Peter is back with a weekly round up from Piscari-Fly…
How’s the Fishing?
Over the weekend Mark ventured up to Lough Sheelin on the Cavan Border after some Early Season Wild Brown Trout, since the opening of its season on Friday the 1st of March. Conditions were cold, but warmer than recent days from snow fall. Though winds were quite low compared to recent days. Plan was to focus on some marks he had picked up and fish close to the shore lines & drop offs.
Mark started off with two fry pulling patterns on a Di3 sinking line fishing close to the bottom, along with Di5 sweep at times. Heading up the lake towards Crover House doing many drifts but found water very clouded here due to river inlet close by. Mark moved about other markers in the area fishing some nice water and drifts but no joy.
A change in the afternoon to head to the other end of the lake fishing back of Church island on the way and then down to Orange fields and some markers down that end of the lake. But unfortunately no joy. Due to very little to no wind made conditions difficult for fishing to get decent drifts in on shore lines. Compared to Saturday where reports of fish got on similar methods to that of Mark’s. Wind helping to turn up hog-lice and food source on the shoreline making the fish more active. However Mark still made the trip and reported still having enjoyed the day out to start off his Lake season & looking forward to spinning up again soon to this fantastic lake. Mark reported it being a very safe lake to boat on. But as always care to be taken on any lake.
Owen and Ricky got out pike fishing to the canals in Monasterevin. It was a cold one but a few nice fish caught, nice action mostly using soft plastics that are available here from piscari sea and game.
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Here’s a great pattern for early season fry chasers on the loughs.
Don’t forget to get in touch if you need anything for the season [email protected].
Tackle Bag
Magnet Rod Holder
A handy little accessory for setting up at the side of the road and stops the rod from getting blown over.
Get in contact for information on this or click the link below.
So we were back last Saturday with our live flytying on facebook or youtube. It was great to be back and we llok forward to seeing you all again this weekend. It will be either Friday or Sunday though as nephews 21st on Saturday. So keep an eye on social media for updates.
About us
Based on the River Nore just outside Thomastown, Co Kilkenny, Ireland. Piscari-Fly is a growing Fly Tying and Fly-Fishing business with a vast amount of experience and knowledge. If there is ever anything I can do to make my service better for you please feel free to suggest it to me and I’ll gladly try my best to accommodate your requests. Thanks again. Peter Driver.
As a small business we depend on the satisfaction of our customers and there word of mouth reference, google reviews are important to our online presence and we sure would appreciate your review. Just head over to this link and give us a quick review.
Salmon may only be harvested from the Roughty River by anglers who hold an additional brown tag. A total of 96 brown tags will be available for the 2024 season. They will be distributed to anglers with a rod licence via four draws through the season. Brown tag measures for salmon and sea trout are required on the Roughty River to conserve stocks and avoid accidental over-harvesting
A total of 96 brown tags will be available. Up to a quarter of the available number of brown tags can be issued at one time. Therefore, 24 brown tags will be distributed through an online lottery on 4 occasions during the season. The first online lottery was held on on February 27th 2024, the results of which were published here: Did you apply for a River Roughty brown tag? Round 1 Draw results here
The remaining 3 draws are as follows:
Second draw – 17 April
The next draw (24 tags) will open for entries from 02 April – 14 April with the draw taking place on 17 April.
Third Draw – 12 June
Third draw will open for entries 27 May to 09 June with the draw taking place on 12 June
Final Draw – 07 August
the final draw will open for entries from 22 July to 04 august with the draw taking place on 07 August
Ger Power was back in County Cavan at the weekend. It might be a blue sky in the photo but it was fairly cold with snow melt flooding the river and a hard frost. The pike weren’t feeding, but then they may have had other things on their mind as spawning season gets closer.
So pike were out, but there were still some perch to have a go for. Fishing a jig-head shad-tail Ger concentrated on perch for the day and had a good few, but was frustrated by missing 3 good bites. Then the rod double over again and at first he thought it must be a jack pike. When he saw the tell tail colours in the water his frustration switched to excitement as he realised he had a better than average perch on the line. Playing it to the bank he carefully netted the perch and it turned out to be his PB – a fine perch weighed at 3lb.
David Norman sent us this report, our first mullet report of 2024…
I finally found myself in front of surface feeding Mullet, that could be targeted with the fly rod, for the first time this year. After connecting to this Thick Lip I initially thought it was small (Common first thought with Mullet Fly, don’t ask me why but the initial sighting often seems that way). Didn’t see it again for around 10 mins as it powered up and down the cove, almost taking me down to the backing at times as I followed along with my 6wt bent double… it took me around 15 mins to finally beach it having applied full pressure on my 10lb tippet throughout the battle. The fish turned out to be a solid 4lbs+ maybe 5 but I didn’t want to keep the fish out of the water any longer than necessary in order to weigh it after a longish battle despite having scales and a sling with me. The dogged power and endurance of these fish never ceases to impress me, they easily out fight most saltwater species we have here in Ireland (Including Bass) with the exception of the larger Pollack we target from the Kayaks on Fly and lure here in beautiful West Cork
Things will start to get busy for me on all guiding and coaching fronts from now on but I still have some prime tides available so give me a shout to discuss options if you fancy an Angling Adventure in West Cork over the coming months. Can’t wait to get started!
David has been lure then fly fishing since the mid noughties with some of the best guides and anglers in Ireland and abroad.
Kayak fishing by lure & fly now takes him and his guiding guests beyond the shore to target Pollock, Bass or Wrasse with the chance of other species such as Codling, Coalfish, Mackerel or Garfish.
Shore fishing at night is also a very special experience.
oday, we welcome the arrival of meteorological spring in the Northern Hemisphere. However, the current weather conditions with low temperatures, heavy sleet and snow showers, strong winds and ground frost in places, don’t really make for a “spring feeling” or pleasant and promising angling conditions. As a consequence, angling has been generally poor since our last update with early season game angling hit hardest.
Saying that, there were a few milder days during the early part of the week and last weekend, which provided for better conditions, mainly for coarse and shore anglers in the south and east of the country.
Starting off with salmon angling, we received another report from Vincent Appleby from Lough Currane in Co. Kerry where anglers caught a spring salmon during the week. Elsewhere, salmon anglers have struggled with the largely unfavourable conditions, as have trout fly anglers, as conditions aren’t really conducive to flyfishing yet. On Lough Corrib, however, pike & ferox guide, Tomi Kurman, proved that other methods can work well this early in the season. His first guided trip of the year produced three ferox trout on the troll, best at 75cm which deserves to win our Catch of the Week!
Fine Corrib Ferox
Meanwhile, fly anglers will be delighted to hear that Peter Driver is back with his weekly roundup. His informative Piscari-Fly Newsletter will definitely help all the fly buffs out there to pass the time until conditions will be more favourable to pursue their favourite sport.
For predator anglers who are into home-made lures, Norbert Renaud’s video on hand-made pike fishing lures is a must see. Check out the latest L’ile Verte video here.
Down south, the Munster Feeder Anglers WinterFest was fished at Inniscarra, Co. Cork. The festival was won overall by Ken Ince who put in a flawless performance to finish with 23.360kg, closely followed by Richard Pratt in 2nd place with a weight of 22.290kg. Over the two days the 22 anglers weighed a total of 309.690kg which is an unbelievable result for a February feeder match!
At Oaklands, Ronan Minogue won the Ger Hennesy Winter League on Sunday last. It was a very tight last match between Ronan and Leo Lynch who both finished on 9 points overall, but some big catches earlier in the series saw Ronan winning on weight.
Concluding our coarse fishing section, we would like to draw your attention to a great story sent in by Dan O’Neill, Fishery Manager at Mount Juliet and who we know is an avid fly angler with great enthusiasm and passion for his sport and the countryside. Over the years, Dan passed on that same enthusiasm and passion to his son Anthony who has been joining his dad on many occasions. However, now it was Anthony who had been asked by a friend who hadn’t caught a fish before if he could take him fishing. So, for the first time, it was Anthony who was in charge taking care of a novice angler. Their choice for the day was a small carp pond just outside Carlow…but read yourself how young Anthony and his friend Aun got on..
Anthony and Aun…happy guide and happy angler!
It is not surprising that the unsettled weather of late also impacted negatively on charter boat fishing. Hence reports are few and far between. Killybegs Fishing Trips, however, made use of a break in the weather providing some nice early season pollack fishing for their clients in Donegal Bay.
From the far northwest all the way down to Ireland’s southeast where Cormac Walsh managed to land his first sea bass of the new season. His recent chat with Mike Ladle on the Lure Fishing Podcast inspired Cormac to get back to basics this past week and it clearly paid off for him!
In the latest episode of their Ireland on the Fly Podcast Daire Whelan and Tom Doc Sullivan talk to John Lalor about his new book Fish Scealta. John’s new book about game fishing from Alaska to Lapland and the Swedish Arctic covers his remarkable fishing life beyond Tipperary including some bucket list destinations we can only dream about.
Inland Fisheries Ireland would like to remind all salmon anglers that the next draw for brown tags for the River Roughty, Co. Kerry (24 tags) will open for entries on 24 March with the draw taking place on 17 April. Results of the first draw (allocation of an initial 24 brown tags) are available here.
And now the weather…
Tonight, lingering rain and sleet in eastern counties will become patchy and gradually clear. Elsewhere will be dry with clear spells at first but scattered showers will spread from the north later, some heavy with a chance of hail and sleet in the northwest. Frost and icy stretches developing with lowest temperatures of -1 to +3 degrees. Moderate to fresh northerly winds, strong on western and northern coasts.
Tomorrow morning, frost and ice will slowly clear. There will be a mix of sunny spells and showers through the day, some heavy. Over the weekend showers will become more isolated and top temperatures will rise to 7 to 9 degrees. Current indications suggest our weather will remain fairly mixed but relatively mild through midweek next week.
If you have an angling story to share with the Irish Angling Update please send it to [email protected] and don’t forget that all of our fishing reports are available on our dedicated Angling Ireland Facebook page.
Daire Whelan and Tom Doc Sullivan talk to John Lalor about his new book Fish Scealta…
John Lalor’s Fishing life – from the River Suir & beyond
John Lalor, the well-known Tipperary salmon and trout angler, joins Daire and Tom on the latest Ireland on the Fly podcast to talk about his fishing life on the River Suir and beyond.
John’s new book, ‘Fish Scealta: Game Fishing from Alaska to Lapland and the Swedish Arctic’ covers his remarkable fishing life beyond Tipperary covering many of the bucket list destinations we can only dream about – as well as some of his other favourite fishing locations in Ireland.
Bill, John and Sean all regulars to Melview Fishing Lodge were once again up here for some pike fishing. The first couple of days have seen plenty of pike to the boat up to 104cm. Fishing both ledgered and float fished dead baits they are doing very well at the time of writing, stay tuned for full a report next week.
Sean looking like he means businessJohn with his third of the day
Kevin has over 30 years experience of fishing in Ireland and is happy to offer a guided tour on your arrival, and to advise where the on-form waters in the area are. We can arrange your bait order so it’s here when you arrive. Melview offers free use of 17ft lake boats with engines to our guests (pay fuel only) and Kevin is happy to assist with any pre-baiting requests. Maps and other information regarding fishing are also available.
Day 1 of WinterFest 2024, fished on Saturday 24 February, saw some fantastic winter weights off of The Graveyard (St.John’s) section with Ken Ince leading the day with a fantastic weight of 13.590kg closely followed by his neighbour Richard Pratt weighing 13.190kg.
Ken on day 1
Unfortunately, The Garden Centre didn’t perform quite as well as expected. Having seen so many fish topping this morning everyone had a spring in their step heading to their pegs… It would appear that given the rain overnight the section was subjected to a lot of fresh (cold) water which appears to have forced fish off the deck and up in the water column. Best weight on The Garden Centre was a modest 7.590kg by Pat Falvey closely followed by Viadas Jagela with 7.350kg.
With lots of rain forecast for tonight anything could happen tomorrow… only time will tell!!
The final day of Inniscarra WinterFest 2024 saw more fantastic winter weights. There was a significant improvement at the Garden Centre with some better stamp fish putting in an appearance including some Bream and even a winter tench…
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Garden centre tench
Garden Centre bream in amongst the roach
Garden centre bream
A section winner today was Jack Slyne with a great weight of 11.330kg. Jack is new to the sport of coarse fishing despite being an avid sea angler. Jack was one of the anglers that started his interest in coarse fishing not so long ago, when he came along to sit on Munster Feeder Anglers “Beginners Box” at one of our club matches… It is fantastic to see him winning the day today and placing 5th overall. Definitely one to watch for the future!! Well done Jack!!
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Jack Slyne
Marius Vrubliauskas.
Winterfest in the sun
B section was won today with another great winter weight of 10.460kg from Inniscarra regular Marius Vrubliauskas.
The festival was won overall by Inniscarra maestro Ken Ince who put in a flawless performance to finish with 23.360kg closely followed by Richard Pratt in 2nd place with a weight of 22.290kg. 3rd place went to another converted sea angler but now Inniscarra regular… JP Molloy with a weight of 20.810kg. Next up in 4th place was Darius Sakalys with 18.860kg.
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Your Winterfest winner, Ken Ince
Richard Pratt took 2nd place
JP Molloy, 3rd place at Winterfest
This weekend the 22 anglers weighed a total of 309.690kg which is an unbelievable result for a February feeder match, showing just how good the venue really is.
I think I speak for everyone when I say it was a great weekend spent in great company. Thank you to everyone who travelled and supported the festival. Well done to everyone who took part and we hope to see you all again on the bank at Inniscarra soon!
Finally I would like to thank Pat and the staff at O’Riordans Bar in Coachford for hosting our presentation and for the lovely food after the match
Go fishing…
Munster Feeder Anglers look forward to another great year of angling at Inniscarra and we can’t wait to welcome both returning anglers, and new anglers alike. This year all festival bookings will be catered for by our booking partners at EventBrite.
On the day/time of ticket release anglers can log on the link below to access our profile page, select the event they wish to book, and follow the easy registration process. https://munsterfeederanglers.eventbrite.com
All festival dates have been carefully chosen (where possible) to allow anglers the option to extend their visit should they so wish by combining their trip to a Munster Feeder Anglers event with one of ILTDL’s many festivals.
Should you require further information on any of Munster Feeder Anglers events, accommodation options, or general venue information please contact Pat Falvey on Messenger or on email: [email protected]
Peter is back with a weekly round up from Piscari-Fly…
How’s the Fishing?
A great day in Laois Angling Centre for the TAFI National Banks Championships. A total for 242 fish caught between 24 anglers from the 4 provinces. Leinster were on top winning with a impressive 35 placing point lead ahead of the nearest team. Congratulations to Sean Dempsey on his National Banks Title. Also to Mark Driver placing 5th overall to secure his place on the 6 man National Team, Along with the biggest fish. Peter Driver also secured 7th placed for 1st sub position for the team. Well done to Denis Goulding, Roger Fowler and Sean Kirwan part of the 6-man Leinster team. Whom all put in alot of practice and teamwork to pull off a great win. Congratulations guys. Congrats to all the winners & qualifying team anglers from all provinces. As always great hosts Johno & Enda at Laois Angling Centre.
North Kildare Trout & Salmon Anglers Association held their Social evening on Sunday. There was a great crowd in attendance, with people coming through the doors from 3pm.Everyone was in great form, and the chat was all about the upcoming season. Its an annual event and always great to get out and meet fellow anglers. Thanks everyone for coming along and making it a great event.
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Peter holds court
Of course we are all looking forward to the season starting up shortly. In Munster they are lucky and are at it already. For others 1st March is the start of the season with a few of us having to wait till St Patricks Day. Let’s hope the rivers drop a bit and we see warmer weather coming in.
Here’s one for the boxes, an early season nymph that has always worked a treat for Mark and Peter. Always gets plenty of trout.
Don’t forget to get in touch if you need anything for the season [email protected].
Tackle Bag
We are going to start looking through the lads chestpacks and what they find essential or would recommend for the season.
Introducing the Mini Chest Pack from Piscari-fly. A superb pack that we have been using lately in recent competitions or on our travels. Mark in Wales and Peter in Australia. Scaling everything down to what you only need. A fantastic product that’s great for young anglers starting off or if your competition focused. Check out the video here
Always a great family day out the Irish Spring Angling Fair is on the bank holiday weekend in May in Ardaire Springs Angling Centre in Mooncoin, Co Kilkenny. Peter will be doing talks as well as having the shop down there for the weekend.
So going to try fit in a few live tying shows before the season gets going. Going to be tying lots of great patterns for the season ahead, with giveaways and great chat as usual. Join us on Saturday night at 8.30pm on facebook or youtube.
About us
Based on the River Nore just outside Thomastown, Co Kilkenny, Ireland. Piscari-Fly is a growing Fly Tying and Fly-Fishing business with a vast amount of experience and knowledge. If there is ever anything I can do to make my service better for you please feel free to suggest it to me and I’ll gladly try my best to accommodate your requests. Thanks again. Peter Driver.
As a small business we depend on the satisfaction of our customers and there word of mouth reference, google reviews are important to our online presence and we sure would appreciate your review. Just head over to this link and give us a quick review.
Our second competition of the year saw us return to Ventry in February. The dropping tide here over the past 3 or 4 years has been exceptionally good to us with a bag of 15 plus fish being required to even feature in the prizes. All good things must come to an end though and despite the good looking conditions and lots of bird action around 200m out things started slowly.
In fact they didn’t really start at all until about 40 mins into the comp when Liz landed a fine fat bass of 42cm. Indeed it was Liz off to a flier after that with a quickfire double coalie that even caught Shane unawares. Figgs, Connie, Chris, Ned, and Chris Sanbak all picked off a doggie leading to hopes of the usual invasion but it just never materialised.
A short flounder, but a counter
Jason Wilbert and Fiona did pick up some fish during the middle of the comp but it was Figgs that really stole the show when, with just under 2 hours to go, he landed a treble shot of dogs off peg 19. Some anglers decided to persevere on the dogs while others went after the fish that were available on worm baits close in. This was evident by the catches of flounder with Liz, Connie, Chris Sanbak and Bobby all picking up flounder. Bobby’s turned out to be a valuable one with it being 33cm and good enough for the flat fish pool.
As the light declines
Figgs continued to fish hard as did Jason and in the end they secured a 1- 2 for the white van men. Great fishing and dedication from the two lads who are just back from their first trip to the Master Angler and have great intentions of going back for more. As usual when things go your way they really do and it was no different for Figgs as a baby huss took a fancy to his sandeel and at 43cm earned him the round fish pool.
A late baby huss
On the opposite of that, when things don’t go your way they generally continue for the evening. David O’Sullivan encountered this on a venue he has cleaned up with recently he only managed a 14cm rockling. Kerry got hammered in the football and the chip wagon was closed in dingle. They say it comes in 3s.
Results
Senior
1st Figgs Cronin 12 fish 581
2nd Jason Ryan 6 fish 259
3rd Liz McMahon 6 fish 176
Junior
1st Bobby Fitz 4 fish 151pts
2nd Chris Sanbak 2 fish 78pts
Tralee Bay SAC is a thriving community of enthusiastic anglers – young and old, experienced and newcomers – with new members joining all of the time. We have a busy schedule of shore and boat competitions and lots of social events planned throughout the year. Tralee Bay is a family friendly, welcoming club with a reputation for promoting angling and encouraging newcomers to the sport.
Joining could not be easier – simply get in touch with us via our Contact us page leave your address and we will send you out an application form. Please also let us have your email address – especially if you have any queries for us. We are especially eager to hear from junior anglers who want to take advantage of club membership. For more information on joining see here – Joining Tralee Bay Sea Angling Club.
