Salmon and trout angling | Coarse angling
Monday 28th July to Sunday 3rd August 2008.
The gauge at Four Masters Bridge is reading 4.5 at present. While conditions are still fair for the fly, a flood would be desirable to stir the fish up. The story this week seems to be that plenty of grilse entered the fishery with the big tides but they have been very hard to catch. Add to this that there was only a light angling effort and there is little to report on the catch front. On Saturday, Michael McEroi recorded grilse of 3½ & 4lb caught from Lennox’s Bridge on shrimp. I have yet to hear of any other catches for the week!
Lough Melvin was quiet once again this week with few anglers venturing out on the Lough fro salmon or trout. I have not heard of any salmon or grilse caught this week. Good numbers of grilse are showing in Rossinver Bay, at Roosky and along the Schoolhouse shore but they are not interested in any human creations being pulled past their noses! Anglers that were out fishing for trout (mainly sonaghan) reported good numbers of small fish moving but fish of a decent size very hard to come by.
With little rainfall over the week the Owenea ran at low summer levels until the weekend when we received a small fresh on Saturday & Sunday with the gauge reading 2.0 metres each day. The gauge average for the week was low reading only 0.11 metres. There were 40 visiting rods fishing for the week. There were numerous reports of grilse seen running the river and certainly the main grilse run has begun in earnest. There were catches reported over the whole week despite the very poor conditions from Monday to Friday. Given here is a selection of catches recorded in the register.
On Monday, Gary Moore recorded a 3lb grilse caught and released on the fly from Doherty’s Pool on beat 9. On Wednesday, Gary recorded a small grilse caught and released from beat 9 on a Foxford Shrimp fly and angling partner Paul Buckley accounted for a 4½lb grilse and a 3½lb sea trout caught and released on a Curry’s Red shrimp fly from beat 9. On Friday, Gary recorded a 2½lb grilse caught on the fly and released from Sandy Pool on beat 8. On Saturday, Johnathon McCorkhill recorded 3 grilse caught from beat 8 with one of these released again. The fish weighed 2½, 2¼ and 1½lb and were caught on worm and spinner. On Sunday, Mark Corps recorded 3 grilse caught with 2 of these released. The fish weighed 2, 4 & 6lb and were caught on the fly from beat 8.
At the time of writing the river has fell to 0.14 on the gauge and we hope for some rain this week to raise levels once again.
The Eany ran at low levels from Monday to Thursday but we received a number of small freshes over the last 3 days of the week. The gauge average for the week read 0.29 metres. Only 10 visiting rods fished over the week with 8 of these fishing over the last 3 days of the week. There were a number of salmon caught over these days and I still await details of the same. On Friday there were 5 salmon caught. Alistair Proctor accounted for a fish caught each day on the Saturday and Sunday to 6lb on the fly.
We could really do with a good flood. We have not seen a good flood since the 17th July, (i.e. a flood that exceeds a metre on the gauge). Still, the fish are ascending the river on the small freshes though it is difficult for the salmon to surmount Bonnyglen Fall’s when the river is reading less than 0.50 metres on the gauge.
30 July 2008
Some English anglers staying in the Killeshandra area fished the Derries and report plenty of small fish and some nice Bream from Inishmuck using maggot caster and corn. Some other anglers report Bream up to 3½lb from Foxholes, good Hybrids and Tench up to 4lb at Killykeen.
St John, Kiltybarden, Brackley and Drumlona are all fishing good with good Tench on Drumlona.
Night fishing and early morning is producing good bags of fish in the Lough Oughter area particularly at Rann Castle. Eight English anglers staying in the Gowna area fished Killykeen match stretch and bagged good bags of fish. Bream up to 9½lb were reported at Bakers Bridge recently.