In the latest episode of the Lure Fishing Podcast, Cormac Walshe talks with expert bass guide John Quinlan. John is based in Kerry in Ireland, and has been guiding for over 25 years and has a true wealth of knowledge not only about bass fishing but also trout and salmon fishing. In this episode he gives some great insights into his approach to bass fishing and passes on some excellent advice. This is a really good conversation, not to missed.
Fishery manager Felix Sproll was in touch from Screebe Fishery to report on a great early season there for trout anglers.
Fishing for brown trout opened in the Screebe on the 1st Feb. Water levels were low to start off but have rising to winter highs in the last week with all the rain. It has been reasonably mild which has helped the fishing apart from a cold spell we got end of Feb/start of March. The fishing in the lower Screebe system is normally very good at the start of the year as it is influenced by sea water that is slightly warmer than the freshwater so the fish are feeding sooner than in the loughs.
The first trout of the season went to Trevor Down, the Head Chef at Screebe House with a lovely 2.5lbs fish on a Silver Dabbler. Since then, he has caught several nice fish over 3lbs with the biggest being caught on St. Patrick’s Day on a Rusty Rut fly pattern weighing 7.5lbs! There have also been 1 or 2 sea trout caught up to 1.5lbs. Other flies that are working well are Minkies, Humungus and Alexandra.
Felix was in touch again to say that Trevor had just exceeded the season best trout with another fish of 8lbs!
Screebe Fishery provides fly fishing for trout, sea trout and some salmon in beautiful Connemara. Day tickets can be bought from Screebe House Hotel (091 574 110) or by contacting the fisheries Manager Felix at Felix@screebe.com . Early season day tickets for trout are €30 for half day and €50 for full day. Salmon season in Screebe starts on the 1st of May -30th Sept.
For more information visit Screebe » Outdoor pursuits. Screebe House also does lunch, dinner and cold and hot drinks.
Cong and District Anglers Association are based at Cong on the shores of Lough Corrib. Last year they used funding from IFI to upgrade their boat mooring facilities, with a new boat quay, improved berths and enhanced facilities. The club now has space for 60 berths, sheltered from all winds, with private secure car parking adjacent. Anglers can access Lough Corrib quickly through Lisloughrey Bay, which is adjacent to Ashford Bay at the north eastern end of the lake. Berths are suitable for traditional lough boats only.
Check out the club video below of their upgraded facility.
The club has room for additional members and boats, and welcome new applications for membership. Anyone interested may contract one of the following committee members for application details:
John or Stephen Lydon, Lydons Lodge, Cong tel. 087 9761612
Niamh Fahy tel. 087 9888716
Dan O’Donovan 086 1238174
Cong and District Anglers Association is an angling club with excellent facilities for boat mooring on Lough Corrib. They hold regular competitions and outings, and offer excellent value membership and boat mooring for the season. Contact a committee member above for information, or check out their Facebook page here
When the rains do finally subside and the waters come back into contention Markus pinpoints some of the most likely places where you have a high chance of landing a salmon.
Plus he also has some interesting points about the 2022 season and trends to look out for the 2023 season and beyond.
You can read more here:
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Anglers fishing the 3 day St Patrick’s Festival on Inniscarra enjoyed some great fishing with many anglers bagging up in style. Fountains House, Turtle Bay and the Garden Centre were the chosen sections. Each section produced weights in excess of 10kg for at least one angler each day, with the Garden Centre fishing best. Day 2 saw some incredible catches with 16.990kg, 27.130kg and 29.730kg catches recorded.
At the end of Day 1 John Browne led on 24.810kg from the Garden Centre. John was closely followed by Duncan Lennox and Paddy O’Neil who also fished this productive section.
Day 2 saw some changes to the leader board as Marcin Bobka added to his day one catch of 15.670kg from Fountain House with a mighty 29.730kg from the Garden Centre. Paul McCaul jumped 12 places to 2nd with and equally impressive 27.130kg, also from the Garden Centre, while John Brown did enough at Turtle Bay to stay in the top 3.
The last day saw a slight reshuffle of the top 5, but there was no change for 1,2 and 3. Marcin had his turn at Turtle bay and his 7.110kg catch was enough to secure him 1st place. Paul did slightly better with 7.140kg which saw him hold second while John fishing at Fountain House held 3rd place with 4.780kg Julian and Kendrick and Peter Jones fished steadily through out to take 4th and 5th. While the top 2 were stand out winners, the middle of the table shows some very tight margins, as the top 12-6 all made between 30 and 33kg.
After the success of the St Patricks 3 day Match what better than a 1 day match followed by another 3 day festival?
Tuesday’s 1 day Match winner was Julian Kendrick with an impressive 24.880kg.
A section was win by The Ronnie Goldwater! He had 16.880 – he is back on form.
B section was won with 11.720 by Neall McKitterick!
Wednesday saw the second 3 day festival, sponsored by Trevs Tackle Ireland, kick off.
Fountain House produced the top 4 weights for on the first day. Neall McKitterick topped the scales with 44.4kg.
1st Neall McKitterick 44.4kg
2nd was Ronnie Goldwater with 41.8kg
3rd was Trev Platt with 39.530
4th was Gary Watson with 21.4kg.
The Garden Centre didn’t disappoint either and was won by Julian Kendrick with 17.1kg.
There are 2 more days to go with lines in to be called on Friday Afternoon. We’ll have an update for you when it’s all over.
Dont forget – there is an open match on 25th March. This will mark the end of this year’s St Patrick’s festival !
West coast clubs are back in action with club leagues well underway. Corrane SAC held the second leg of their club competition on Whitestrand beach, south of Louisburgh at the weekend. The weather was quite blustery, with a few showers thrown in for good measure.
Corrane SAC is a very active club based in south/west Mayo, with competitions and regular outings to many Mayo beaches and rock marks. Like most clubs, they welcome new members and novice anglers. Check them out on their Facebook page here.
While much of the country celebrates St. Patrick’s Day in the pub or at one of the various parades, for others, it means the first chance of the year to fish for trout in their local rivers. In Dublin, St Patrick’s Day marks the opening day on two rivers that run right through the city, the Dodder and the Tolka. Growing up in the Churchtown area, I remember getting the rods ready on the 16th for a dawn start on the 17th, as I headed to the Dodder to try and get to the best spots before anyone else. It was always a bit of a ritual, and there was a great sense of camaraderie all along the river on opening morning.
While it’s a few years since I fished on opening day, I took a walk down along the Dodder last weekend and was glad to see plenty of anglers out and about. It was interesting to see that the majority of anglers were fishing with small lures, whereas back in my day, it was worms, or what was often a killer bait for a big fish, a lip-hooked minnow. The lures seemed to be working judging by the Dodder Anglers Facebook Page, and it is great to see some quality wild trout can still be caught in the river.
On the other side of the city, the River Tolka provides a similar opening day ritual for ‘northsiders’, and browsing through the Tolka Trout Anglers Facebook page, it seems that small lures are also the preferred bait on that river. Their opening day competition seemed to be very well attended, with plenty of junior anglers taking part, and congrats to Jacob O’Leary who won the junior competition with a trout of 2lb 5oz.
The river most synonymous with Dublin is of course the River Liffey, and there are a number of angling clubs active along the river. One of those is the North Kildare Trout and Salmon Anglers Association, and they had a Catch, Photo, Release competition last weekend. 17 anglers turned out for the fly fishing only event, and there were some localised hatches of Large Dark Olive which brought the fish to the surface, giving some good action on the dry fly.
It’s great to see so many anglers out on their local rivers, and the fishing will only get better over the next few months, so if you live locally to any of these rivers, why don’t you get your hands on a rod and give it a go?
Senan Stanley is a prolific YouTuber and he has a host of angling videos on his channel, where he tries numerous venues and tests out plenty of tackle, giving plenty of tips and tricks in the process. Hoping for a bit of ‘Luck of the Irish’, he headed out onto Lough Derg on St Patrick’s Day, fishing with some small 5cm lures, in the hope of getting a trout or perch. And, in some ways, luck was with him, as he landed a treble shot of predators, boating a trout, pike and a perch. Not bad for a bit of early season fishing.
But unfortunately, it wasn’t all good luck for Senan as he managed to hook a pretty big pike, and then events took a turn for the worse… But you’ll have to tune in to find out how…
Carrowmore Lake near Bangor Erris in County Mayo is renowned as a great spring salmon venue, and quite often the first salmon of the season is caught around St. Patrick’s Day. This was also the case this year when the stars aligned for Barry Doocey who caught and released the first salmon of the new season on 17th March! The fish took a Noon’s Blue & Yellow which Barry had tied himself. Since then, three more salmon were caught and released on the lake which raises hope for a good spring salmon season.
A few days later Lough Beltra, the other great spring salmon lough fishery in North Mayo, recorded its first salmon of the season. Compliments go to Vincent McHugh who was the lucky angler on the opening day!
Killybegs Fishing Trips report their first specimen pollack of the new season. The fish was over the magic 12lbs. mark and measured 83cm. However, fishing on the day was quite slow for the first couple of hours but picked up later with mostly pollack, a few coalies and a few cod.
Later in the week, more nice pollack together with some coalies were caught.
Address: Moneygold, Grange, Co. Sligo.
Telephone: 00353 87 6224348
Email: keithclarkesligo@eircom.net
Web: www.inishmurrayislandtrips.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/killybegsfishingtrips/
