We have a brief report from the Inniscarra St Patrick’s Festival in Cork from their organizing committee:
Julian Kendrick took the honours in first place, Rob Holt was second and Cathal Hughes crossed the line in third. The Garden Centre stretch proved to be the deciding factor as it produced some amazing weights, including 35kg on Monday by Trevor Platt.
Festival Results
1 of 2
Festival Results - top half
Festival Results - bottom half
Thanks to Eileen, Pat and all the staff at O’Callaghans for their amazing hospitality and support over the 4 days open and 3 days festival. Thanks to John and Margaret for letting us have access to this stretch.
This news from the Lough Muckno festival organisers:
We are all set for our first event of 2022 after a difficult and challenging two years. St Patrick’s weekend two day event is set for Saturday and Sunday 19th and 20th with 30 entries so far.
We completed an Audit and clear up of all sections throughout the entire day today with all pegs now cleared of debris and fallen trees and are pleased to announce also that water levels are perfect.
We are currently involved in detailed negotiations with Monaghan County and Monaghan Tourism on the regeneration of the entire Angling project on the 10th year of existence, as a top angling destination.
We are planning and expecting agreement on all pegs to be replaced, in a more permanent format, similar to that on South Lodge, all roads to be graded, with parking spaces cleared and graded, along with vegetation clearance and pruning where necessary.
We expect to renew and regenerate to the standard of the original or better, by mid summer 2022.
We are now asking all anglers for maximum possible support, by your attendance and participation in all of our advertised events and festivals going forward, as we as anglers are facing into and will continue to face into even more sustained competition from rival sustainable activities on this wonderful Lough.
With myriad plausible elements in the plans for a major expansion of usage and activities at Lough Muckno Park, it is up to all of us to justify our current privileged position in the activities order. Use it or lose it will become ever more relevant, as decisions will be made in the forward expansive planning process, which has already commenced.
From initial soundings it would appear that angling will need to show vast numerical improvements, if we are to compete with some ambitious plans for other on water activities, which could ultimately supplant us. We will continue over the next few weeks to update on all matters relating to angling as they evolve.
With a good entry for this weekend we ask all anglers to consider also booking in to some of our exciting matches and Festivals for 2022. Easter Festival is then the next one up and entry can be secured by pm to this page or by contacting Richard on 0876051633.
We are experiencing significant interest in all of our festivals for 2022 and ask that anyone interested in entering or having information on any event please make the contact as above. All UK and non Irish entries or queries will be catered for as above also, with information only on the Co Monaghan Pairs also available in the UK, from venue specialist and long time patron Craig Ellis.
St Patrick’s event registration commences 19th March 8.30am old coach car park followed by draw at 9am. Fishing Concra Wood Upper and South Lodge alternatively 11am to 4pm.
Entry fee €60 all in, full payout, daily payout 1st, 2nd & 3rd. Sections of 5 by default.
The Leinster Coarse Fishing Federation endured some rough weather while continuing their winter league on Haughton’s Shore, Lough Garadice last week. Gusty winds and rain were the order of the day and the bad weather seemed to impact the catches with bags well down on expectations.
The Limerick County Pike Anglers braved high water, heavy showers and a cutting wind to continue their winter league last week as 13 anglers turned out for the 5th round of their competition. Anglers who opted to fish sink & draw had reasonable numbers of fish, but those who opted for static or float fished deadbaits found the pike were just not interested.
A total of 15 pike were caught on the day and the results were as follows:
Anglers have been flooding to help victims of the war in Ukraine via a raffle being run by regular contributor to these pages Marcin Kantor. Marcin has received pledges of prizes from numerous angling businesses around Ireland and he will be holding a raffle to coincide with St. Patrick’s Day. Raffle tickets cost €20 and he has raised over €6000 so far, which is already well beyond his expectations. And there’s still a couple of days to go before the raffle, so for anyone that wants to contribute, please see Marcin’s Facebook Page.
A great fishing for the Mariners crew about the beach out fishing for flatties but landing and releasing big shoals of sea trout. Some big fish up to near 60cm even coming in doubles. Such strong fighting fish making quite a bit of splashing coming in. Nice to see the good numbers and the nice weather!
Mariners sea angling club Killybegs Co Donegal. The club runs a shore league and boat competitions and angling trips around Ireland doing the sport we love. Get in touch at www.facebook.com/mariner.sac
It’s been a long winter for many sea anglers, but the weather is slowly warming up, and sea fishing starting to pick up. While many sea anglers have been out fishing already, many club anglers eagerly await the return of competition fishing. Galway Bay Sea Angling Club are holding the first leg of their Master Angler club league on Saturday March 26th. The venue is Renvyle (stony) beach, Tully (past Renvyle House Hotel), with fishing from 17.30 to 21.30. New members are very welcome to join and take part, check out GBSAC Facebook page for more details and contact information. Fishing can be excellent there at this time of year, with dogfish, thornback ray, whiting, coalfish, wrasse and flounder among the expected species.
Location map for the competition
Deep Sea Angling
Boat anglers are also looking forward to getting back in action, and charter skippers are looking forward to welcoming them. Many skippers have been busy over the winter servicing engines, or indeed replacing them, and with various other maintenance and upgrades. Boats are going back in the water now, and among the skippers with space available is John Fleming. Skipper of the Brazen Hussy II in Rossaveal, John has trips planned starting from this Friday the 18th March, with the boat available for full charter or individual anglers. Check out his page here, and give him a call on 087 7571320 to book.
The Brazen Hussy II on the pontoon in Rossaveal
Another boat back in the water is the Lady Gwen II, based in Kilrush/Carrigaholt in Co. Clare. Skipper Sean Maguire from Fishing Adventures Ireland has been busy over the winter, making a lot of new upgrades to Lady Gwen II for the coming season – new electronics, new fishing gear, and of course the usual maintenance to keep her a top class boat to fish from. Fishing both the Shannon Estuary and off the west Clare coast, Lady Gwen II has access to a huge range of fishing and fish species, with consistently excellent fishing reported last year – check out previous reports to see for yourself!
For more information check out www.fishingadventures.ie and give Sean a call on 087 750 8758 to book your day out.
Lady Gwen II on her way back to the water
Go Fishing
Brazen Hussy ll
Skipper: John Fleming Licence:1011 (11 passengers and 1 crew) Base: Rosaveal, Spiddal, Galway (Depending on species) Operational area: Rosaveal, Spiddal and Galway up to
20 miles to sea
Notes: A regular day is between 9am- 6pm from either
Rosaveel, Spiddal or Galway depending on species being sought after. Fishing
on the inshore reefs for pollock, cod, ling, wrasse, conger eel and mackerel
can be reached in 10 minutes from departure, while our offshore reef marks
are within 45 minutes of departure. Our ground fishing for tope, spurdog,
ray, bullhuss, turbot, plaice and the giant common skate can all be reached
within the hour which ensures the most amount of time is spent fishing.
The shark season usually starts at the end of June and runs into late
October, this is the ultimate angling addrenaline rush with these hard
fighting blue and porbeagle sharks all being tagged and release safely.
Package deals available
Fishing Adventures on Séan Maguire’s Lady Gwen II, a Lochin 33 M265Ti Perkins charterboat which operates 15 miles from Kilbaha, Carrigaholt, and Kilrush.
Whether you want to go to the Atlantic Ocean for a large selection of species, including different types of shark, or fish the estuary for ray conger tope etc, Fishing Adventures will cater for whatever fishing you desire. Telephone: +353 (0) 877508758 or +353 (0) 894431182 Email:fishadven@gmail.comWeb:www.fishingadventures.ie
Mad as a March hare… well that was the story of our weather this week, as a positively unseasonably sunny and calm weekend gave way to yellow weather warnings for wind and rain. Some places even saw snow!
The best of the angling took place over the weekend, with anglers able to get out in more clement conditions. Night frosts kept water temperatures low, and fishing was slow for pike anglers fishing the qualifier on the Annaleee River in Co. Cavan.
The only fishing on Lough Conn was over the weekend, before the weather turned, and anglers reported a few trout. Trolling and lure fishing was still the method of choice on Corrib, with some great trout landed, and the duckfly hatch will hopefully bring the fly anglers out from next week.
A fine ferox for obne of Tomi’s guests
Our correspondent in Cavan Brenda Montgomery has a way with words, and could undoubtedly make a silk purse from a sow’s ear, but the report from Sheelin this week was of tough fishing. At least she used a quote from a great song!
Killybegs Mariners members made the most of the calm weather before the wind and rain, with some great shore fishing reported in spite of big tides and weed. Some of them also had an early trip aboard Adrian Molloy’s charter boat Deep Blue and caught a nice mix of species.
Nice ling for Gavin on Deep Blue
Menapia SAC members braved a cold night in Carne, Co. Wexford and were rewarded with good fishing too. David Norman also shared some tips about early season fly fishing for mullet.
There has been some great feedback from salmon anglers and flytyers to the new book on historic salmon flies that Inland Fisheries Ireland has published, so we’re continuing to feature it this week. This new book featuring the ‘1902 Cork Collection of Salmon Flies’ will bring a “long-lost treasure” of Irish angling to new generations around the world. The wonderfully illustrated publication is available online in different formats.
The manager of the project Shane O’Reilly of Inland Fisheries Ireland with the “1902 Cork Collection of Salmon Flies”
It is hoped to put the collection on display once more and members of the public are being encouraged to contact IFI with any suggestions they may have.
They’re inviting observations, views and comments on the review and development of Ireland’s Marine Strategy Part 3: Programme of Measures, under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD, 2008/56/EC). Read about it and how to make a submission here.
The Irish Specimen Fish Committee would like to update anglers on progress with the 2021 Annual Report and Awards Day. The report is being finalised now with a view to being published in April. The usual Awards Day event held in February every year was postponed due to the COVID-19 situation, but it is planned to have an event at some stage in 2022. There are also some new Specimen fish rules for 2022. Further information is available here.
Inland Fisheries Ireland in conjunction with Blackrock Education Centre would like to invite primary school students around the country to design a poster that encourages greater conservation of Ireland’s native fish. This national poster competition is part of the ‘Something Fishy’ educational programme and officially kicks off this month. Free resources with further details about the competition are available from www.somethingfishy.ie
“Something Fishy” poster competition for primary schools
Oh deer! Check out this adorable photo from two of our staff in Co. Donegal, who rescued this little deer from a pickle she had got herself into. Read about it on our Facebook page here.
Also, if you missed it, some of our staff featured on the RTE programme Ear To The Ground recently, including Maureen Byrne and detection dog Uschi, who between them have been responsible for many captures of concealed illegal nets. You can watch it back here!
And now the weather
Dry on Saturday morning with a freshening southeast wind in the afternoon bringing rain northwards over the country, turning heavy at times and falling as sleet over hills and high mountains and again leading to flooding in places. Afternoon temperatures, 7 to 9 degrees with southeast winds becoming strong easterly in the early evening.
Showery on Sunday, then turning somewhat more settled early next week but there will be some wet conditions at times through the middle of the week, mostly affecting the west. High pressure will bring pleasant conditions later in the week.
Apart from one or two days Lough Conn was battered with high winds and rain.
Wild conditions as a result of south easterly winds kept the boats off the water.
Peter Roche from Cloghans, fished on Friday and while he did not land any trout, he rose a few to Dabblers. At the weekend Ian Wise with a party of two from Castlebar caught three trout, averaging 1.2 lbs. on a large “Humongous” which seemed to get the fish moving!
Week 5 on the River Moy and still no salmon reported caught.
Water conditions were reasonable with a few hardy anglers fishing most days, yearning for their first salmon. Water levels at the start of the week were 1.111m at Ballylahan Bridge and by Sunday evening the water had dropped off to 0.746m.
Water temperatures remained the same at 9˚Celsius throughout the system.
