This week Daire & Tom speak to Nicholas Grubb who grew up in south Tipperary beside the Suir and the Tar and he tells them about the incredible catches of fish that were to be had growing up.
It’s a throwback to another age and his great grandfather Samuel also had a reported 62lber which would have been an Irish record but it was never measured or verified at the time.
Nicholas also previously wrote an article for Salmon Watch Ireland discussing some of the reasons why he thinks salmon numbers have plummeted since the 1960s which he discusses.
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And for their latest Masterclass webinar on Thursday April 25th, international angler, guide and renowned fly tyer, Jackie Mahon, will be giving tips, advice and insights on the tactics to use for the coming mayfly season.
On Wednesday evening (27 March) we held the second leg of our midweek bait supplied league. Youghal beach was the original venue however it was unfishable so ferrypoint was used as the back up venue. It was lines in at 6:30pm -and we fished for 3 hours until lines out was called at 9:30pm.
Fishing on the night was poor overall. Barry O’Rourke on peg 12 and Troy Francis on peg 13 had the best of the fishing. Troy lead the way for the first two hours but a strong finish from Barry with three fish in the last hour would seal the win for him. Whiting, pollack, coalies and flounder made up the catches.
1st Barry O’Rourke – 6 fish – 169pts
2nd Troy Francis – 5 fish – 132pts
3rd Denis Duggan -2 fish – 67pts
4th Danny O’Shea – 1 fish – 31pts
5th Stephen O’Donovan -1 fish -24pts
Well done Barry Denis Duggan on peg 5 won the big fish pool on the night with a 32cm Coalfish which was worth €70:50 and took 3rd place over all.
A big thank you to Noel Kavanagh from the Tackle Shop for supplying us with bait and for sponsoring a raffle prize for this leg. Barry O Rourke was also the winner of the raffle.
Go fishing…
The final leg of the midweek league takes place on Youghal beach on Wednesday April 10th. More information is available on the WCAD midweek league FB group page.
All about West Cork and District SAC…
The club was formed on march 19th 2009, in the small picturesque harbour town of Kinsale County Cork. We’re an inclusive club, this can be seen in our membership profile; from anglers who are new to match fishing all the way up to members of the Irish World Shore Team 2010, two of which are in the club! The club holds circa 10 competitions per year, members are encouraged to practice a catch and release policy in the interests of conservation. Anybody wishing to join our club is always welcome, just use the contact us page and we will give prospective members full details. Web:http://westcorkanddistrict.webs.com/ Facebook:facebook.com/pages/West-Cork-and-District-SAC/
Trout fishing has been slow on both lakes so far this season with the cold air temperatures not helping the fly fishing. The duckfly hatch has reportedly been sparse on Lough Conn while there were reports of good duckfly hatches at times on Lough Cullin, although anglers were finding it hard to tempt the trout.
Ballina/Cloghans Angling Club fished The Jack McNeely Cup competition on Saturday 30th. 1st place went to Brendan Murphy who had 1 trout for 1.5lbs and 2nd place went to Francis White with 1 trout for 1.25lbs.
Winning angler Brendan Murphy(left) being presented with the Jack McNeely Cup by Mick McNeely
Ian Wise reports from Cloonamoyne Fishery on Lough Conn that he had a visiting father and son out on Friday 29th, they had 5 trout for their afternoon, 3 of which were released, while trolling small Rapalas.
On Easter Monday the first salmon of the 2024 season was caught on Carrowmore Lake. Jonathan Murray from Northern Ireland was the lucky angler. His spring fish was estimated at 9 lbs. and carefully released. Other successful anglers were Frank & Declan Dooley, Peter McGuire and Brian Hope. Most successful flies included, Claret and Black Dabblers, Claret Bumbles and Cascade patterns.
Brian Hope, Westport, with a fresh Carrowmore salmon which was released
Please note that Carrowmore Lake is a Brown Tag Fishery! For fishing on Carrowmore Lake contact Seamus Henry on +353 (0)97 83487 or visit www.bangorerrisangling.com.
Paul Bourke of Irish Fishing Tours is seeing some good pike getting caught on Lough Derg…
21 March: Bernard fooled 10 of these up to 100cms before he decided to call it a day, nice and early for us both.
31 March: Started off on pike this morning had a few nice ones then went on and caught a bunch of nice perch up to 37cms. Feels like spring is starting finally.
1 of 5
Lough Derg producing quality pike
03 April: Today was all about feeding windows which were short, but top pike for the lads were 104cm, 102cm, 102 cm plus a couple at 92cm and 91cm, and a few 80s.
Few pike fly fishing yesterday too..
Irish Fishing Tours provides customised fishing holidays based in the picturesque harbour village of Garrykennedy on the shores of Lough Derg. Our comprehensive fishing trips include a guiding service, tackle hire and food and accommodation.
Choose from my list of existing fishing holidays or contact me to tailor one to your specific requirements. Airport transfers can be arranged on request.
Irish Fishing Tours is owned by Paul Bourke. Paul has lived and fished here all his life. As a guide, he will show you the best fishing locations, advise you on baits and methods and then allow you the freedom to explore the lake yourself. He fully understands the needs and interests of the experienced enthusiast.
The NCFFI invites young anglers from novices to the competent to join a series of sessions covering a range of float fishing techniques.
What’s more, those aspiring to compete on the world stage will get to fish alongside those already on the international scene as we look to form a pool of anglers to progress to championship level.
So, if you want to learn new skills or join the Team Ireland Pathway come and take part!
The programme starts with a weekend on Oaklands Lake and Ballyshunnock on 13th & 14th April where pole techniques will be covered. Further on the sessions will move around the island and available at,
Whilst Team Ireland will not field a team at the World Championships in Serbia this year, Youth Team Manager Adrian Brown invites you to express your interest for the chance of a place on the 2025 squad. We aim to present U15, U20 and U25 teams to the championships in Spain.
In addition you can put your name forward for a place on Team Ireland for the Celtic Cup. This competition designed to introduce new talent to international fishing takes place in Scotland this October.
High water has impacted fishing across most of Kerry and the Laune was no different. For the weekended 31 March there 7 salmon landed on Beat 1 of the Laune Fishery – 1 weighing 9lbs, 3 weighing 7lbs each and 3 weighing 6lbs each, all on worms.
Anglers on the Killarney Flesk reported 1 salmon weighing 8lbs caught on worms.
On the Long Range River, the piece of water connecting the Upper and Middle lakes at Killarney, there was also one salmon weighing 8lbs caught on worms.
On Thursday 04 April 2024, a draw took place to allocate the second allocation of 55 Brown Tags for the taking of salmon on the Lower Lee. The requirement to hold a brown tag is set out in Wild Salmon and Sea Trout Tagging Scheme (Amendment) Regulations, recently signed into law by the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Eamon Ryan, T.D.
A total of 222 valid entries were received from salmon rod licence holders. Each was assigned a number in advance of the draw.
65 numbers were randomly generated. The first 55 successful entrants will be issued a brown tag no later than Monday. The final 10 numbers are reserved in case an angler declines or returns the tag allocated to them.
The draw was observed by Sean Long (RBD Director), Chris Scanlan (Fisheries Officer) and Myles Kelly (Angling Advisor and Website Manager).
The numbers selected are:
2061
2016
2079
2203
2148
2040
2122
2065
2218
2039
2147
2208
2113
2001
2100
2014
2112
2155
2029
2064
2057
2217
2062
2026
2173
2044
2116
2117
2200
2137
2083
2185
2023
2161
2091
2008
2032
2059
2165
2041
2030
2110
2202
2130
2170
2221
2011
2209
2086
2087
2047
2184
2060
2099
2111
The 10 reserve numbers are:
2164
2031
2093
2021
2055
2070
2071
2020
2207
2135
The Brown Tags will be issued by post by 05 April. All anglers are asked to acknowledge receipt of their Brown Tag by email including the tag number to [email protected]
Dan O’Neil reports from the south east where high water is playing a large part in determining where fishing is possible
Water levels remain very high, and it seems every time I look out my window it’s raining so I find myself poking around the riverbank looking for small little nooks and crannies that may hold a trout or two.
I have recently been trying out a couple of fly rods, one being a 9ft 5wt and the other a 10ft 5wt. The 10ft 5wt is going to be my new wet fly rod and the 9ft 5wt is going to be the “spud masher” as a good friend called his go-to fly rod. Given conditions I have recently been focusing mostly on streamer fishing. I have gone to different people around the country and sought advice on the technique, set up and various other necessities when it comes to streamer fishing. Some didn’t point me in the direction of a 5wt and advised me to go to 6wt or 7wt while others said to fire away with the “spud masher”. I also questioned leader set ups and tried to find out what was the “go-to” set up. If I was to listen to them all would end up with a suitcase full of leaders.
So, the conclusion I came to was do what works for you. It will take some trial and error, what works for me might not work for you. However, you do need a starting point. I will list below the set up I have used since the 17th of March and the conditions I used it in.
Rod: Cadence SM 9ft 5wt
Reel: Cadence CSM
Line: Rio streamer tip (floating line to an integrated 9ft sink 6 tip)
Leader: 12inch butt section (12lb maxima ultra green) 20 inches of 6lb maxima ultra green to the fly.
Knots: Blood knot to blood knot for the leader sections, loop knot to connect the streamer. (Take a look on YouTube for a tutorial video, easy knot and gives streamer much more movement).
I fished the above on the King’s River where it isn’t overly deep. I was probably being over cautious about being down low in the water using a sink 6 but that’s what I prefer.
I mostly used a simple woolly bugger in black. I did switch to an olive coloured one for a short while but found the black to be most effective.
I tried 3 strip retrieves first in each run then ran the same piece again using a jig retrieve. It’s amazing how the fish switch to taking one retrieve over another. In one run I’d get them all on strip retrieve and in another run it would be all jig retrieves.
Peter Warren
Back to reality now, I had Peter Warren out on what was a lovely morning for streamer fishing. The river had a slight colour which I like. The Kings can be narrow in places, so we had to watch our casts at times, but we managed just fine. There were plenty of roll casts and circle c casts practiced throughout the morning. Swinging the streamers we mixed our retrieves up a bit and paid special attention to how we retrieved so we could copy that retrieve if a fish hit. We did in fact meet some trout which mostly came from the end of the runs. We aimed our casts tight to the opposite bank in hope a trout would follow our streamer and hit it. This did happen a couple of times, we found that as soon as our streamer hit the water just off the opposite bank if we immediately stripped in then the trout would hit just on the turn or when the streamer sped up on the swing.
I was a little apprehensive about using the heavier line but was told, and it’s true I suppose, that the fish are not focusing on the diameter of the line but more on the streamer itself. Once I got a few trout I lost my concerns about the heavier line.
Kings River trout on a black Wolly Bugger
Peter did quite well in some of the runs and was surprised how hard the trout fought from this little river. We both then sat down and had a chat that I have had many times with people, what must the river have had been like 60/70 years ago? What a wonder that is. We had a cup of coffee and continued our chat wishing that some of the old oak trees surrounding us could speak some words. Amazing to stop for a minute take a look at your surroundings and realize how lucky you are to have found angling, then look a little deeper and realize a lot of the surroundings will outlive you and two streamer fishermen may sit in the same spot in many years from now and wonder what our fishing was like this very day.
Go fishing…
I will be running a casting clinic Saturday 13th of April, there are 3 places left. If you would like more information contact me on the below details.
Growing up in the countryside of Gowran, Co.Kilkenny, I started my fishing journey on the River Barrow with my dad, which is where I caught my first fish, a lovely brown trout. The Gowran River was also a short walk from my homeplace, and on the days my dad couldn’t fish, I would walk through the fields and fish the Gowran River. My love for fishing grew and took me to Mount Juliet Estate, where I began guiding at 13. I went on to become fisheries manager at Mount Juliet Estate and, to this day, enjoy taking out hundreds of clients every year fishing on the River Nore. I enjoy all types of fishing and guide all over Ireland. I am an Apgai Ireland-qualified casting instructor and have Ambassador roles with Cadence and Yeti. I joined Fulling Mill as an endorsed pro guide and am part of the Patagonia pro team. My angling journey has been an exciting one and hopefully will continue to be.
I take out all levels of anglers, from beginner to experienced. I enjoy what I do and count myself very lucky to be able to meet and guide new people to what might be their first Irish fish.
The club was formed on march 19th 2009, in the small picturesque harbour town of Kinsale County Cork. We’re an inclusive club, this can be seen in our membership profile; from anglers who are new to match fishing all the way up to members of the Irish World Shore Team 2010, two of which are in the club! The club holds circa 10 competitions per year, members are encouraged to practice a catch and release policy in the interests of conservation. Anybody wishing to join our club is always welcome, 
