Karl managed 96lb of bream to win the MadCaps competition
After the first hour with just perch being caught it looked ominous for the Midland & District Coarse & Pike Anglers (MADCAPS) club members fishing a competition locally, but then the Bream King Karl hooked into a huge bream only to lose him at the net.
The bream showed up and Karl was not found wanting
A quick change of tactics and four hours later his keepnet bulged with 93lb 6ozs of Bream – the best over 9lb 6ozs.
A superb days fishing by Karl with Arthur Senior Judge taking 2nd place with a great net of perch.
MADCAPS, Midlands Coarse & Pike Anglers welcome new members and have some coached members to take juniors forward and are delighted to be working with other clubs and organisations in the area towards the development of angling venues.
We run a pike league in the winter and coarse for the summer. Our membership is just €10 and we charge no more for our open competitions keeping it affordable for all. Key for us is that we keep fishing fun!
Midlands Coarse and Pike Anglers are affiliated to the National Coarse Fishing Federation of Ireland and are members of the Angling Council, the National Governing Body for coarse and predator angling. www.ncffi.ie
Edmund Corry and his Lough Cloon trout estimated to weigh 8lb
Edmund Corry had a day to remember last week when fishing Lough Cloon, one of the lakes on the Caragh system in co. Kerry.
Fishing a team of wet flies that included a home tied black dabbler, Edmund met a fine fish. Following the take a dogged fight followed and he was in no doubt that he had hooked into a substantial fish, and on his own Black Dabbler too.
Edmund Corry and his Lough Cloon trout estimated to weigh 8lb
The trout was eventually brought to the boat and carefully netted by his steely nerved fishing partner, Brian King. Once landed Edmund got a couple of photographs of his prize before carefully releasing it again to fight another day.
As we turn the corner from June into July, we are still patiently waiting for any prolonged spell of weather that we could rightly call ‘summery’. Summer has been a very mixed bag so far this year, with strong winds and unseasonably cool temperatures predominating, and only the odd gleam of summer sunshine breaking out from time to time. Last week it was the turn of rain to put a dampener on things, as rainfall was well above average, with some areas of the country seeing five times the usual amount. And the rain meant that temperatures stayed on the low side, with most of the country falling a degree or two below the average.
Many of Ireland’s salmon rivers are spate rivers, so they fish best after a good spell of rain brings a bit of a flood. Anglers who fish on these spate rivers have been hoping for a good belt of rain to come through to bring the fishing on, and they were far from disappointed to see last week’s deluges. Such was the case on the River Ilen, where anglers made the most of the good flood, landing 40 salmon to 13lbs during the week. Other rivers in West Cork, such as the Coomholla and Glengariff, had reports of decent fishing as well. Anglers on the Bandon also benefited from the high water, as rain on Friday led to some fantastic weekend sport with around 50 fish to 16lb being caught. Friday’s rains livened things up on the Waterville System too, as sea trout and grilse responded well to the fresh water, and one angler broke a 50-year duck in catching a salmon on the fly! Not too far away, on the River Laune, the rain brought fish and anglers to the system last weekend. On the Owenmore system in Kerry, the water levels in the river have been quite high, but the lake has produced a grilse and a few sea trout. The River Moy also saw plenty of water run through, and this helped the fishing, with 404 fish reported in the catchment during the week. Sometimes, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing, and such was the case on the River Blackwater, which was much in need of rain, but when it came, the river rose so much as to become practically unfishable.
A sea liced 8lber from the Bandon taking a rest before being returned
Elsewhere on the freshwater scene, fishing has been considerably slower. Lough fishing for trout usually goes into a bit of a lull after the mayfly, but the end of June sometimes sees an increase in activity as sedge and/or buzzer fishing becomes more productive. However, Sheelin anglers hoping for a post-mayfly uptick in angling were to be disappointed as fish continued to be hard to come by despite some decent fish being landed. In Mayo, strong winds and heavy rain meant that few anglers ventured out on Loughs Conn or Cullin, and those that did found little fly life hatching off, and fish were few and far between. Anglers fishing at Laois Angling Center fared far better though, as a recently stocked lake made for great fishing and some super-sized brownies and ‘bows.
A super-sized ‘bow from Laois Angling Center
Pike fishing often slows down a bit in high summer, but a couple of Austrian anglers fishing in the Boyle area found them to be pretty active, with some quality fish falling to lures.
Austrian angler Klaus with one of his pike
On the coarse angling front, anglers fishing on Lough Muckno found that heavy rain the night before their Feedermasters match subdued the fish, and the squally, wet and cool weather on the day of the match didn’t help either… In the midlands, a husband and wife duo from Belgium fishing at Melview Lodge had some good feeder fishing, with plenty of hybrids keeping them busy. As we head into the (supposedly) warmer summer months, we would like to remind all anglers that we have regulations in place to protect our pike and coarse species, and that pike and coarse fish are particularly vulnerable at this time of year. High water temperatures and low oxygen levels can put these fish in distress, so fish should be brought to the net quickly, handled carefully, and should not be kept in keepnets for long periods.
A good bag in tough conditions
The summer months see the height of activity on the sea angling front, and it was great to see a couple of junior anglers come to the fore last week. In Cork Harbour, young angler Seán put one over on his grandad Ritchie Ryan by landing a cracking pollack on the fly.
Sean, with his fly caught pollack
Meanwhile, up in Clifden, 8-year-old Rory Cahill showed his dad Oisin how it’s done, by landing another fine pollack, this time with a lure. Both Séan and Rory can be very proud of their efforts, and in recognition of that, they jointly win this week’s Catch of the Week.
On the charter fishing front, a group of Dutch anglers fishing in Courtmacsherry had some great sport with catches of pollack, ling and conger. Another group of Dutch anglers had a good range of species as Tom Collins got his boat Loch an Iasc back in the water last week. Shark and skate both featured in catches, and there were plenty of bluemouth and huss on the go as well.
Tom Collins gets off the mark with the Blue Shark
And now the weather
A band of rain will extend eastwards this afternoon, bringing heavy falls to some places but clearing to showers this evening. Saturday will see a mix of sunny spells and showers, some of which will be heavy, and temperatures will range from 15 to 18°C. Sunday will be mostly dry with some scattered showers, mainly in western areas. This pattern of dry spells with some showers seems set to remain into early next week, but we should see some improvement in temperatures as high pressure builds from Tuesday onwards.
Tom Collins got Loch an Iasc back in the water last week and started his season with some big fish. Tom and his cousins Marty and Jen kicked off the 2022 with blue shark.
Blue shark
After that there were a few tough days at sea but at least the mackerel meant getting bait was easy and some good bullhuss to almost specimen length were landed. At the end of last week there was some schools work done with St Patricks in Skibbereen and the kids involved had a great time with a fine haul of fish and plenty of smiles.
Piet with a small bluemouth
Then it was back to work with some Dutch anglers on Monday. There has been a good mix of species landed with Bluemouth making an appearance on some deep marks and bullhuss providing entertainment when the wind kept the boat closer to shore.
Bullhuss
They had and interesting day on the skate grounds on Wednesday. Ab hooked into a big fish just as the tide turned and brought it close to the surface 3 times over the space of 3 hours before his line parted. We will never know what it was!
a good skate measured and ready for release
Piet saved the blank in the last half an hour with a nice 162lb female landed in 30mins in a running tide.
Yesterday there was a change of pace and all onboard enjoyed blue skies, blue shark, bluemouth and some big whiting.
Recent weather hampered angling at Benwee Head, Down Patrick head in the background, another good angling coastline.
The weather has impacted big time on all shore and Cliff Angling. The North and Northwest winds are hampering conditions and making it impossible to cast into the sea.
There was virtually no angling in the past 2 weeks along the North Mayo Coastline.
1 of 3
Recent weather hampered angling at Benwee Head, Down Patrick head in the background, another good angling coastline.
Benwee head, north of Kilcummin harbour and Lacken Strand a good place for cliff Fishing for Mackrel, Pollack and wrasse. Extreme care needs to be taken when fishing places like this.
Poor weather, high winds and heavy rain hampered all efforts for a good angling week. While some fresh water was badly needed to freshen up the water the winds prevented anglers venturing out. The angling was slow for the few hardy anglers that did persist.
Peter Roche from Cloghans had 1 decent fish from 2 days on the Lake, a fish for just 1.5 lbs on a sooty Olive pattern along the Brackwansha shore. He saw no fly life or moving fish. This was the same for most anglers throughout the week.
Johnny Warren from Crossmolina had the same experience and boated 1 fish for 1.25 lbs.
A trout released by Michael Duffy in Massbrook bay, caught on an Olive Bumble
2 French anglers had 3 small trout for about 1 lb each to green mayfly in Massbrook Bay. Michael Duffy from Ennis, also fishing out of Murphy Boat hire had 2 trout for 1.25 lbs on bumbles in Massbrook Bay. All trout released by anglers over the few days.
404 Salmon were reported caught for the week in the Moy catchment. Water levels recorded at Ballylahan Bridge were very low at 0.263m on Monday morning. Rain arrived on Friday evening which brought fresh water into the system and levels rose to a peak of 1.831m which was a big Summer flood after continuous rain over the weekend. Water temperatures ranged from 11˚C to 11.5˚C throughout the system.
The Moy Fishery recorded 43 salmon for the week, 14 of these were released. 32 were caught on the Ridge Pool, 4 on the weir Pool and 7 on the Cathedral beat. All were caught on the fly.
Ballina Salmon Anglers reported 34 salmon caught, averaging 3-6 lbs, caught on the worm.
Knockmore Salmon Anglers report 5 salmon from their waters, best 5 lbs.
East Mayo Anglers recorded 67 salmon, with 33 of these released. Fish all averaged 2-5 lbs with the biggest caught on a worm by Philip Murphy from Wexford for 10 lbs.
Reports from Lough Conn say that 2 salmon were caught, all trolling. Windy weather kept a lot of anglers off the lakes.
12 salmon were reported from the upper River Deel , upstream of Richmond School.
Andre and his wife Kathleen were back for the third time to Melview Fishing Lodge to stay with host Kevin Lyons. Using the feeder fished at around 35 yards into about 4m depth, they managed some good catches of hybrids each day. Kevin said it was a very enjoyable and fun week with great company. Thanks guys and hope to see you again soon.
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.
We fished Ballyquin beach at the weekend. Dogfish showed up from the first cast to a few angler’s. Most fish caught on the night were dogs with the odd bullhuss, bass, poor cod and cod showing up. The best fish of the night was caught by Jason Santry with a nice smoothhound of 92cm.
92cm Smoothhound
Noah Tahran won the junior section with a mixture of dog’s and a cod. Well done Noah.
The senior section was won by Troy Francis with 12 fish 600 pts made up of dog’s, well done Troy.
Second place with 11 fish, 550 pts was Stephen O Donovan and in third place with 11 fish 529 pts was JP Molloy.
JP and his bass
Good luck!
The club are delighted to have six members traveling to the Home-nations in Weymouth July 4th-8th to represent Ireland. It’s a great achievement for us.
We have Liam Davis representing the U/16 squad, Noah Tahran the U/21 squad and in the senior Men’s squad we have Derek Kenrick (manager) , JP Molloy (captain) , Stephen O Donovan and David O Sullivan.
The very best of luck lad’s and we hope ye take home gold.
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:https://www.facebook.com/pages/West-Cork-and-District-SAC/201776589958897
