13/06 Extremely tough conditions persist for salmon fishing on the Bandon. Nevertheless, a few fish were caught last week, all to bait. Worms were successful for me as a sea liced 13lb fish couldn’t refuse! Today’s rain will barely make the river unfortunately. At the moment, up to 15mm is forecast for the weekend so this may freshen the river up and get more fish on the move.
Go Fishing…
Bandon Angling Association have set up a guiding service in conjunction with Jason Nash, Peter Aspinwall and Phil Dewey. Details of the guiding service are provided on the website and they are looking forward to making memories and enhancing people’s fishing experiences on the river Bandon. Day tickets and club membership are also available. Web: https://bandonangling.com/
Kilcoleman Fishery, Enniskeane, is renowned for its hospitality. The owners David and Patricia Lamb make a particular effort to make their guests feel at home. Past visitors have described the atmosphere as ‘laid back’ and the accommodations as ‘cosy’. Kilcoleman is “fly only” throughout the entire season. However, in certain water conditions, spinning is permitted for salmon. Trout angling is “fly only” at all times. web:http://flyfishing-ireland.com
Paul Jeyes had some Tench fishing yesterday in the Belturbet area. Paul tells us he is staying at Church View in Belturbet. Church View Guest House is located in the heart of the Irish Lakelands in County Cavan, and is the perfect getaway destination in Ireland.
Paul Jeyes with a nice Tench
Go fishing…
A paradise for anglers and all land and water based activities, it is a place to lose yourself in nature, explore the unspoilt landscape and the historic towns and villages of the borderlands. Call Maura on 00353499522358 for more information on fishing holidays.
Joe Fitzharris has all the results from the Donnellan Cup fished on Lough O’Flynn at the weekend… Mark Malone club sec, Connie Finnerty joint winner, Michael McDermott club Treasurer presenting, Molly Madden & Derek Madden joint winner.
Lough O’Flynn was the venue for the recently held Annual Donnellan Cup on Sunday 10th of June hosted by Lake O’Flynn & District Angling Association. This event is fished annually in memory of Noel Donnellan Ballinlough and features prominently in the events calendar for the village every year. Light breeze and cloudy sky greeted an excellent entry of (32 Anglers) and as always this event was keenly contested affair between the locals and visiting anglers who come mostly from neighbouring counties with a few travelling from across the Shannon. Fishing was slow on the day with most boats finding it hard going but as usual in these events, someone always hits a purple patch and records a winning catch this year a combination of Roscommon man Derek Madden and Galway man Connie Finnerty returned the winning catch to claim the much coveted Donnellan cup. Fish were caught on a variety of fly patterns with the Claret Hopper top fly on the day. J Fitzharris, Joe Creane second place winner, Michael McDermott treasurer, Mike Coyne joint second place Donnellan cup (2018)
Presentation of prizes and refreshments were served in Michael Donnellan’s Ballinlough where club Treasurer Michael McDermott performed the prize giving ceremony. Michael proceeded to thank all the people who contributed to making the Donnellan cup such a success especially main sponsor Michael Donnellan and all other sponsors without whose help he said this event would not be possible. Michael also thanked the visiting anglers who travel annually to support the club events and thanked John Devanney of I.F.I. for his cooperation in running the competition. Thanks were also expressed to Bridie Malone, and Michael Donnellan for providing the refreshments and the compare finished by asking members to reflect on a year and remember two of our members who passed on to there eternal rest notably Gerry Ward and Feichin Mcmorrow who were members and friends of our association for many years. Joint 3-rd place winners l/r Gerry Murray, and Michael McDermott, Joe Fitzharris.
Results as follows,
Derek Madden & Connie Finnerty – Donnellan cup winners (2018) 5-Fish for 7-lb 15.8 oz
Joe Creane & Mike Coyne 3-fish for 5-lb 14.2 oz
Michael McDermott & Gerry Murray 2-fish for 3-lb 05.6 oz.
Ronan Baggott & Shane Stephens 2-fish for 2-lb 14.6 oz
Heaviest fish Damien Donlon 2 – lb 11.2 oz. Michael McDermott, Damien Donlon Heaviest fish winner (2018) Joe Fitzharris.
Osgur Grieve was in touch with the latest news from the Erriff, where welcome rain has brought in fresh fish.
Low water and high water temperatures made angling very difficult on Wednesday and Thursday. A welcome thunderstorm on the afternoon of Friday 8th rose the river from 0.5m to 1.02m in the space of an hour which brought in the fish that were waiting in the bay. That evening regular angler Bernard De Suza lost a good fish from the Falls after a 20 minute battle, much to his disappointment. On Saturday 9th Jeff Hellerbach (USA) fished with us and landed 2 ranched grilse of 3.7lbs and 4.1lbs on a Cascade in the Middle Garden Pool, these were Jeff’s first Atlantic salmon!
Jeff Hellerbach with 2 ranched grilse 9 June 2018
Sunday 10th was Tim Brown’s turn, landing a fine 7.5lbs wild salmon from the Falls using a Posh Tosh.
At the time of writing there is a good flood following yesterday’s rain which is dropping nicely. This has brought in some more fresh springers along with a few grilse.
With the broken weather that is set to continue it should make for good angling conditions over the next few days.
For fishing bookings please call the fishery office on (095) 42382 or email us at [email protected]
Dan O’Neill at the Mount Juliet Estate reports on the trout fishing on the Nore…
Monday 4th June: Weather warm, water temperature 14.5C. Water quite murky still and reading .52.1 angler tried nymphing in the back eddys for trout and had 2 normal sized trout.
Tuesday 5th June: Another warm. Start slight showers around. No one on fishery today, water still at .52 and water temp now 14.8C.
Wednesday 6th June: A nice start, slightly overcast, water at .49,water temp 15.0.C. 2 trout anglers managed 6 nice browns over the stretch between the White Bridge and George’s Wall. 2 salmon anglers had 2 salmon,1 at 10 pound and the other at 12.2,both from the same pool.
About to release #CPRsavesfish
Thursday 7th June: Nice day again, water at .47, water temp at 15.0C. 1 trout angler went out early and had 7 nice trout both on dry fly and nymph.
Friday 8th June: Water today at .45. Rising temperature to 15.4C. 2 people out at 2pm and had 11 trout between them,all on nymph. Another group of 3 people out at 7pm and managed 5 trout between them.
Another nice Nore trout……and back she goes. #CPRsavesfish
Saturday 9th June: Two anglers tried there luck at 10am and had some nice trout to a pound in the deeper areas of the river. Water reading of .44 and water temperature of 15.5C.
Sunday 10th June: Some anglers out today to try trout fishing. They had some nice trout between them, though nothing over the one pound mark. Water reading of .43 and water temp of 15.6C.
Baby lamprey
Monday 11th June: Better trout fishing today for some American anglers. A nice fish of 1.5 pounds caught below pebble beach. 2 salmon showed there presence in one of the lower pools also. Some baby lampreys also moving about and burying themselves in silty areas. Water is at .40 and temp is at 15.8C.
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.
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.
6/6/18 Lough Currane was all quiet on all fronts and that’s not surprising, it was very humid and thundery but I must admit there was no thunder in the sky’s or the anglers reels. Wind light West with good cloud cover at times. Yesterdays weather, maximum air temperature 21.5c.
7/6/18 Heat waves still in control of the Waterville Fishery which isn’t surprising with the sun blazing down on Currane and very thundery at times so its not surprising that the Currane Anglers are spending more money on suntan lotion and bottles of water than they are on flies and lours. Wind W light and very warm. Yesterdays weather, maximum air temperature 17.8c.
8/6/18 The Lough Currane Salmon and Sea Trout anglers were as quiet as each other this day and in the words of one Cork angler who caught a fine Brown Trout just under 2 lbs. he said to me, as I sportingly put it back, I said to myself its healthy for the fish but this hot weather isn’t fit for man or beast and I replied its not much good Fishing either and a good flood wouldn’t do any harm. On a lighter note I will leave you in the hands of Vincent Donnelly, the talented Fisherman and Artist extraordinaire. Wind light NW very bright and hot. Yesterdays weather, maximum air temperature 19.4c.
9/6/18 The Lough Currane anglers are digging into their low water fly boxes and sadly today they failed but not miserably and the same goes for the Currane Lure men, and you don’t have to be a meteorological scientist to know that the Currane Anglers are in badly need of Water as they headed for nearest watering hole this evening after their good sun tanning today. Wind W light and very sunny and warm is an understatement. Yesterday’s Weather, maximum air temperature 21.9c.
Nothing Like a Catch and Release. #CPRsavesfish
10/6/18 Low Lake or not, at least one boat saw some good action in the trolling today, in the keep net and the C&R department, all the action came from the Bungalow and at www.oshealoughcurrane.com Angler Mr. John Smith caught and released a fine 10 lbs. Salmon and finished his day with a fine Grilse in the 4 lbs. plus class, all while fishing with his Gillie Mr. Neil O’Shea of www.oshealoughcurrane.com and for the rest of the Currane anglers it was all quite on the SW front. So I can say without any fear of contradiction and to all you pessimistic anglers if your not out there you can’t catch fish and here lies the lesson. Wind East light with reasonable cloud cover. Yesterdays Weather, maximum air temperature 18.8c.
11/6/18 We the Currane anglers are trying our best to procure a few C&R Photos but sadly our wild Atlantic Salmon and Sea Trout kept their heads down in deeper and cooler waters of Lough Currane, as we the Anglers were sweating the day out and hoping for a rod bender and at times looking to the heavens praying for rain. Wind NNE light to fresh with reasonable cloud cover. Yesterdays weather, maximum air temperature 15.9c.
12/6/18 The Lough Currane Anglers tried their best to procure C&R but as we all know the elements are against us weather wise. Wind East light, bright and sunny. Yesterdays weather, maximum air temperature 18.1c.
Some angler
13/6/18 Lough Currane was on a wild side with strong SW wind blowing across the Lake and I was informed by Currane anglers detective agency that only the odd boat ventured out. Wind as already stated, reasonable cloud cover with light misty rain. Yesterdays weather, maximum air temperature 17.2c. Today my Father would of been 90 years young today so dad you be gone but your not forgotten all I can say is you were a Great Dad, Great Angler, Great Engineer.
That is your ration from the last week on Lough Currane, from your Gillie and the Waterville Fishery, no spin no fly’s just facts.
The continuing sunny weather, whilst a joy to our tourists, has made the angling in the system somewhat problematic to say the least! A few salmon are still showing up in catches on Lough Currane, almost exclusively caught on the troll. No sea trout have been recorded, although a few decently sized fish have been seen jumping in the usual spots. This situation has resulted in very little fishing effort and most days in this last couple of weeks the Lake has been almost empty of boats. Clearly, if no boats are out fishing no fish are being caught! Even our productive brown trout fishery on the Upper Lakes has been suffering from the prolonged hot spell, with most of the trout preferring to stay in the deeper water, but at least the situation here is temporary, as a change in the weather will improve the fishing immediately.
The Trust has agreed to help with a local IFI data collection effort to try and evaluate the actual level of sea trout stocks in the system. This will involve the recording and measuring of any sea trout caught over the next few weeks, together with collecting scale samples from each fish recorded. Anglers are asked to co-operate with this as much as possible.
Scale sample envelopes and instruction sheets will be available from the Mace Store in Waterville from this coming weekend and we would urge all anglers intending to fish in the Currane Catchment in the coming weeks, to make the effort to participate. Most regular anglers are now convinced that unless the government are prepared to take difficult decisions to limit the scope of offshore salmon farming, the dire state of the famous Currane sea trout stocks, is not going to improve anytime soon, so we must do anything we can do to prove the extent of the crash in the stocks before its too late.
Could I also remind anglers, who collected information on our WL&RT sea trout smolt recording initiative, to let me have their record as soon as possible please. Send to [email protected].
The Waterville Lakes & Rivers Trust, formed by concerned volunteers in 2016, is one of the new Rivers Trusts to be set up in Ireland and is currently aspiring to Charitable Status. Its remit is to protect the fresh and coastal waters of the Iveragh Peninsula.
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
John Fleming, skipper of the Brazen Hussy II, reports that the fishing in Galway Bay has really taken off over the last few weeks, no doubt helped greatly by the weather conditions and increased water temperatures.
A colourful male cuckoo wrasse
Clients have landed plenty of spurdog to specimen size, and John says they have had any amount of ballan and cuckoo wrasse, as well as pollack to double figures.
A fine pollack
It’s finally heating up and the sharks shouldn’t be far away. John is a shark fanatic and loves nothing better than to put his anglers on great shark fishing – blues and porbeagles.
The Boyne has all the fly hatches associated with a limestone river. The most prolific hatches include olives and sedges and there can also be good hatches of the mayfly Ephemera danica. There are a number of popular fishing locations in [...]
Salmon fishing has picked up further in Galway this week, and grilse are running the river in increasing numbers. There were 68 fish landed for the week, with the majority of these taken on fly.
Neil Spellacy had 2 grilse of 4.5lbs on fly, while Simon Lenihan had 2 to 6lbs on fly and shrimp. Dave Lenihan landed 3 grilse of 5lbs on fly and shrimp, while Colm Adams fished the shrimp and had 2 fish of 5lbs each.
Ulrich Treusch landed 2 grilse to 6.5lbs on fly, Paddy Gargan also 2 to 6lbs on fly, as did Mossy Browne. David Murphy also had 2 fish to 6lbs on fly and shrimp, while Brian King and Gerry Hartigan had all of their 2 fish each on shrimp. Aidan Sheridan landed 2 fish to 5lbs on fly.
Michael Browne landed 3 fish to 7lbs on fly and shrimp, while John Murphy landed 2 to 5.5lbs on fly. Pappy Cotter fished shrimp and had 2 fish to 5lbs, while there were grilse on the fly for A. Schmitt and Tobias Stern.
Ulrich Treusch landed a further 2 grilse on fly, and Pat Smyth had 2 to 7lbs on fly. There were grilse for Declan Mulligan, Roy Williams, Owen Trill, Ray Drennan and John Anderson, while Gary Rogers landed a lovely 8.3lbs fish on fly. Seamus Harold landed a fine 10.5lbs salmon on the fly also. Catch of the week, however, goes to 99 years young Ned Cusack, who landed 2 grilse to almost 8lbs yesterday on the shrimp, and also gave a display of fly casting, although they eluded him on the fly this time. It’s wonderful to see Ned still fishing regularly and showing the younger generation (several of them!) how its done.
Seamus Harold with a 10.5lbs Galway salmon
Although rain is forecast, water levels upstream are low and the lake can take plenty of water, so fishing conditions should be ideal for the next week, and with the grilse run now underway, fishing prospects are very good for the coming week.
Ronan Cusack reports that angling on Mask has been quiet over the past couple of weeks due to the dry warm weather conditions we have been experiencing. Reports have been difficult to obtain, but the few anglers that are out have reported some success.
An Garda Sìochána Angling Club competed for the O’Connor Prendergast Cup on Mask last Thursday which was supported by 30 members. Unfortunately conditions on the day were difficult with light winds and blue skies which made for a tight contest. A total of six fish were weighed in with first prize going to Damien Barron from Co Offaly with 1 fish for 1.15lbs. In second position was Joe O’Connor, originally from Ballintubber in Co Mayo with a fish of 1.06lbs and in third place was Galway man Bob Bradley with a fish of 1.02lbs.
Local angler Kevin Sheridan fished with Martin Agnew from the midlands on Monday and they had 3 trout on dries (best fish 1.5lbs, all released). Kevin also had a fish of 3.5lbs over the weekend which was also released. Gerry O’Brien and his son Damien had 4 fish on dry Mays over the weekend along the northern end of Mask.
Mick Dunne and Martin McGowan had a bag of 14 pulling wets on Sunday (best fish 3.5lbs, all released bar 5).
Reports of good early morning Caenis and dry Sedge fishing during the duller days have also been reported this week.
