The Drowes often produces Ireland's first salmon of the year.
Garret Byrne with the first salmon of the season #CPRSavesFish
The first salmon of the season was caught at 1:45pm today on the River Drowes. Unlucky 13 for some, but 13 January will always be remembered as a lucky day by Garrett Byrne.
Garret was fishing at Lareen when he met this lovely fresh run fish. Fishing a weighted fly to get down in the river was the tactic that worked on the day. Garrett released his salmon after safely landing it, and the weight was estimated at 12lb.
A heavy fly was needed to get down to where the fish were
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River Drowes
The Drowes Fishery is one of Ireland’s premier spring salmon and grilse fisheries. The river is some 5 miles in length, with over 70 named pools, flowing from Lough Melvin at Lareen Bay and entering the sea at Tullaghan, just outside Bundoran. The Drowes has a wide variety of water suitable for all fishing methods, including several miles of good fly water and deeper slower moving pools suitable for spinning and bait fishing.
For information and bookings on the Drowes Fishery & Lough Melvin see http://www.drowessalmonfishery.com Tel: 071 9841055 (8am to 12 noon). Mob: +353 (0) 87 8050806
Our Shannon RBD staff have reported high numbers of brown trout spawning in the feeder streams and rivers of our midland loughs this winter. Trout like to spawn in shallow, well oxygenated stretches of river. They need good water quality and plenty of gravel for them to dig their redds (gravel nests that the female fish dig to lay their eggs in). Big trout dig big redds and some of the redds pictured below were formed by the tails of some good sized fish.
Some of the streams where these photographs were taken benefitted from habitat restoration work under the Midland Fisheries Funds over the years, so it is great to see the hard work of angling clubs and IFI staff pay off.
Many of the fish that spawned this winter will have been fish that were caught and released by anglers fishing the loughs in the spring and summertime; the sustainable practice of catch and release angling will help to ensure healthy stocks of wild brown trout on our loughs for generations to come.
In low water conditions a keen eye can pick out the areas of disturbed gravel – washed clean from the disturbance and raised in to a hump downstream of a slight depression in the riverbed.
If you are walking beside an Irish river or stream in the next few days keep an eye out for redds and you might even see a trout or two close by, the lack of rain in recent days will help you to spot them. Most redds will be smaller than the ones shown – as these are the work of big lough trout (or they may even be locations where numerous fish spawned in the same spot).
Dave Edwards, skipper of the Silver Dawn based in Courtmacsherry reports on his start to 2022…
05 Jan: A short break in the weather and my first fish of 2022. A Pollack just short of double figures. finished the day with a few small Ling and this good Pollack. Saw plenty of Dolphins inshore. The weather was perfect to blow the cobwebs away.
13 Jan: We headed 30 miles south last night and chanced a couple of shark lines while we drifted. Little showing on the bottom besides Smooth Hound Fortunately things improved this morning with a great variety of species showing so it was worth enjoying the cool West Cork weather.
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Conor O’Reilly had our best fish this morning with solid double figure Cod. Paddy and his son Glen had plenty of small Ling and mid sized Pollack along with loads of Starry Smooth Hound and a few Pouting amongst the catch.
41′ Rodman 1250. Twin 430 HP Engines Skipper: David Edwards Licence: P5 Licence Base: Courtmacsherry Operational Area:60 miles to sea from ports from Kinsale to Portmagee
Authorised blue fin tuna boat 2025
Notes: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.
Kicking off 2022 much as he finished 2021, Kit Dunne of Wicklow Boat Charters is back among the specimens this January. Spurdogs are the order of the day at this time of year, and if there’s a bit of a settled spell, you can bet Kit will be out after them. He had well-known specimen angler John Millerick onboard with him this week, and John’s group managed four specimen sized spurs. Not a bad start to the year for him!
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.
In recent weeks, we have had a few posts of young anglers having successful pike angling sessions in early 2022. This week it’s the turn of Ruben, who was fishing with his dad Cearbhuil in the Clare area. He’s obviously been getting a bit of fishing in, as his first fish was caught in Dromore Lake, followed by another one on Atedaun Lake a couple of days later. Nice fishing Ruben, let’s hope we see a few more from you during 2022.
Ned Maher of Ardaire Spring Angling Centre, Mooncoin, County Kilkenny has just announced that he will host his first IRISH SPRING ANGLING FAIR.
Taking place on the May Bank Holiday Weekend, the Fair will open to angling enthusiasts on Saturday 30th April and Sunday the 1st of May 2022 over the bank holiday weekend.
It is, without doubt, a must-attend event. Throughout the 2 days a host of world-renowned celebrity names such as Scott Mackenzie, Glenda Powell, Peter Driver, Paul Procter , Henry Gilbey, Jim Clohessy, Rupert Harvey, John Maduro, Jimmy Tyrrell, Sean Deeny, Denis O’Toole, Cathal Hughes and Paul Young from the TV series Hooked on Fishing, will provide talks on angling related topics and give free demonstrations to attendees.
The fly casting competitions will give keen anglers an opportunity to showcase their skills to the wider audience and win some fabulous prizes with double-handed and single-handed amateur competitions on both days with lots of prizes.
Game, sea and coarse angling will be the hot topics throughout the weekend and the event guarantees to offer something for everyone.
Ardaire Springs Angling Centre covers over 4 acres of lakes, stocked with rainbow and brown trout ranging from 2lb to 20lb.
The venue provides a unique opportunity for both world-renowned celebrity anglers to showcase their skills and indeed leading tackle manufactures to demonstrate and promote their fishing tackle and boats on the lakes.
With ample room for exhibitors, it offers a fantastic opportunity to add to your tackle collection and indeed find out the latest tips and techniques. There will be stands from all types of angling including tackle suppliers and promotional stands from fisheries and even some international companies promoting angling holidays.
Not forgetting the younger generation we will have an abundance of activities for kids to include fly casting, lessons and much more. Onsite catering will also be available throughout the weekend.
Don’t miss out on an amazing weekend, meet with celebrity anglers and fellow angler enthusiasts, join us and support the first-ever fair at Ardaire Spring Angling Centre and see it develop into the greatest Irish Fair of future years.
This can be the toughest time of the year for many fishermen and women, with all the fuss of Christmas behind us and the slog of January and February, our two coldest months in Ireland, ahead.
While there are fish to be caught by hardcore coarse fishers, winter pike and perch hunters, shore anglers and those in the hunt for a spring salmon on an early-opening river, the going can be tough. The best of the brown trout and coarse fishing can still seem a long way off, with the run of summer grilse and sea trout even further away. Most charter boats won’t drop a line until March or April at the earliest, around the same time that bass anglers in most parts will finally think it worthwhile chucking a lure.
Winter’s River Boyne
There are, of course, plenty of stocked fisheries available for the avid fly anglers to maintain the muscle memory in their casting arms – you’ll find an extensive list of those here. Sometimes the best medicine for the head in the cold dark months is to just get out on the beach, river, canal or lake shore and have a cast or two with some fellow anglers. Talk with comrades about good times past and the hopes of the season ahead; this time of the year the catching of fish is not obligatory, but catching up and keeping in touch should be.
Those anglers who did wet a line in the last week may have noticed that, while the sunsets have been getting a little bit later since the middle of December, the mornings have finally started to brighten a little bit earlier too, so going by the clock, we can finally see our days lengthen at both ends. That being said, anglers were thin on the ground again this week, and fish were even thinner.
At the time of writing, there have been no reports of the first fresh salmon of 2022, though anglers on those early rivers, like the Drowes and Leannan, have been trying. A total of 81 Irish rivers are open for salmon fishing this season and, while 45 of those rivers are open for harvest, please consider releasing our precious salmon in 2022.
As ever in winter, coarse fishing has been slow. The CM Lakelands Feeder Club have still been active though, with matches on Garadice and Muckno last weekend. The Church Shore on Garadice saw the best of the bags, which fell to Rimantas Kondrackas at 7.180kg.
This week Sensas announced the launch of Sensas Ireland Riverfest 2022. This is an any-method competition to be held on rivers all around Ireland. There will be six qualifiers held on six different rivers; the rivers Suck, Shannon, Barrow, Bann, Erne and Blackwater. The final will take place on November 12th/13th on the River Barrow. For more information see the Sensas Ireland Facebook page.
In Other News….
While most of the country were making the most of the Christmas downtime in the last couple of weeks, the IFI web elves have been busy adding some new features and directories to our angling website. You can now search for qualified instructors and ghillies (guides), charter boats and tackle shops through our interactive maps. Simply click on a marker to find out more about that tackle shop, charter boat or angling guide or instructor. You can enter your address (or any address) in the search bar to find guides and services near you…
Finally, a reminder that angling clubs, groups and associations all over Ireland are being invited to apply for sponsorship funding before the January 21st deadline. The €30,000 fund will have a particular focus on initiatives aimed at beginners and young anglers, as well as events that promote sustainable angling tourism.
And now the weather…
Rain will spread eastwards across the country on Friday night, turning heavy at times. Temperatures will vary from 0°C to 8°C, lowest in the north.
Milder conditions will extend across the country overnight and rain will quickly clear on Saturday morning with sunny spells and often heavy showers following from the west, highs 4°C -7°C in the afternoon. Long dry periods and clear spells in most places on Saturday night, lows of 1°C – 4°C generally.
After a dry start, rain will develop in the southwest and spread to all areas through Sunday afternoon, highs of 7°C – 11°C. Cloudy overnight Sunday with some rain, lows of 5°C – 9°C with increasing southwest winds.
The outlook for next week is for sunny spells and showers; however, high pressure building to the southwest will bring more settled and drier conditions through the end of the work week with temperatures slightly above average.
This short report came in last week from Artur Pikeseeker who caught a super canal pike:
The end of the year is a great time to visit the canals. You can catch really beautiful pikes. Today I was out for a walk and I caught 105 cm of beautiful, healthy pike. A very strong fish, it gave me a lot of fun. I hope I will have the opportunity to meet her again.
It can be difficult at the best of times to organise a fishing competition, but the CM Lakelands Feeder Club, not being happy to organise a single match, decided to hold three on two different venues last weekend. Two matches were held on Lough Garadice (Church and Haughton’s) in Letrim while, over in Monaghan, a splinter group fished South Lodge on Lough Muckno.
Lough Garadice was tough, especially on Haughton’s Shore, where Neil Mazurick won with 3.180kg mainly consisting of roach. Rimantas Kondrackas blitzed the match on Church side with an impressive 7.180kg of skimmers, hybrids and roach. We are yet to hear how the fishing went on Muckno, but the results from Garadice were as follows:
Garadice Results (Church side):
1st Rimantas Kondrackas 7.180kg
Joint 2nd Seamus Winters and Jacek Januszewscy 3.280kg
Garadice Results (Haughton’s Shore)
1st Neil Mazurick 3.180kg
2nd Francis McGoldrick 3.100kg
3rd Damian Folytyn
*THERE WILL BE ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT IRELAND’S FEEDER KINGS TICKETS WITHIN THE NEXT 2 WEEKS ON THE CLUB’S FACEBOOK PAGE, SO ANY INTERESTED ANGLERS SHOULD KEEP AN EYE OUT*
10-year-old Séan Condron hit a New Year jackpot when he caught a super 14lbs2oz pike on 02/01/2022 on the Royal Canal in Co. Meath on a wobbled deadbait (roach). This was Sean’s first double-figure pike having caught several pike up to 5 ½lbs. The fish fought hard and tail walked during the fight, Seáns experience with smaller pike paid off and he played the fish like a pro until it was ready for the net. To say Seán was excited would be an understatement according to his proud dad David.
Séan with his super canal pike of 14lbs2oz
Seán spotted this fish in October 2021 estimating it to be about 15lbs and had insisted on returning to this stretch of the canal, numerous times, in an effort to catch it and his dedication has finally paid off. Seán now wants to break the 15lbs mark and has his targets set on an elusive pike known locally as “Big Girl”, she has been caught, weighed, photographed and released by a handful of anglers known to us and weighs just over 20lbs.
Silver Dawn
