Salmon and trout angling | Coarse angling
Monday 22nd to Sunday 30th September 2008 (9 days).
Water levels on the Drowes gradually fell over the week due to the dry weather. The fishery was fairly quiet with a small number of visiting rods fishing for the week. There were a number of salmon recorded for the week however. A visiting French party staying in the cottages recorded 10 salmon caught on the fly for the week. On Friday, Tom Hunt recorded a 4lb grilse caught on the fly. Gary Morrow recorded fish of 6 and 11lb caught on the shrimp. The 11lb fish was returned. On Sunday, M. Quinn accounted for a 5lb grilse caught from the Crooked Hole on the fly and Frederick Roland landed a 3lb grilse on the fly. At the time of writing (the last day of the season) the river is rising rapidly due to heavy rain overnight and I would not expect the river to fish as such. This basically winds up the season for 2008 but if there is any interesting news from the last two days I will let you know!
Trout fishing was productive up to the end of the season with anglers recording good bags of decent sonaghan. The fish were located mainly along the shores and in the bays where the spawning rivers flow into the Lough. Kinlough Bay was productive with a couple of anglers reporting a great days fishing on Saturday. There was little to report on the salmon fishing front with no angling effort it would seem.
The last nine days saw the river running at very low levels until the final day of the season when we received a big flood reading 0.52 metres on the gauge. It was very hopeful to see a flood on the last day but unfortunately the constant rain and gales for most of the day meant that the river did not drop to desirable levels for angling. 15 visiting rods fished for the last nine days of the season. To date I only have two fish recorded over the week caught in very low water. These were both caught by Alan Watson from beat 9 on Wednesday. The fish weighed 2½ and 4 ½lb and were caught on the fly.
And so that’s it for another season. It was a difficult season with very low water levels and only the very odd flood for April, May and June and then too much water for the greater part on July, August and September! It’s hard to get it right huh? I did notice however that so far we have 25 more salmon in the catch register than the 2007 season but have not yet calculated whether there was any greater angling effort this season. When I complete the newsletter over the close season, I will forward the same.
The Eany ran at very low levels for the last 8 days of the season and the gauge average for these 8 days only read 0.14 metres! Only 3 visiting rods fished over this period. On the final day of the season there was a big flood reading 1.65 metres! The river kept rising however over the daylight hours due to the constant rain throughout the day and was very dirty and full of leaves and debris. Some 9 visiting anglers fished for the final day in the very unfavourable conditions. I heard of 2 fish caught for the last day. One of these weighed 8lb and was caught by Pat O’Neill on the spinner.
The usual end of season gathering was held in the evening with large numbers of people coming for the craic, the food an drink and the firework display when darkness descended.
03 October 2008
The annual Cootheill Festival took place last week. One hundred and six anglers fished Annaghmakerrig Lough, Bairds Shore Liskillen, Mullinary, Sillan and Annaghierin. The following is a list of winners: