Northerly and easterly winds usually put a curse on all things fishing so when South Shore SAC were faced with a North-easterly blow for the second round of their Leinster League, it’s fair to say that expectations were not too high. 59 anglers turned out on a cool day as the competition was split over two zones, one in Ballinouart, and one in Morriscastle.
Fishing at this time of the year can be tough, and when faced with a nasty wind, it can be tougher still, and fish were very hard got on the day. In some sections, baits were coming back without having been touched at all.
Of the two zones, Morriscastle proved the better on the day, and Noel Fogarty managed to bag a creditable 11 fish to come top of the standings. Over on Ballinouart, it only took three fish for Des Farelly to win the zone and continue his good run of form. Full report and results are posted on the South Shore SAC Facebook page.
Anthony Weir from Tulla and District Anglers reports that the club had a super day out on Sunday, fishing for pike at Lough Brigit. The members were competing for the O’Holloran Cup with over 45 pike netted.
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Results were as follows
Marcin came in first with 12 fish totalling 623cm
2nd was Grzegorz Balicki (New Member) with 10 fish totalling 549cm
3rd was Martin Brennan with 5 fish totalling 286 cm
The pools was won by Brendan Wood with a pike of 86 cm.
Also worth a look below is a perch netted today by Grzegorz.
The next competition is on Clonlea where we will compete for the Bushmills cup on March 12th from 11:30 to 16:00.
Coarse angling
Best of luck to the Tulla coarse angling team fishing the Munster 4s: Donna, Padraig, JJ, PJ, Anthony, and Sean. And well done for last week in Inniscarra! They will travel to New Ross next Sunday March 5th for their 2nd outing.
Note that the first Tulla DAC coarse match will take place at Cloondorney where we will compete for the Quealy cup. We will draw for pegs at 09:00
Join the Club
Tulla District Angling Club is a Pike and Coarse fishing club founded over 50 years ago. They are based in East Clare, Munster, Ireland.
Brian Cooke, National Youth Shore Development Officer with the Irish Federation of Sea Anglers tells us that last Saturday, the IFSA Cast coaching programme was launched in Roney Point beach in County Wexford.
Ava Marshall with a flounder
The Cast coaching is an angling pathway with six levels that starts from novice up to International World team status.
Cameron Gilbert with a fine flounder
35 young anglers from all over the country participated in an inter active coaching day, with trained IFSA coaches and International anglers going to each angler and coaching them on tips, techniques and all aspects of sea angling from the shore.
Chris Sanbak lands a double whiting
The young anglers had a great day, learning valuable angling tips and interacting with their peers. Species caught were whiting, flounders, dabs, coalfish and smelt.
Happy anglers with their Cast certificates
All participants were awarded Cast certificates based on their skill levels.
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Liam Davis with a coalfish
Evan Mason with the longest flounder of 33 cm
Go fishing…
The next event is scheduled for March, details on the IFSA website and Facebook.
Details and photos of the event are on IFSA Website and Facebook page .
IFSA
The Irish Federation of Sea Anglers, a voluntary body and member of the Angling Council of Ireland is the National Governing Body for sea angling recognised by Sport Ireland and SportNI.
The Federation, founded in 1953, provides support for affiliated clubs and members, runs national competitions and presents International teams for Boat & Shore, Senior, Ladies and Juniors on the world stage.
We aim to develop, foster and control the sport of sea angling in Ireland.
The IFSA consists of four Provincial Councils: Ulster, Munster, Leinster and Connaught. These are governed by the Central Council made up of elected National Officers and Officers from each Province. Subject to AGM.
There’s been a feel of Spring in the air this week, Daffodils are everywhere, birds are already foraging for nesting materials, and the first buds are appearing on bushes and trees. Temperatures have been mild enough, although if the tabloids are to be believed another Beast from the East is just around the corner! We’ll stick to the official forecasts ourselves…
Predator
The milder weather has seen plenty of pike angling, and we have several reports of pike and perch action. Steve Gilbey was over in Longford for another visit from the UK, and he landed some lovely fish to 23.5lbs!
Newbridge & District Anglers, and one angler in particular, had a red letter day on a midlands lake venue. Danny McEvoy managed to double his previous PB with a cracking fish of 27.05lbs. That was only the start, however, as he went on to break that new PB with a fish of 29.02lbs, our Catch of the Week! Two fish for 56lbs in a short time, the kind of fishing one can only dream of. The other members also had great sport, with a number of other 20s and doubles landed.
Catch of the Week
Dan O’Neill and his son Anthony had great sport with perch on the Barrow, young Anthony catching a number of pike as well.
Salmon angling is still slow on many rivers, with anglers biding their time, but Mike O’Shea landed the first salmon off the Upper Caragh fishery, a tide-fresh 8lbs fish. Well done Mike!
Elsewhere fishing guide Dominic McGillicuddy landed his first of the year from Lough Currane.
Trout anglers are enjoying good early sport on Corrib, with fish taking flies in the shallows readily according to reports. Guide Tomi Kurman invested in a new boat over the winter, and christened it on Sunday with the first ferox trout of the year for one of his clients.
An innovative Transition Year group at Ballinrobe have been learning to tie flies over the last few weeks to sell for a business project, and they put their flies to the test when they visited Laois Angling Centre last week. Great sport was had, all caught fish, and they have been asking for a return visit since apparently!
“I love it when a plan comes together”. Well, that certainly worked out for Cian Moriarty and his friends, who had a solid day fishing on Sunday in Wexford. The target was spur dogs and between Cian and his four pals they had over 20 spurs between them! Great fishing!
In Youghal, a host of senior anglers competed for the coveted Master Angler trophy. All had qualified through their club master angler competitions, and fished 3 sessions in Youghal over 2 days. Fishing was tough, but that often separates the wheat from the chaff! At the end of 3 sessions, it was well-known coarse angler JP Molloy who was triumphant, with two zone wins and a second place sealing the win, and not for the first time taking home the MA trophy. Congratulations also to the women’s winner Clóda Ni Cheócháin from Tralee. Clodagh and JP will captain the senior teams at next year’s World Championships in Spain, where we wish them the best of luck.
Coarse angling reports are sparse, but the Munster Teams league kicked off with the first leg this week on Coachford Greenway, Inniscarra Lake with 8 teams taking part. Oakland took the honours and a nice lead with 9 points, ahead of Polish Angling Team on 13.
Overview: High pressure will be positioned near Ireland bringing mostly dry weather. Rather cold at times with the chance of some night time frost.
Cool over the weekend, with an easterly airflow bringing cool east/northeast winds, but staying mostly dry. Night time temperatures of -2 to 4C, and daytime highs of 5 to 8C, feeling cold in that east wind. Turning cloudier on Monday, but the outlook is for mostly dry if cold weather over the next few days.
Steve Gilbey from Manchester was over once again for one of his two annual trips to Melview Fishing Lodge in Longford, it was straight to business for Steve on the first day, catching a few nice Pike using various dead baits. As the week went on, the Pike kept getting bigger, Steve decided to fish a couple of static days from the bank. This paid off for Steve when three of the Pike caught went to the scales at 15lb 8oz, 17lb 5oz and a cracking 23lb 7oz. Host Kevin said, well done Steve and already looking forward to seeing you again in November.
Steve’s second pike on his first day out.What a cracking end to the holiday 23lb 7oz.
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.
The Romanian C&R Angling Association kicked off their Perch League 2023 this Sunday gone and twenty four eager perch anglers signed up to take part over the course of the seven legs. For this round, the anglers headed to the midlands and the River Inny in search of their perch.
Water levels were good and expectations were high amongst the competing anglers, despite a blustery wind that made fishing light a tricky task. First casts were made at 9am and, with the scoring based on the sum of total length of each angler’s best five perch, anglers hit the water in hope of landing those five good fish.
In search of perch
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Ben Moore came out top of the field on the day with 134cm and he goes into round 2 in the lead. Following close behind was Tomasz Narolski on 133cm and David Dennis on 125cm. Longest fish on the day was 32cm, also caught by Tomasz.
The event will resume after the perch have spawned and we’ll keep you up to date on how the league shapes up in the coming months.
It’s been a mild winter for the most part, without any really prolonged cold spell, and trout seem to have been feeding well on Corrib. Reports from fly anglers are of good fish feeding in the shallows and taking flies. This time of year is dominated by trolling, with the fly typically less successful, so it’s good to see fly anglers enjoying sport already.
That said, trolling is definitely more productive at this time of year. Expert ferox and pike guide Tomi Kurman finally christened his new boat 4 days into the season when his client Darragh landed a fine ferox on Sunday. His two friends also had their chances, but two more fish were hooked and lost on the day.
Darragh with the first ferox of the year for guide Tomi Kurman’s new boat.
Tomi was out again on Tuesday, a very wet day. Rain doesn’t bother the fish however, only the anglers, but 4 fish landed made light of the bad weather. They had 4 hits to the trolled lures, with one pike and 3 trout landed. The trout measured from 67 to 79cm. Great fishing! All fish returned alive of course.
Catching fish like that, you wouldn’t feel the rain!
And another one!
Corrib trout have beautiful markings
Go Fishing
To book a trip with Tomi, give him a call on 085 7318541 or check out his Facebook page here: Tomi Guidedfishing
Chris O’Sullivan is a fanatic sea angler based in Tralee, Co. Kerry, with access to some of the best sea angling in the country. Chis is well-known on the angling competition scene with many successes to his name. Unlike a lot of serious competition anglers, though, Chris is keen to share his tips and tricks, and has set up a Youtube channel called The Inshore Angler.
Tangles are always fun! Whose fish is it…?
In his latest video, Chris films the recent Tralee Bay SAC competition on Ventry strand, near Dingle. Match anglers will know the thrills and spills of competitions, and the video will whet the appetite of many as this year’s competitions get underway for clubs up and down the coastline.
Three sandeel baits ready for the cast
Chris talks us through his tactics and choice of baits, and we see how his efforts are rewarded. Ventry is known as a dogfish venue, and fish baits definitely performed best on this occasion. Chris’s tactics and attention to detail paid off in the end as he took first place in the competition, which gave him good confidence heading into the Master Angler competition last weekend – he finished a very creditable 8th out of 67
Double doggie, nice on the score card!
Check out the video below, or watch it on Youtube here.
If you like the video, feel free to click Subscribe so you can stay up to date with more of Chris’s videos. If you’re on Facebook you can also follow Chris here
Norbert Renaud of L’ile Verte Pike Fishing Lodge in Cavan has tied thousands of flies for predator fishing. One feature that Norbert believes can really make the difference on a tough day is an attractive tail which can provide the extra vibration or visual stimulation to make a predator hit a fly. Norbert has tried and tested various different shapes and sizes of tails, to the point where has has started to design and machine cut his own innovative tail patterns.
In his latest instructional video, Norbert gives us the inside line on designs that work for him, which materials to use and info on the tech he uses to precision cut the tails for his flies. Don’t forget to like and subscribe!
It’s a first for Daire and Tom this week on Ireland on the Fly as they find out about catching mullet on the fly in early season.
It’s a fish known as the Irish bonefish and not one that has been targeted a great deal but maybe that’s about to change.
After all, if you’re like their guest, West Cork guide and angler, David Norman, you could be landing five mullet on the fly in a single session in February on your five weight.
If you’re interested, then stay tuned as David explains how and where to target the mullet in Irish waters.
Daire and Tom also speak to David about his plans for the coming season with high hopes for double-figure pollock and bass and to find out more, you can contact David at https://www.anglingadventureswestcork.ie.
Rate, review and follow the show to keep up to date with all the latest Ireland on the Fly episodes on Apple Podcasts or Spotify at: https://pod.fo/e/165aed.
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.
