Fishing Reports
Salmon and trout angling | Coarse angling
Salmon and trout reports
Monday 4th to Sunday 10th June 2007.
RIVER DROWES
With the hot sunny weather the Drowes is running at low summer levels and angling conditions have been far from ideal. As a result, few rods were fishing over the week and as a consequence there is not too much to report. There were some salmon caught however despite the sweltering conditions. On Saturday, George McAteer and Jim English recorded a grilse apiece caught on the shrimp. The fish weighed 4 & 5lb. On Sunday, Gary Morrow accounted for a small grilse of 2½lb.
LOUGH MELVIN
Lough Melvin was fairly quiet this week once again due to the bright, sunny, hot and mainly still weather. Few anglers ventured out. There are mayfly hatching in reasonable numbers and fish moving to them but we need some overcast and breezy days to lift the fishing.
Garrison Anglers held a boat club competition over the weekend. This was won by Freddy Steel & Niall Crumey with 5 fish. In second place were father & son team, Sean Maguire and Darren Maguire with 4 fish and in third place went to Kevin Bradley with 2 fish.
ESKE FISHERY
Water levels on the Eske Fishery were fairly good on Monday but fell over the week to low summer levels by Sunday. The weather was very bright and still which was not conducive to game angling. Seven visiting Portuguese rods fished on Sunday, 5 on the Lough and 2 on the River accounting for a number of brown trout.
EANY FISHERY
The story was the same on the Eany with low water levels for the week and very bright and hot conditions. As a result there were no visiting rods fishing.
OWENEA FISHERY
There was a reasonable flood (0.30 m) on Monday but the river fell rapidly to run at low summer levels for the rest of the week. The low gauge average for the week read 0.14 metres. Only one visiting rod fished for the week. On Monday, P. J. McNeelis recorded a salmon of 7lb caught from beat 8 on the spinner.
Coarse angling Report
08 June 2007
Barry Smith pictured above from Bury in Lancashire with a 25lb catch from Dernafert Shore on Gowna. All of his fish were taken on a waggler at four rod lengths and single caster.
Fishing on Lough Gowna has taken a tumble in the past few days as searing heat and bright sunshine put paid to any serious sport during the daytime. Prospects are excellent based on reports last week and the fact that roach are only now starting reappear into the Gowna lakes system; but here is a very interesting fact – during the Stena Challenge Festival on different parts of Gowna the bulk of fish caught were skimmer bream averaging 4 ounces.
These are brand new fish, never seen by Gowna regulars before and are probably maturing fish that were born last year.
It is great news for the future.
If conditions persist, the best advice for anglers looking for a lot of fish is to head for the shallow waters – such as Gulladoo Lake, Carrigallen, where mixed nets of small roach, skimmers and hybrids, have been making catches to 40lb on waggler and pole with maggot and caster.
Derries Lake has also been showing great form with mature roach of 12 ounces, plenty of large hybrids and a smattering of bream.
Night time fishing at Rann is reported to be excellent. Some locals used a boat to fish Rann, Killykeen and Trinity and report good catches of fish including Perch. Pike fishing is very quiet at the moment.
Drumlona is giving good mixed bags of 60/70lb of fish. The Dromore river at Abbots is also fishing very well with 40/50lb bags including Bream and Tench, Bream up to 4/5lb in weight. Trout fishing is also reported to be good on the Dromore and Annalee river
Stena Line Challenge Festival
Gowna and Carrigallen. 40 anglers
NOTTINGHAM matchman Keith Greensmith rounded off a great fortnight’s holiday in Ireland by winning the Stena Challenge Festival and pocketing £1,500.
The 58-year-old retired floor layer from Calverton steamrolled his way to poll position by winning his section on the first four days, including one day as the outright winner and on as overall runner-up. It meant that he had 10 kilos to spare going into the final day and for Keith, that meant fishing on the ‘swings’ section of Dernaferst Shore at Gowna. But he got a duff peg and with 10 anglers all in with a reasonable chance of catching him, it was a nervous six hours in baking hot sunshine and not a ripple in sight. He kept his head, sticking to the pole between 11 and 13 metres (which had produced all his fish during the week) to catch 3.700 of small roach, hybrids and skimmers, on single caster and bits of worm.
The first day he had 9.420 on Corfree Shore, next he got 11.300 on Kevin’s stretch of Rosduff Lake, then 8.500 on Tessa’s stretch of Rosduff, followed by his best catch – 20.700 – on the shallow waters of Gulladoo Lake on the outskirts of Carrigallen. It was hard work in the incredibly hot sunshine but Keith stuck to his game plan with the pole, feeding various mixes of Dynamite groundbaits, part of 36 bags he won earlier this year when he got a first in the Ivan Marks Memorial with 14 bream for 64lb.
And Keith was certain he must have more than covered his expenses for he got second spot in the Gowna Over 50’s Festival the week before the Stena event, fishing almost the same venues, with a 48 kilos total.
Former Leigh tackle dealer Baz Smith – now living in Fermanagh, Northern Ireland – looked as if he was hunting down the leader from an end peg on the same section. The 62 year old was down to a fine-tipped half-gramme pole float with maggot over loose fed casters and hemp, to lift 10-500 kilos on the last day, but it was only good enough for third place.
Baz Smith took third place
The runner-up prize went to Barnsley’s Jim Leach, returning from Ireland for the first time in more than 15 years and slipping back into the mode immediately. Again, pole gear caught almost all of his fish, though Jim reckoned he had to ‘chop and change’ baits, working with double red maggot, worm and caster, for his mix of roach, skimmers, hybrids and perch.
He was returning to Yorkshire where his sleeping hours will include a nightmare 40 minute battle with a 12lb pike at Rosduff Lake on the first day.
Jim didn’t realise that pike were barred and played it ever so carefully on his pole kit for a long time.
“The pike doesn’t really matter”, he explained, “But I lost a lot of time and perhaps it would have been possible to make up the four kilos or so difference, with that extra time and without the commotion, for my weighed catch that day was nine kilos!”
The Stena Line Challenge was organised by Leisure Angling.
Result: Keith Greensmith, Calverton, 53.540 kilos; 2 Jimmy Leach, Barnsley, 58.660; 3 Baz Smith, Irvinestown, 48.600; 4 Bob Nesbitt, Eastbourne, 46.540; 5 Carl Rowley, Doncaster, 45.700; Save Stewart, Runcorn, 45.060.
Pairs: 1 Kevin Ashurst & Baz Smith, Fermanagh, 93.500 kilos; 2 Kevin Leach and Jimmy Leach, Barnsley, 88.220; 3 Keith Greensmith and Andy Bettison, Calverton, 86.420.
Day winners: (1) Bob Nesbitt, Eastbourne, 15.300 (2) Carl Rowley, Doncaster, 11.800 (3) Jimmy Leach, Barnsley, 19-160 (4) Keith Greensmith, Calverton, 20.700 (5) Mick Smith, Leeds, 11.920