A stunning sunrise on the Kerry coast. Photo: Henry Gilbey
Kerry Magic
Well-known angling photographer and all-round lure fishing fanatic Henry Gilbey was over in Ireland recently for a two-week guiding trip, where he was guiding groups with John Quinlan from Thatch Cottage Fishing Lodge. As we all know, Kerry provides some fantastic bass fishing, but when conditions aren’t right for bass, there is plenty of adrenalin-pumping pollack and wrasse fishing on spectacular rock marks. Henry has produced a video showcasing all of this, which you can check out here on Youtube.
Go Fishing
If that gets your juices flowing, you too can be a part of one of these trips. Contact Henry on www.henry-gilbey.com/guiding for more info on upcoming guided fishing in this beautiful corner of Ireland.
French anglers Dominique, Gerard, Alain and Pascal ended their two weeks at Melview Fishing Lodge on a high. Mixing it up by using hard lures, soft plastics and dead baits, they managed some really great fishing considering the changing weather conditions during their fortnight long stay.
Birthday Boy Alain With his Third Of The Day
No two days were the same, with two of the more difficult days throwing up a couple of blanks for a two of them. However they more than made up for the hard days by catching some great fish from 97cm to 103 cm.
Pascal Lands a Pike While Taking His Lunch BreakChampagne All Round For Birthday Boy Alain
Just like like in years gone past, we always find time to celebrate Alain’s birthday with a few drinks, a meal and a good night on the town – and what a great night it was!
Thanks guys and look forward to seeing you again next year.
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.
Kit Dunne has been busy in the last couple of weeks with some fine fish to show for his efforts and that of his crews.
First off, Kit manage to land an exceptional 173cm tope in Wicklow Bay just over a week ago. This tope had a girth of over 76cm and was a recaptured fish that was tagged previously under the Marine Sportfish Tagging Programme run by Inland Fisheries Ireland.
Last Thursday, Kit was further out on the wrecks and his anglers got some nice pouting and pollack on one mark, followed by spurdog and huss after a change of venue.
Kit then returned to more familiar territory on Friday, targeting spurdog and bull huss closer to home. Anglers were happy with what they got, even though no big ladies made an appearance.
One for the skipper
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Angling Charters are offered on a full-day, half-day and evening trip basis and can be tailored to suit your needs. Two boats 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 methods of angling.
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.
The 2021 bluefin tuna season has been much tougher for skippers than last year’s, with fish being thin on the ground off the south coast and seemingly less abundant in the north.
Tuna.ie are still keeping their 2021 scoreboard ticking over in Donegal Bay though, skipper Adrian Molloy managing four fish to the boat from six hook ups on Friday last and another fish or two on Sunday in choppy seas to bring his season’s total to 80 fish tagged under the Tuna CHART tagging programme.
Ewings Sea Angling and Boat Charters fishing from the Sligo side also managed to tag a few fish on Friday – a total of three from four hook ups for them.
It is unlikely that skippers will reach the staggering figure of 685 caught, tagged and released bluefin tuna from 2020, but there are still a few weeks left in the tuna season so we hope that weather conditions allow for skippers to get out and tag a few more fish before things fizzle out.
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Tuna CHART
Tuna CHART (CatcHand Release Tagging) utilises authorised vessels to catch, tag and release Atlantic Bluefin Tuna for data collection purposes off the Irish coast. The programme, developed by Inland Fisheries Ireland and the Marine Institute in partnership with the Sea Fisheries Protection Authority, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and the Department for Environment, Climate and Communications, operated on a pilot basis in 2019 and 2020.
The 2021 season opened on the 1st July and closes on the 12th November 2021.
Authorised Vessels
Anglers wishing to engage in this fishery must only do so on a sea angling vessel specifically authorised to participate in the programme. Any person engaging in this fishery on any vessel which is not appropriately authorised will be in breach of the Sea-Fisheries and Maritime Jurisdiction (Bluefin Tuna) Regulations.
A full list of authorised skippers can be found below:
Kieran Collins has had some really interesting catches lately on Radiance fishing out of Baltimore. Just over a week ago, on a difficult bluefin tuna trip, Ben Horgan seized an opportunity to catch a fine specimen stone basse of 11.38lb which is just under the current Irish record size of 11.72lb.
Ben’s specimen sized stone basse
This week, Radiance went even more exotic with the capture of what they reckon is a Couch’s bream, with Andrew Harrison the lucky angler who made the capture. The Couch’s bream feeds on small fish, crustaceans and shellfish. It has a wide distribution and is found throughout the Mediterranean, off the coasts of Africa and around North and South America, although in more recent times they have become more common in the English Channel and off the south coast of England.
Andrew and his Couch’s bream
Rumour has it that a few have been turning up off the Cork coast in the last couple of years, so if you do manage to catch one please let us know at reports@fisheriesireland.ie.
Go Fishing
Radiance
Skipper: Kieran Collins Base: Baltimore Operational area: 30 miles
out from Baltimore.
Authorised blue fin tuna boat
Notes: Wreck fishing, shark fishing and common skate fishing are three kinds of sea angling that Baltimore is famous for, but most of the popular sea angling species of Britain and Ireland are found in these waters. And off Baltimore they are joined by a number of more exotic species, courtesy of the Gulf Stream. Fishing like this is no more than a distant memory in so many other places once famed for their sea angling.
We are involved in tagging programmes with Inland Fisheries Ireland – in which we are tagging shark and common skate.
Jim Clohessy has followed up his potential Irish record stone basse with some nice cod, ling and pollack while out fishing with with Andrew Duncan last weekend. They headed west out of Cork Harbour and fished lures for most of the day, only breaking from the lures for a spell to unsuccessfully target skate.
Unfortunately, the bigger fish they were after eluded them, but the ones they did get were a good size, fin perfect and in peak condition; the lures that did the damage included 50g Black Minnows and Strikepro Shivers on 60g jig heads.
Warm, bright sunshine meant that Jim’s factor 30 was a must and the calm sea conditions made for a very pleasant day on the water.
Pete Davis of West Cork and District SAC put together this great report of their recent club match on Long Strand in Clonakilty:
Fourteen anglers made the trip on Sunday to Long Strand in Clonakilty on an unseasonably warm and pleasant Sunday afternoon. Arriving onto the beach it was clear that the weather was just too good and the seas had settled considerably since a blow earlier in the week to as calm as you’re ever likely to see Long Strand in October. It’s a beach that needs a bit of a surf to bring out the best of it and it was clear from the start it was going to be a scratchy affair.
That said, looking at the stats you could be forgiven for thinking it had been a fish fest with 142 fish hitting the cards across the 14 pegs. It was unfortunate however that the absolute vast majority of these were undersize weevers. Weever Alley it was christened for the evening and its fair to say I have never seen such a proliferation of them in nigh on 20 years. Over the last 3 years, I’ve seen increasing numbers of these fish appearing from one end of the country to the other. I’m not sure what it means but it’s certainly something to bear in mind next time you’re going for a paddle! If you are on the beaches, T-barring them off into a bucket is far and away the safest way of dealing with them and avoiding incidents. We have had one or two over the last number of comps and its unpleasant for anyone concerned.
So, a weever fest it degenerated into, the lower number pegs fished slightly better earlier on than the mid to high numbers but most people would have filled their quota of 10 undersized fish come end of comp. A couple of very small bass along with a couple of stonking flounder appeared along with a few small turbot and the odd counting pollack of all things. Pete Davis managed possibly the smallest fish of the night (year…!) with a 6 (yes 6..!) cm turbot, a fish whose determination not to turn down a free lunch you can only admire and where grub is concerned probably only closely matched by Pete himself….
Counting fish were hard to come by, but there were a few and they were worth their weight in gold come the end. The winner on the night was JP Molloy with 13 fish, Pete Davis and Lee Meiklejohn tied scores in the hunt for second place with 12 fish and 146pts apiece with it going to Lee by virtue of his biggest fish being 1cm larger than Pete’s (small margins on the night!) and Pete taking 3rd. The junior section was won by Liam Davis with 12 fish with Evan Collins hot on his heels with 10 fish.
In yet another example of the Juniors sticking it to the auld fellas this year, Liam would have taken second place overall, outright without any need for any countback shenanigans had he fished as a senior and once again claiming the bragging rights on the way home over his dad. JP Molloy took the pool for the longest flatfish with a fine 38cm fish with Lee Meiklejohn taking the Roundfish pool with a 23cm Bass.
All in all, whilst the fishing on the night was a shadow of what this venue and area is capable of in better conditions, a pleasant evening was had. The weather and conditions have just been too good for our last couple of comps and we look forward to our next run out in Youghal in November.
Stan Ryan reports on a great few days fishing around Ardmore and Youghal:
We held a shore event between Ardmore SAC & Borough SAC on Saturday 9th October. Well done to Brian Mansfield on landing 12 fish including bass, flounder, coalfish, whiting and conger eel. Ger Dunne (Ardmore SAC) & Donal Mullen (Borough SAC) shared the pot for the longest fish.
On the night of Sunday 10th, Borough SAC had another competition where congratulations go to Richard Dodd on his win with 15 dogfish. Martin Davison had a lovely bass and there were fish caught by everyone.
Earlier in the week Barry O’Shea had a nice bass and Stan Ryan landed 2 nice codling as well as several other species.
Salmon Watch Ireland (SWIRL) is a not for profit, membership-based organisation dedicated to the restoration of wild salmon numbers in Ireland. SWIRL organises an annual conference to focus attention on an item of importance to salmon, and to raise money for their objectives. This year’s conference will take place online on Saturday, November 6th, between 09.30hrs and 13.00hrs and you can register for a ticket here.
In 2021, the fish-passage and hydro-morphology impacts of Ardnacrusha are beginning to be properly addressed after a century, so it is timely to review the effects of river barriers in general and see what can and is being done to mitigate those effects.
Ardnacrusha
Our rivers are under threat as never before from municipal, domestic, agricultural and forestry activity. Biodiversity, insect numbers, and fish numbers are at an all-time low, and our rivers must endure chemical, morphological, and sediment-induced damage, which further decreases biodiversity and diminishes out natural heritage.
Climate change also is having an effect, not just by increasing the temperature of water, but by causing an ill-advised rush in some countries to install barriers for small scale hydro-powered generators, in the mistaken belief that these are in some way ecologically friendly and have no impact on nature.
Such activity would repeat the worst mistakes of the 19th and early 20th centuries, and it is timely to educate against such initiatives. On the positive side, the Ardnacrusha project has the potential to help restore the Shannon River to one of the great salmon rivers of the world.
SWIRL has always demanded a concerted program for the removal of all redundant river barriers and the optimization of migratory fish passage on all other major barriers.
A weir on the Boyne exposed by low summer water levels
SWIRL is committed to addressing the removal of man-made barriers to migration for Atlantic salmon and sea trout in rivers and supports designs that facilitate all fish migration. A properly functioning ecosystem is necessary to facilitate the optimum production of salmonid juveniles in freshwater.
This conference will improve understanding of the complex issues surrounding fish migration and how best to facilitate the necessary improvements.
Alan Cullagh will be presenting on behalf of Inland Fisheries Ireland and will discuss some of the practical issues involved in the removal and mitigation of river barriers. Inland Fisheries Ireland staff have carried out a significant amount of work to date under the National Barrier Programme (NBP). The NBP is funded by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (DHLGH) to deliver a national inventory of barriers to fish migration on rivers for the purpose of managing their environmental impacts.
Culverted stream
Structures in rivers (including weirs, culverts, sluices and dams) have the capacity to impede fish passage, fragment and damage river habitat and impact on natural river processes. These structures may also add a significant hydromorphological pressure to river water bodies and have an interactive effect with other pressures, degrading a water body’s Water Framework Directive status.
Inland Fisheries Ireland’s National Barriers database contains 73,088 potential barrier entries, to date IFI has surveyed 32.5% of these structures, identifying 4,367 barriers to fish passage. Of these barriers to fish passage ~3,000 are culverts and ~1,000 are weirs, the rest are fords, sluices and natural waterfalls. Large weirs can significantly impact migratory fish populations, but the impact of culverts, mostly in headwater spawning streams can have just as significant an impact when considered cumulatively – i.e. a very large number of smaller scale negative impacts on a river system can have just as considerable a negative effect when taken as a whole.
9.40-10.00 The potential impact of low-head barriers on aquatic biota in Irish rivers – some insights from the Reconnect project. Mary Kelly-Quinn (UCD)
10.00 – 10.15 Monitoring sediment connectivity and channel adjustment: experiences from the EPA Reconnect barrier project. Jonathan Turner (UCD)
10.15-10.30 Some thoughts on interactions between Barriers and Atlantic Salmon. Phil McGinnity (UCC)
Discussion 10.30-10.40 Q&A
10.40-10.50 Refreshment Break
10.50 – 11.05 Thou shalt not pass: fish and fisheries management. Martin O’Farrell (Aztec Management Consultants)
11.15-11.40 Lower Shannon Fish Passage Improvement – the Ardnacrusha Barrier. Marq Redeker (CDM Smith)
Discussion 11.40 – 11.50 Q&A
11.50 – 12.00 Refreshment Break
12.00 – 12.20 Practical Issues in the Removal/Mitigation of Barriers. Alan Cullagh (IFI)
12.20– 12.40 How to Organize and Fund a Barrier Remediation Project. Bob Seward (Angling Council of Ireland)
Dan O’Neill sent us in this report from the Southern County Fishing Resort:
With the winter ahead, most anglers are looking for something to break down the dreaded off season. I have been tying nymphs and various other patterns but this weekend wanted to get away from that and bring my apprentice angler, Anthony, out to try some fly fishing for rainbows.
We drove along the avenue to the car park of Southern County Fishing Resort looking at the trout cruising just under the surface. Occasionally one would pause, flick its pectoral fins resulting in a slight backward push, then sip down a small insect,
All this pointed straight to dry fly tactics and luckily I had a few left over from the wild trout season. With the sight of these rainbows, my apprentice had a great sense of urgency about him, one that came to him naturally. I skipped leader set up training for a different day as I don’t think it would have sunk in whilst these trout were so visible!
Looking around the lake there were a few anglers about, all of whom were friendly, some offering advice which was greatly appreciated. We came to a lovely spot, just beside the bridge that travels over the lake, where quite a few nice trout were moving around. We were keen to try for larger fish as practice for an upcoming trip in Monaghan, for which hopefully we will need some of these practiced skills.
Starting out, I put on an elk haired sedge and cast to some feeding fish. It wasn’t long before Anthony was into his first trout, a lovely, lively fish of about 2lb which carried out all sorts of acrobatics to regain its freedom. Once the fish settled it was in the net and released and we were away to look for number two.
Anthony spotted a nice trout that seemed to be cruising in a tight space sipping quite frequently. Once we had a chat and decided the best strategy for this trout, it was game on. The trout cruised passed our fly as if it wasn’t even there several times though, so it was time to look to the box for something more natural. I picked out a beautiful CDC fly on a size 16, as I felt was the way to go. I also decided to switch tippet to a thinner diameter and, after about 5 casts, our trout stopped, then flicked its pectorals resulting in a backwards move, and sipped in our fly.
Lifting into the fish, Anthony immediately felt the difference here with big head shakes and deep thumping power – this was going to be a tricky fight for the apprentice. The trout flung itself into the air and slapped back down on the water, which added more pressure on Anthony to get this one in for a picture. Letting the rod work and drag do its job, Anthony finally got his PB trout to the net – a lovely trout, very deep with beautiful markings. After this we did have one or two of a similar size and quite a few around the 2lb or 3lb mark, a nice stock of trout here, really strong fighting fish.
Anthony’s best ever trout
An absolutely wonderful day today at Southern County and we’re looking forward to getting back here soon, it’s great to have such a place to help break up the winter ahead.
Go fishing…
Angling takes place on over 10 acres of water on 3 different lakes and Southern County Fishing Resort prides itself on its Rainbow Trout. The lakes are stocked on regular basis with high quality fish reared in an onsite hatchery. The fresh river water which feeds our lakes supports the life of a range of insects which is a source of natural feeding for the fish. Fish size range from 1.5 lb to 10 lbs.
Southern County Fishing Resort
Milltown, Garryhill, Bagenalstown, Co.Carlow.
For booking enquiries please contact Chris on 0892550585
Mount Juliet House is set on a large estate, which offers private fishing on 2.5 miles of the middle to lower reaches of the River Nore. Mount Juliet Estate offers fishing of the highest quality, just a short stroll away from the Manor House. There is a fishing room on site in the Manor House for your convenience i.e. for storage and drying of fishing equipment. Mount Juliet Estate can also provide the necessary equipment on site if needed.
