Salmon and trout angling | Coarse angling
Monday 4th to Sunday 10th August 2008.
There were fair water levels in the Drowes over the week and despite the fact that the river was not particularly busy, good numbers of fish caught, mostly at the weekend. At the time of writing the catchment is receiving heavy rain and the river is up to 6.5 on the gauge at the Four Masters Bridge so prospects look good for the weekend. Given hear are some of the catches for the week. On Tuesday, Hugh Hall recorded grilse of 3 & 5lb caught on a spoon. On Friday Marty King recorded 3 grilse between 3 & 5lb caught and released on the shrimp from the Washstones. David Taylor accounted for a 9lb salmon caught on the fly from the Sea Pools. On Sunday, Gerry Morrow landed a 5lb grilse on shrimp from the Crooked Hole. Stephen Hopper recorded 2 grilse caught weighing 3 & 4lb from the Washstones on shrimp. Colin Gardner caught a 5lb grilse from the Sand Hole on a Toby spinner.
Lough Melvin was quiet once again this week with only a limited number of anglers venturing out onto the Lough. The trout fishing, which has been very poor of late, started to pick up towards the end of the week. Some anglers reported good fishing for sonaghan with better quality fish making an appearance. The story over the last number of weeks has been one of few sonaghan which were small. There seems to have been nobody out fishing for salmon and we often see the fishing slow down at this time of the season. The Lough at this stage however, must be full of grilse.
With little rainfall over the week the Owenea fell from fair levels on Monday to low water by Friday. On Saturday however, we received a good flood reading 0.48 metres which still gave good conditions on Sunday. The gauge average for the week read 0.21 metres. The river was fairly busy with 60 visiting rods fishing for the week. The Owenea fished well for the week and given here are a selection of catches. On Monday, John Lennon recorded a 5lb grilse caught on the fly from the Gubbin on beat 5 and on Wednesday he landed a 4lb fish from above Ward’s Pool also on beat 5. On the same day, David Arbuckle accounted for 2 grilse to 5lb caught on the fly from beat 9 with one of these released. On Thursday, Billy Blair recorded 2 grilse caught on beat 8 weighing 1½ & 5lb on the fly with the smaller fish released. On Saturday, Billy recorded a further 2 grilse weighing 3½ & 4½lb caught on the spinner from beat 8 with one of these released. I caught and released 2 fish weighing 12lb & 4lb on the fly from beats 3 & 4 respectively. Colin Nesbitt had a good day with 4 fish recorded for the day caught from beat 6 on the spinner. The fish weighed 2, 5, 5 and 13lb and the better fish and one of the grilse was released. On Sunday, Mickey McLaughlin recorded a grilse of 5lb caught from Billy’s Pool on beat on the fly. Jackie Hutchison recorded 2 grilse caught on the spinner from beat 8 weighing 3 & 7lb and angling partner Tommy Irvine also accounted for 2 grilse weighing 4½ & 3½lb caught on the spinner from the same beat returning the larger of the two fish. Davy Arbuckle caught 3 grilse from beat 8 on the spinner weighing 3, 4 & 5½lb returning one of these and Gerry Irwin recorded 2 grilse caught on the spinner from beat 6 weighing 3 &5lb.
Despite a couple of minor freshes on Tuesday & Wednesday, the Eany ran at low levels until we received a good flood on Saturday reading 1.80 metres on the gauge. By Sunday the water level had dropped down to 0.44 metres and fell from there over the day. The gauge average for the week read 0.51 metres (due to the good flood in the great part). There were 42 visiting rods fishing for the week with 19 of these fishing on Sunday.
There was little caught during the week. On Saturday, Fred Henry recorded a 4½lb grilse caught on the spinner. John O’Brien caught 2 fish weighing 5 & 12lb on the spinner from Bonnyglen Falls and The Devlin Pool respectively. There were a number of other fish caught and I await confirmation of some catches.
14 August 2008
Five English anglers staying in Rosduff have been fishing in the Gowna area and report excellent bags of fish at Inch Island which they accessed by boat. They bagged on average 125lb of fish every day with plenty of small Bream.
There was a local competition on Swan Lake, Lough Gowna recently. 30lb bags of Bream were recorded.
The canal in moving waters at Ballinamore under Ballyduff and Aughoo bridge is giving plenty of good Bream and Roach. Brackley, Bolganard, Corgar and Drumlona are all giving plenty of fish including good Tench on Drumlona. Big Perch and plenty of Roach are being caught on Garadice, while plenty of small fish are being caught on Kiltybarden, St Johns.
The annual Belturbet Fishing Festival took place recently. Fifty four anglers fished Eonish, Sandy Point, Tullyguide and Killykeen. The following is a list of winners:
Other anglers fishing Eonish (Lodge section) report 4/5lb Bream while the Derries are giving plenty of good Roach. Town Lake Killeshandra has been giving good bags of fish in the past week.
There are not many anglers in the Cootehill area but those that are fishing report excellent fishing. Bream, Tench and Roach are being bagged at Coravoo while Barnagrove is giving good Hybrids and some Bream. The river at Haltons shore is producing good Bream, Tench and Roach and the river at Killyvaghan on the Dromore good Bream and Roach.
The results of the annual Clones Festival held recently. 41 anglers fished Annamakerrig, Drumate, Drumlona and Barnagrove. The winners are as follows: