Luke Aston of Carrigaholt Sea Angling reports on his first trip out on the Clare Dragoon this year:
Well, we got back fishing last Friday after the long lockdown. 3 beautiful days on the water and then back to the marina tonight before tomorrow’s Gale.
We of course tried for some mackerel each day around the Loop but although lots of sandeel in the water there was no Mackerel. We only had one over the 3 days. Water is still less than 10’c so I suppose still a bit early to see them in close. Further off we got into some great fishing for mixed whitefish. Mostly pollack and coalies as you would expect when fishing without bait but a few whiting and the very odd ling and haddock about. It was great to see.
So I will be back at it when this Gale blows over. With no international travel I have plenty of availability for May and June so do get in touch if you would like to get out with me. The best is always a call or text to 0876367544. Thanks. Luke.
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Go Fishing
Clare Dragoon
Clare Dragoon is a LOCHIN 366 powered by 650HP engine, skippered by Luke Aston and operating out of Carrigaholt Co. Clare…
I have some offers up on my web site www.fishandstay.com and if anybody is interested in putting a trip together please do get in touch. Also I Twitter from the boat on @fishandstay and try to update my face book page www.facebook.com/CarrigaholtSeaAngling fairly often!To experience some of the best deep sea fishing available in Ireland contact Luke. Telephone: +353 65 9058209 or +353 87 6367544 Email:lukeaston@eircom.netWeb:www.fishandstay.com
28/4/21 The Currane anglers were all quiet on all fronts on this calm day. As you can see by the photo of the Bull Rock, Lough Currane is really low. So you can appreciate why the Currane Anglers are at an all-time low and that’s no Bull. Wind NNE light with reasonable.
29/4/24 There were 3 hand me down Brown tag exclusive boats out manipulating their lures this day and sadly no Brown tags were used. Wind NNW light mainly bright and sunny with the odd light shower.
30/4/21 Lough Currane may be low, but the good news is that Local Gillie Mr. Vincent O’Sullivan and his Son in law Tam were on a high and for good reason, while trolling caught a cracker of a Salmon in the 10 lbs class and I can say Tam and Vincent were the talk of the Salmon community, so congratulations Vincent and Tam and fair play to you Vincent you haven’t lost the art in catching my Noble Salmon in virtually hopeless conditions.
1/5/21 Four Boats out, their order of merit is as follows, one Brown outright winner and 3 hand me down Brown tag anglers and all I can say is their Brown tags weren’t used this day. Wind SSW light with reasonable cloud cover followed by the odd shower.
Calm before the storm
2/5/21 Only three boats out on this Bank Holiday weekend, sadly nothing to report this day and on the eve of a yellow wind and rain warning for Kerry and it will be interesting to see if we get the big flood we need, so click here you might be disappointed because the rain fall isn’t that great, they are forecasting 12.6 mm? just for the record there were 3 Brown Hand me down Tag boats manipulation. Wind NNW and veered SSW light and sunny all day as you can see by the calm before the storm picture.
3/5/21 All the Brown Tag and Barbless Salmon stations were closed as a strong SW wind took control and veered WNW strong with violent gusts.
No Spin No Fly’s just Posts
4/5/21 Today was all quiet on all fronts this day, just for the record there were 3 hand me down boats out manipulating their skills. Wind NW fresh to strong with reasonable cloud cover.
The rivers and lakes of Waterville drain a large catchment and are regarded by many as the foremost Salmon and Sea-Trout fishery in the country. The lake system is well developed with access to boats and guides being readily available to the tourist angler. The Sea-Trout caught here are renowned for their size and quantity. For more details see
01 May: With harsh conditions forecast I decided to make the most of fishing on Saturday.
Starting early in the morning I fished dry dropper. I had some lovely takes on the dry as well as my Olive Nymph usupended below it. I found the fish to be where I expected them; filling the seams and close to the head of the runs I fished. This weekend I found the trout to be smaller than past weeks. I didn’t have anything above 20-25cm, though all were very welcome.
Another little trout goes back
The water temperatures had a noticeable effect on fishing over the last week. Hatches were larger and more frequent. Temperatures seem to peak between16:15 and 17:00 most days. In that 45 minute window fishing is quite good. There are plenty of fish rising on the flats, and the larger fish tend to show a little more also in this time frame.
Small but no less beautiful
With rain expected the river may rise slightly which will make it interesting for next weekend .
For information on day tickets or memberships please call me on 0857652751 or email Doneill@mountjuliet.ie
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.
With the easing of restrictions a few more anglers have been getting out and about to their favourite fishing spots. As a result one or two extra reports have been received. One such report tells of a very nice brown trout caught over the weekend on one of the midland lakes. And, this was the anglers first outing this season.
According to the angler there were not too many boats around. It was an over cast day with little or no wind. There was a fair hatch of olives while he was there. So he decided to try some of his own olive patterns. This brought success and the fish was caught on a dry olive. The trout pictured below was the best fish of the day. It was estimated to be around the 45cm mark.
David Norman of West Cork Bass had an eventful kayak trip out of Clonakilty before the bad weather hit last weekend. It was his first kayak trip of the fishing season and it had four seasons of weather to keep things interesting. Despite wind, rain, sunshine, rainbows and a pair of broken rods, David still managed to hook up some hard fighting West Cork Pollock!
A good start to the season for David (and his rod supplier).
West Cork Bass
David Norman is a Clonakilty based Bass Fishing Guide and Coach specialising in Shore Based Lure Fishing & Workshops.
Notes: Having intensively fished for Bass (Catch & Release) on the West Cork Coast plus all of the recognised Bass fishing counties of Ireland I want to share with other like-minded anglers the thrills of responsible lure fishing for Bass on a One-to-One basis over a limited number of trips throughout the key times of the Bass fishing Year, which for me is June – Sept, sometimes earlier or later depending on how the weather is behaving…
I can offer a range of options around key tides, to include night fishing, in a safe and environmentally conscious manner including bespoke workshops to help build knowledge and confidence
Joe Fitzharris reports of lively fishing for the few anglers that ventured out in mostly cold conditions. Notable returns as follows, Shane & Anto Stephens had 9 fish for their outing. Best fish came in at 2lb.
Daniel McDermott had 4 fish averaging 1lb
Paul McEwan also had 4 fish, but his best was a bit better at 2lb.
Daniel Shaughnessy & Joe Fitzharris had 7 fish for their outing. The best fish was about 1 1/2lb
All catches verified by myself with all anglers committed to Catch and Release where possible.
It’s been a very dry week, given the time of year. Some areas had as little as 3% of would you expect to see. For any of you who were out to wet a line the news comes as no surprise as the skies were cloud free for much of the time. The easterly winds kept things cool though and the whole lot together aren’t exactly great fishing conditions. But for some they were just good enough…
Anglers tackle the low water conditions at Ballincurrig on the Munster Blackwater
All the salmon fisheries reported a similar fate in the last week, great weather and falling water levels, many already at low summer level, made for tough angling conditions and not many salmon were reported caught. One bit of water which bucked the trend was the Galway Fishery which opened on 18 April and has seen some very rewarding spring salmon fishing for local anglers.
By the way, we are almost half through this year’s salmon season but a large number of anglers have not yet returned their logbooks and catch records from last year. So, IFI is requesting all salmon and sea trout anglers who have not returned last season’s (2020) angling logbooks and unused gill tags to do so immediately.
A fine Currane sea trout #CPRsavesfish
Sea trout also make the pages of fishinginireland.info this week. There were a few fish caught on the Moy Estuary and a fine 5lb caught and released on Lough Currane. We also have a great 2 part video from Marcin Kantor which would serve as a valuable aid to anyone thinking about chasing sea trout in the sea.
A better trout, but not the one he was looking for
Trout anglers having been trying to make the most of the settled weather and there was a bit of activity on rivers and lakes over the weekend. Lough Conn saw some anglers turn to sinking lines to beat the bright sunshine and the tactics paid off, with a few boats getting good fishing as trout to 2lb and more were landed. In river fishing we have reports from the Nore and the Fane, mostly small fish being caught and released.
Colin Rickard with his fat 85cm ferox trout. One of the smaller fish met!
But the really big news came from Lough Corrib. Angling guide Tomi Kurman has been out with friends recently and they have had spectacular sport catching trout to an estimated 20lbs, all safely released. Not a bad alternative while conditions made fly fishing difficult.
Nice Assaroe Pike
Not much to report from the coarse and pike scene again this week. Some of the IASCaire anglers were out and had a few fish. While in the Midlands Mick Flanagan has been getting amongst the pike and up on Assaroe there are reports of some good pike fishing too.
Sea anglers were quiet also. Just one report from a sea angler in the south east. Some decent bass are beginning to stir in that corner of the country. Some charter boats were hoping to return to the sea under the “two households” rule, but we’ve had no reports yet.
Hopefully, as inter county travel returns in the coming weeks, we’ll see more anglers back on their seat boxes, in their boats and on our river banks and sea shores for some safe, socially distant fishing in the fresh air of the Irish countryside.
Go Fishing Week
There’s been a great response to Go Fishing Week. Thank you to everyone out there who took time to join the webinars, tune into the live streams and listen to the podcasts. There are still a couple of more events to come before the week ends on Sunday, and you can watch or listen to anything you missed on our YouTube channel(30 videos uploaded!) and podcast sites (Spotify | iTunes). There is one more live streaming event taking place on a rainbow trout fishery at around 5.30…. You find out more about the remaining events here.
And now the weather…
Any mist or frost will quickly clear on Saturday morning. A similar day to recent ones with sunshine and scattered slow moving, possibly thundery showers. Highest temperatures will once again range a relatively cool 9 to 12ºC, in just light variable mainly northerly breezes.
Sunday will start with hazy sunshine in the morning however cloud will increase through the day. Some patchy drizzle may develop especially over higher ground in Ulster. Highest temperatures again of 9 to 13ºC in light westerly or variable breezes falling calm at times.
Monday gets going with a wet and blustery weather; widespread rain and fresh to strong southwesterly winds reaching near gale force along southern coasts. The rain will clear to showers from the west during the afternoon and evening as strong and gusty winds veer to the northwest with gales for a time along western coasts. Highest temperatures of 9 to 12ºC, but possibly cooler over Ulster. After that things go backwards a bit as winds become raw with plenty of cool weather, rain and hail leading to thundery conditions. With a bit of luck it’ll stir up the fish…
Marcin Kantor is back on the YouTube with a two part video that gives some really good advice for anyone thinknig about have a go for sea trout in the sea. Before you take to the water don’t forget to buy your licence and check local regulations.
Part 1.
Marcin’s Notes: Sea Trout fishing with lures must be the most frustrating type of fishing I have ever done! Yet, it was an unbelievably rewarding type of angling and one that was great fun! I didn’t do much fishing for Sea Trout this year until this session and was dying to catch one on lures. During the video I explain my approach to Seatrout fishing, I show my best Seatrout lures, for example, the very effective and cheap as chips Kilty Catcher Lure. I explain then how I make them even better with the addition of the never-failing sandeel teaser fly rig, and I give an early preview of my shrimp fly rig for seatrout fishing.
Part 2.
Marcin’s notes: During part two I will go in details through my setup, my best seatrout lures, what seatrout flies I use and how to tie shrimp fly teaser rig.
Fly angler Shane Callan has put together a YouTube Channel called Iron Fly Fishing where he shares some of his knowledge on fly fishing. His latest video sees him on the River Fane in Co. Louth where he demonstrates his setup for small river dry fly fishing and takes to the water to show us all how it’s done.
IASCaire Feeder Fishing Club members were glad to get back on the water this week and, even though only a handful of fish got caught, it was good for the anglers to brush off the cobwebs and spend a few hours on the lake shore.
Hopefully, as restrictions on travel are eased in the coming weeks, we’ll see more anglers back on their seat boxes, in their boats and on our river banks and sea shores for some safe, socially distant fishing in the fresh air of the Irish countryside.
