Salmon and trout angling | Coarse angling
Monday 23rd to Sunday 29th June 2008.
The Drowes remains fairly low but has risen by a few inches with the onset of some rainy weather over the week. While this is not the desired flood per say, it encouraged a good run of grilse into the fishery (or maybe they couldn’t wait any longer!) There were good numbers of grilse recorded for the week with all the fish ranging in size from 2 to 4lb. The rods staying for the week in the angling cottages caught on a regular basis. Two Swiss visitors recorded 8 grilse for the week caught mainly on fly. Alan Lawrence and Colin Berryman accounted for 11 grilse caught on fly & shrimp. On Sunday, Darryl Kennedy recorded 2 grilse caught, Gary Morrow accounted for a grilse and two English anglers recorded a couple of grilse caught from the Washstones. The forecast is for wet weather for the coming week and hopefully this will be sufficient to raise water levels further.
Trout angling reports from Lough Melvin this week were of poor fishing with decent trout hard to come by. The Lough remains at very low levels although it has risen by a couple of inches. There were also very few anglers fishing for salmon throughout the week and so little to report except for a fine salmon caught on the fly on Sunday however. The fish weighed 22lb and was caught on a Green Peter fly by a Swiss angler from the Mruier party staying at Lareen. Apparently it took them a number of hours to land and had to be beached since their trout net was certainly not up to the task! Unfortunately there are no pictures of the same.
The Rossinver Anglers ran their annual 2 day salmon & trout competition over Saturday & Sunday. 19 rods fished over the two days. There were however no salmon caught (probably due to the very low lough?) and with the trout fishing being poor, only 7 trout were caught of sufficient size to count. The competition was decided thus on the heaviest trout. Anthony McHugh took first place with a fish of 0.79 kg. In second place came Seamus O’Dare with a fish of 0.77 kg and in third place was Dermot Seymour with a fish of 0.72 kg. The annual barbeque was held on the Sunday evening and enjoyed by all with good weather prevailing. There was little worry of a lack of fish since I hear the steaks were superb!
The Owenea ran at fair levels this week and there were a couple of floods over the week. One flood on Monday, with the river reaching 0.25 metres and a better flood on Wednesday reading 0.37 metres on the gauge. The gauge average for the week read 0.23 metres. A good figure after two months of low water! 39 visiting rods fished for the week spread throughout the week. There were a number of salmon caught and we await details of the same. On Monday, Gordon Young accounted for a 9½lb salmon caught on a spinner from Brian’s Pool on beat 8. John Joe O’Doherty accounted for a 4½lb grilse.
The forecast for the coming week is for wet weather and so hopefully we will have good water levels.
There were some decent floods on the Eany this week at last! Although these weren’t big floods, they were sufficient to bring fish into the river and good numbers of salmon ascended the river. The gauge average for the week read 0.51 metres. The fishery was much busier and there were 23 visiting rods fishing over the week. The fishing really began in earnest and we have our first salmon recorded this week. There were 4 salmon caught on Wednesday and I have yet to establish which fish was first since I present I do not know at what time of day each fish was caught. Danny Breslin accounted for a fine 12lb salmon caught the Devils Pool on a spinner. A visiting rod accounted for an 8lb fish caught on the spinner from Bonnyglen Falls and Jed Cole also landed a salmon at Bonnyglen. Henry McAreavy recorded a 4lb grilse caught from the Corry on a fly. On Thursday, Patsy McHugh landed a 12lb salmon and on Saturday, Jodie O’Neill accounted for an 8lb salmon caught on the Lower Devlin.
The forecast is for wet weather so hopefully we will receive good water over the coming week.
03 July
Angling in the Arva/Gowna/Carrigallen area remains good with anglers who stayed in the Breffni Arms, Arva reporting good catches on all lakes. John Roper, Nottingham bagged 126lb in one day with 14 Bream and plenty of Skimmers and Roach; Simon Bradley, Yorkshire bagged 128lb, and 86lb of mixed bags; Carol Thompson 67lb, 92lb and 48lb mixed bags. K Rushby fished Killykeen and bagged 86lb. Bags weighing up to 82lb. 78lb. 68lb and 55 are reported on Rhododendron.
Killykeen, match section beside chalets and Tullyguide are reported to be giving good bags of fish, also Rann at castle with plenty of big Perch and lots of Bream.
One angler who fished Quivvy Point bagged 76 Bream in one day.
Drumlona and Bairds shore are both giving good Tench some up to 5½lb while Annamakerrig is producing penty of Bream up to 7lbs. There are also plenty of Roach and Skimmers.
Brackley is giving penty of Bream and Roach, also other smaller fish. St John's Kiltybarden is producing Roach, Perch and Bream in small numbers.