There have been some very big tope caught off Greystones in recent weeks, so it’s definitely a venue that’s on fire at the moment. So what better time to have a crack at them than this August 20th & 21st, when Greystones Ridge Angling Club will be hosting their Monster Tope Festival. It’s a mix of tope fishing and other animal species (ray, bull huss, lesser spotted dogfish, spurdog and smooth hound), and there are great prizes on offer. They have extended the closing date for entries, so any interested anglers should get in touch.
Wicklow Boat Charters clients have been getting the best of both worlds recently as both the inshore and offshore fishing has been exceptional. Inshore has seen some great ground fishing for hounds, huss and tope.
Specimen sized HoundSuper Huss
Meanwhile, 30Nm offshore, the wrecks are fishing very well with plenty of pollack to 9lb caught on lures.
Super pollock from a wreck
Go Fishing
Angling Charters are offered on a full-day, half-day and evening trip basis and can be tailored to suit your needs. Two boats are available – Lisin and Castle Maiden. All levels of anglers are catered for. Anglers will benefit from your skipper’s angling experience and local knowledge with advice and guidance on-hand at all times.
SPECIALIST ANGLING CHARTERS
Specialist Angling Charters are offered for those who wish to target specific species, specimen fish or try new angling methods.
ANGLING COACHING
Whether you’re a Club, Individual, School or Junior, you can have an angling coaching session or programme tailored to suit your needs.
Skipper Dave Edwards of West Cork Charters, had a good crew out targeting blue shark at the weekend. The lads made the most of a calm day on the water to land nine blues in total, with a few more chances missed.
Dave assists with IFI’s Marine Sportfish Tagging Programme and has recaptured tagged fish as much as five years after the initial capture (he has also got them the very next day!). Dave says it’s Important to use barbless hooks and no stainless steel and to also support their bodies when out of the water. If they are out for more than a couple of minutes aboard the Silver Dawn, water is piped through the gills until they are ready to go back.
Blues on board
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Go fishing…
West Cork Charters operates the Silver Dawn, a 41′ Rodman 1250 with twin 430 HP Engines out of Courtmacsherry. The range of fishing found within close range of Courtmacsherry is superb, with trips producing anything between 6 and 15 different species as a norm and in excess of 20 is possible if anglers are prepared to change methods and use different baits and lures throughout their trip. As a rule mackerel, pollock, cod and ling are usually encountered but several species of wrasse along with whiting, pouting, coalfish, bull huss, conger and many more are often added to the catch.
If you do choose to head offshore to sample the superb shark fishing available within 10 miles of Courtmacsherry, there is a very strong chance of encountering blue sharks and an increasing chance of bringing a porbeagle shark to the boat.
Joy unconfined for Michelle - our Catch of the Week!
Niall Butler and Michelle Kane recently went to a small lake in Fermanagh that was known for holding small coarse fish. They set their gear up accordingly, hoping to catch a few roach & perch etc. and they were soon into the action as the roach were biting as expected.
Roach were the target, and they seemed to be biting well…
However, they were surprised when a fish took, and put such a bend in the rod that they knew it couldn’t be a roach… After a while, they saw a green back emerge through the water and were astonished to see a trench on the end of the line, as they had no idea that there were any tench in the lake. It wasn’t the only one they caught either, so now Niall and Michelle have a new tench spot. Lucky them!
…but the tench were totally unexpected and very welcome…
Danny Lambert from Lancaster, England, sent in this report of his recent trip to the Moy:
We have just returned home from a family holiday. We visited the west coast of Ireland and stayed in Enniscrone, a beautiful beach town on the Wild Atlantic Way. Whilst there, we headed for the town of Ballina to fish in County Mayo on the river Moy. The town is a world-famous hot spot for salmon anglers.
We went to the shop called the Angling Centre in Ballina and met Robbie, and his advice was brilliant. He kindly arranged for my son Frank Lambert who is 8 years old, to obtain his juvenile fishing licence and permit to fish on the river Moy. Frank also joined the Ballina salmon anglers association as he met Peter in the shop who runs the club. Peter issues all permits and was only happy to advise and show us local hot spots for fishing. This local club are doing excellent work for their community in promoting youngsters to get into the sport of fishing.
Robbie kindly offered to show us the ropes in his spare time after work on the banks of the Moy and met us on the evening of 27th July, and he kindly brought a life jacket for my son to use whilst we were fishing on the side of the fast flowing river. Frank was trying to land his first catch. This was the first time Frank had ever been fishing. The spot Robbie picked was busy with locals and was just up river from the famous ridge pool where Jack Charlton used to fish.
We fished using Frank’s new rod and reel with a float on live bait using a single worm. Within 60 seconds of the first cast, we had a bite! Incredible! It was Frank’s first fish, a 3lb wild Atlantic salmon. An amazing experience he will never forget.
I cannot recommend the Angling Centre enough to anyone interested in visiting Ireland for a fishing trip on the Moy River. The hospitality and advice from Robbie was excellent.
River Suir angler George McGrath got in touch about an issue that has angered and energised him and many of you in the Irish fly fishing community in recent weeks in relation to weed growth in Irish rivers and lakes that has been as bad in living memory.
So, what’s going on? Who’s responsible and more importantly, what can be done about it?
George McGrath joins Daire & Tom to tell them what he has seen, while fisheries scientist, Ken Whelan, gives his scientific explanation as to what is most likely the reason, plus who to contact and what pro-active measures can be taken to ensure that this problem does not go unaddressed.
If you have seen similar weed growth and conditions that George McGrath has described, then get in touch with LAWaters.ie to start the investigation.
The Ireland U20 coarse fishing team are competing this week at the FIPSed Coarse Angling for Youth World Championship which is taking place on the River Sava in Slovenia.
The squad of John Browne, Brian Clark, Donagh McSherry, Charlie Richards and Rhys Walsh have done their reconnaissance on the Sava River and are training this week ahead of the official match days of August 6th and 7th.
Checking out the venue
The team is managed by Gavin Walsh and have great support on and off the bank from accompanying parents, Martin Clark, Adrian Brown, Nick Richards and Lorraine McSherry.
Training for the main event
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The very best of luck to the team, we’ll keep you posted on their progress…
A shortened field of 13 anglers fished the 5 day Muckno July festival last week and Craig Ellis came out top of the pile with just over 91kg for his week’s work. Craig Ellis, Jim Brockie and Charlie Vallender all topped 20kgs on the final competition day resulting in some movement at the summit, as Craig Ellis moved up to top spot from long time leader Kevin Johnson who finished in 2nd place.
Another fine showing by Charlie Vallender with 20 plus Kgs saw him hold off the in form Jim Brockie, for the final podium place.
All anglers averaged just short of 13 kgs per day per man of nice roach, loads of skimmers and many hybrids so all competitors had, by their own account, a very, very good angling holiday.
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Congratulations to Craig Ellis, Kevin Johnson, Jim Brockie and Charlie Vallender on great weights of 80+ kgs and 90+ kgs over the 5 days.
It was good to see faces old and new at the annual coarse fishing festival held this August bank holiday weekend. After the two-year break it was always going to be interesting to see what the catches would be like but the County Monaghan lakes provided for a fish-full festival.
Wet wet wet
Annaghmekerrig started and finished poorly but produced a fine stamp of roach mid-festival with a top catch of 20.600kg by Neil Mazurek. Popular Baird’s Shore didn’t produce tench in the usual numbers but provided regular mixed bags and a top weight of 15.600kg for John Potters on the final day, also on White Lake, Bream Rock fished steady over the four days with a good number of hybrids and a top weight of 21.000kg for Niall McKitterick. Mullanary although generally difficult did produce specimen fish for some and a top weight of 11.950kg.
Some good sized fish were caught
It was a close-run match with no clear winner until the final day – which was fished in torrential rain. John Potters’ 231 fish on the whip at 4m gave him the festival on the last day with a total of 48.780kg, leaving Mark Theedom just 640g behind and this year’s runner-up. In third position was Neil Mazurek with 46.650kg and in fourth Tony Kersley with 44.650kg. Congratulations to all the winners and framers throughout.
Winners and grinners
The Clones Coarse Anglers would like to thank all those who took part for their company and camaraderie on the bank. It was an enjoyable festival indeed made possible with the support of the local landowners, bait supplies from Irish Bait and Tackle Limited, The Tyrone Guthrie Centre Annaghmakerrig and Clones/Ballybay Municipal Council. Thank you to the staff at the Creighton Hotel Clones for their hospitality throughout.
See you next year Fri 04th to Mon 7th August 2023!
As ever in Ireland, the weather has a huge effect on fishing of all types and over the past seven days, rainfall totals were quite varied across the country. The wettest conditions occurred in the north of the country, where one third of the average monthly rainfall fell in one hour, bringing flash flooding to parts of Donegal. Meanwhile, people living in the south midlands experienced the driest conditions, registering just 4 mm of rainfall in places (30% of the expected average for the week).
And it’s in the midlands that we start this week, where the Irish youth team retained the Bob Church trophy in the Home Countries international that was held on Lough Lene in Westmeath. The team of 14 anglers, captained by Jim Kelly of Cloghans, Mayo, managed to catch and release 14 fish, in what were difficult conditions on the competition day, to finish ahead of England in second place. Congratulations to Team Ireland, they win our Catch of the Week this week (particularly Eanna O’Leary who swept all the honours with a superb six fish, winning the Brown Bowl, Longest Fish, Best Bag and any other accolades that were on offer).
Team Ireland
Team Captain Jim Kelly would have been glad that he was fishing on Lene this week, as back home on loughs Conn and Cullin the fishing has been poor of late. Water temperatures are high, fly life is scarce and local anglers say that no fish are moving at all…
From rainbows, to browns, and now to the sea trout of the Costelloe & Fermoyle fisheries and reports are that fishing has been pretty good on the loughs in the upper parts of the system. Runs of both salmon and sea trout have continued throughout July despite the small amount of rainfall, and eleven salmon were reported from the fishery during the month. Topping that figure was the Owenmore Fishery in Kerry, where fishery manager Frank Maunsell reported fifteen grilse landed in one day when the stars aligned and conditions came good, that’s not to mention the numerous sea trout that have provided great sport lately too. On the Moy, fishing activity has slowed down considerably with the low water levels, though some 201 fish were still reported for the week. In Galway, young angler Gary Nolan managed to banish his GAA blues with his first ever salmon caught just an hour or two after his heroes lost out on All Ireland glory.
Gary and his first salmon
The coarse fishing festival season is well upon us, and various events are currently taking place around Cavan and Monaghan. The Belturbet Festival was won by Wayne Easter who topped a field of forty with just over 65kgs while on Lough Muckno the 4th Qualifier of the Irish Feedermasters was held where Sean Donnelly triumphed in style off Black Island. The Clones Festival is taking place this weekend and we’ll bring you news from there next week.
Special mention on the sea fishing front this week goes to Sean Ward who caught his first ever golden grey mullet. Not interested in small fry, Sean went straight in at the deep end, tackling a specimen sized fish on his very first try! Great job!
A rather warm, humid and breezy Friday night, with lowest temperatures of 14°C to 17°C, in moderate to fresh southwest winds. Highs of 18°C to 23°C on Saturday, with showers and warm sunshine possibly breaking through away from Atlantic counties, heavier rain moving in across the country overnight. Dull on Sunday and Monday with outbreaks of rain, heaviest in the south. Sunny spells will, however, develop with just well-scattered showers following by the afternoon. Highs of 18°C to 23°C both days, warmest in southern counties in light northwest or variable winds.
