29/03/12…..Loads of sub 4 lb. bass around the West Cork (and probably East too?) coast at the moment. Easterly winds , neap tides and bass all over the place.
Its been so mild (hot !) for this time of year and the fish have responded . Its “going home once you’ve caught 10” kind of fishing. A bit like shooting fish in a barrel, too easy, but blows the cobwebs off nicely.
Normally the bigger fish wouldn’t start showing till the second half of April at the earliest. I’ll be keeping an eye on that situation this year.
2012 has really started well lets hope it continues , Happy Bassing.
Danny Wyse Kinsale Bass Guide
Tel: 00353(0)863443204
The dropping temperatures during the course of the week didn’t dampen angler’s enthusiasm for a spot of fishing on Lough na Leibe. The fine hatches of duckfly continued with a few small lake olives making the occasional appearance. There were a total of 60 trout (57 returned) reported by 10 Club anglers, with a few over winter fish reported by anglers.
Tommy Lynch got the week off to a good start, catching 4 trout on Mon 26th and 5 trout on Tues 27th. Sat 31st and Sunday the 1st saw the bulk of the action for the week. Bernard McDermott caught 7 trout on Sat 31st and 6 trout on Sunday 1st. Bernard who decided to go specimen hunting, landed 2 excellent resident fish on Sunday 1st a Rainbow trout of approx. 2 ½ lb and a cracking Brown trout of approx. 3 ½ lb and also had one even bigger fish throw the hook in play. Francis Brady displaying all of the qualities which have seen him storm into an early lead in the Sunday fly fishing League caught 14 trout on Sunday 1st including a good resident Brown trout of about 2 ½ lb. Martin Lawrence also had a good day on Sunday landing 8 trout which included 3 resident Rainbows 2 of approx 2lb and 1 approx 2 ½ lb, all on dry flies. Martin was particularly happy to go through a days fishing without him breaking one of his fly rods, which was a nice change.
Other anglers to report catches during the course of the week were Anthony Walsh, Eddie Harte, Dave Cadman, Pat Milmoe and Peter Walsh. So the season has gotten off to a wonderful start on Lough na Leibe and with the larger residents now starting to appear at regular intervals and the surface activity going well things should hopefully become very interesting indeed. As always if you have a catch to report please e-mail it to the Club email address available on the Club website.
Successful fly patterns were Dry Fly; Palomino Midge and F-Fly, Wet Fly and Nymph; small midge pupae patterns, small nymph patterns, buzzer patterns, emerging duckfly patterns and various lure patterns retrieved using a very slow figure of eight or fished static.
Competition Notice
The annual one day Dry fly competition for the Colm Walsh cup will take place on Sunday the 08/04/12. The competition will start at 12:00 sharp and ends at 17:00.
Please note only current paid up Club members over 18 years of age may enter this competition.
Low cloud cover with a light Northerly wind greeted us yesterday morning as the tide pushed in over the bladderwrack. We would be targeting Wrasse for the first time this year, and what a still morning it was. Flat calm with gin clear water, I would have preferred a bit more motion in the water to fizz things up but we agreed that this has to be the most relaxing spot to fish on a calm day.
Wrasse coming in
When targeting Wrasse I use jig heads (mainly Decoy Bachi) that have been used for my Bass fishing and are starting to rust/corrode. For the lure I used Soft Plastic that have been used and damaged while previously fishing for Bass.
Reason being is I tend to lose a fair few jig heads when targeting Wrasse, also Wrasse have a habit of biting lures in half ! For example I lost 4 jig heads/SP’s in yesterdays short session, this can add up quickly if you are using new gear
Anyway back to the fishing, Pat and myself were on location first, I decided to take a few random underwater pictures as visibility was fantastic.
The fishing was slow, the tide slowly pushed in creating some activity. Crevan and Tom joined us. During the session we seen a shoal of mullet, 3 shoals of sand eels and 5 or 6 Bass swimming mid water together in about 10 feet or water directly below us. We all just stood there like rabbits in a head light watching there electric blue backs glide out of sight. Epic.
It was about time a fish was caught, so in between losing jig heads I finally felt that unmistakable Wrasse pluck as my SP swung behind a large submerged ledge. I waited and then struck – Fish On It gave a nice little scrap Happy Days.
I tried to get a video of its release but it was too quick for me !
That was all of the action for the morning, Pat had his SP robbed by a suspected Wrasse at one point but apart from that it was all quiet. We called it a day after a couple of hours.
The wonderful Wetlands centre at Ballybay was the venue on Tuesday Night last the 27th March for the first of three Road shows being facilitated by the Irish Angling Development Alliance covering Bio Security during the spring of 2012 at Monaghan, Cavan and Galway venues. The local Ballybay angling club headed by Liam O’ Brien and Sheila Bromley co coordinated the event at local level and the officers of the IADA set the programme and invited some very important speakers on this alarming issue of which little is known in the general public. The event commenced at 8.30pm to facilitate the now busy farming schedule, in front of an audience of thirty plus people from diverse groups including Irish Farmers Association, Irish Angling Development Alliance (IADA), Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI), Monaghan County Council and angling clubs from as far Cavan and Newry Co Down. Chairman of the IADA Richard Caplice opened the event by introducing speakers from Monaghan Water Section, Martina Smyth and senior chemist Bernie O’ Flaherty who presented a comprehensive programme on the approach to water quality in Co Monaghan from a local authority perspective. The keen interest shown in this subject was evidenced by the question session that followed and the just praise articulated by the Councillors, Noel Keelan, Seamus Treanor and Aidan Murray. The IADA Secretary Peter Walsh from Dublin then introduced the final two speakers who essentially collaborated in the delivery of a very stark and revealing predicament surrounding all of us with regard to the spread of non native invasive species in Ireland. Dr Catherine Mc Gavigan from Queens University and Dr Joe Caffrey senior scientist from Inland Fisheries Ireland both renowned in their fields conveyed grim and in places frightening facts in relation to the invasion by non native species that presently threaten agriculture and fisheries in Ireland with dire ramifications for the ancillary industries. Angling Tourism will certainly be threatened if not finished, farming damaged, with ominous consequences for communities regarding bank erosion, flooding, water clogging and fish systems will be wiped out if action is not taken now.
Dr Joe Caffrey Inland Fisheries Ireland delivering a stark warning on the threat posed by Non Native Invasive Species
The Irish Angling Development Alliance intends to work more closely with the IFA, IFI, Local authorities and other appropriate bodies in an effort to stem the rampant spread of non native invasive species in Ireland and more particularly to prevent the introduction of other more harmful ones which have already been identified just outside our shores. Disinfection programmes are already in place for visiting anglers to our shores and more needs to be done in the areas of awareness, signage and the provision of legislation to halt the spread of this near plague within our shores. The IADA road shows on Bio Security will continue throughout the year while focused lobbying will continue in an effort to create awareness around this very grave problem at local authority and at Government level. Inland Fisheries Ireland are leading a campaign to arrest the spread of invasive’s and are in the vanguard in these islands with regard to scientific research and efforts to combat and eradicate selected species. Dr Joe Caffrey is the leading scientist in charge of this research programme and while he contributes awesomely in his unselfish and generous working and out of hour’s commitment, he and his team deserve to be given more assistance in areas of funding, signage, local regional and national disinfection, local authority awareness and commitment. A salutary word of warning from Dr Caffrey came in the estimate of losses to the UK agriculture industry last year through the spread of only four invasive plants, estimated in the region of £200 million and that coupled with the potential loss of €150 million if the angling tourist industry were to be lost or further damaged, could deal another serious blow to this country in difficult economic times. We must all play our part in stopping the spread.
Dr Catherine Mc Gavigan Queens University Belfast Speaking at Tuesday Nights Event
An invasive New Zealand predator has hit Kildare’s waterways forcing the closure of part of the Grand Canal.
No, it’s not the All Blacks rugby team – but it is just as dominant and as menacing – it’s a weed which has appeared for the first time ever in our canals in Ireland…Leinster Leader 30/03/12 …..Read the full article..
John Quinlan, bass angling guide reports on the first bass fishing for clients at the Thatch Cottage near Cahersiveen in Co. Kerry.
March – Our first customers of the year arrived on 16th March. Sadly, despite a promising start the weather was cold and windy with virtually no sunshine. Early in the season a little sunshine is always welcome as it warms the shallow water. At this time of year bass will always take advantage of warm water if they can find it.
In spite of the difficult conditions we managed to land around 30 bass, four seatrout and one pollack. The best bass was a little over 5 lbs. wih the bulk of the bass being between 3 and 4 lbs.
Jon Bond had one bass on fly. The rest of the fish were caught on a mixture of lure fishing or bait fishing. Michael Brazendale did well catching the best seatrout of 2.5 lbs. He also managed to land 6 bass on Saturday 24th.
Cian O’Halloran joined us on Wednesday with his friend, Paul. Cian runs an excellent tackle shop in Tramore, Co. Waterford catering solely for bass anglers. The shop is called Absolute Fishing and you can find it on the web on www.absolutefishingireland.blogspot.com . Cian is also organising Ireland’s first bass fishing festival in July, see the website www.irishbassfestival.com . This promises to be a very interesting event.
View at Cahersiveen
We have now finally managed to get some of the fine weather that England has enjoyed. This warm weather and sunshine should see a big improvement in the bass fishing. The bay seems to be full of sand eels at the moment. Gannets are working every day. Terns are showing up in greater numbers every day and he surf is full of cormorants feeding on the sand eels.
A survival plan for Donegal islands is calling for an ease on the 2006 ban on salmon fishing and for inshore island fishermen to be allowed to fish more species.
The report outlines a three-year plan to save and maintain the communities on Árainn Mhór, Inis Boffine and Tory Island and states that, “small, offshore island communities are special cases”….Donegal Democrat….30/03/12…..Read the full article
Pictured at Stradbally Lake on Thursday last , for the stocking of Rainbow Trout at the Lake , were: Front ( l. to r.) Liam Kelly, Sean Lawlor ( Dept. of Social Protection ) and Dominic Hartnett ( Chairperson - Stradbally Development Assoc. ). Back ( l. to r.) Anne O'Neill ( Athy Community Council ) , Anne Goodwin ( C.E.O.Laois Partnership ) , Rita Kelly ( J.I.C. Scheme) , Kyrle Delaney ( Stradbally Development Association ) , Martin Mahon ( Chairperson , Stradbally Anglers Club ) , Dom Reddin ( Laois Tourism Officer ) , John Cowen ( Assistant Inspector - Inland Fisheries Ireland ) , Thomas Cosby ( Land owner ) , Orla Mulligan ( Laois Partnership ) and Larry Swaine ( Stradbally Anglers Club ).
The news that rainbow trout are swimming in Stradbally lake was welcomed by fishermen and supporters who gathered there last Thursday morning, March 22.Among them was Ballybrittas man Pat Fenlon who was taking a breather before getting married later that day. His best man Mark Ring is a keen fly fisherman who felt compelled to mark the double importance of the day.
Rainbow trout are a big attraction to anglers, as they are larger and stronger than brown trout,………The Leinster Express…….29/03/12………Read the full article……
Pictured at Stradbally Lake on Thursday last , for the stocking of Rainbow Trout at the Lake , were: Front ( l. to r.) Liam Kelly, Sean Lawlor ( Dept. of Social Protection ) and Dominic Hartnett ( Chairperson - Stradbally Development Assoc. ). Back ( l. to r.) Anne O'Neill ( Athy Community Council ) , Anne Goodwin ( C.E.O.Laois Partnership ) , Rita Kelly ( J.I.C. Scheme) , Kyrle Delaney ( Stradbally Development Association ) , Martin Mahon ( Chairperson , Stradbally Anglers Club ) , Dom Reddin ( Laois Tourism Officer ) , John Cowen ( Assistant Inspector - Inland Fisheries Ireland ) , Thomas Cosby ( Land owner ) , Orla Mulligan ( Laois Partnership ) and Larry Swaine ( Stradbally Anglers Club ).
