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On Saturday I travelled up to Lough Derg to give some casting tuition to a local fishing club.  The weather was absolutely brilliant and they were a super group of people.  In the morning we did some roll casting and then moved on to the overhead cast.  After a hearty lunch (they even had barbecues!) we moved on to shooting line and gaining extra distance using “drift back”.  Before I left I answered some queries about casting faults and fishing techniques.  I must say the people there seem to have a great club going and it was one of the most stunning locations I have visited.

Over the past few weeks I have been (quietly) targeting seatrout on fly at night with some of my clients. Here’s a cracking photo of a few seatrout in the river during the day, taken by my friend Kuba.

Seatrout in the clear water.

Conditions were ideal from the point of view of low water and warm humid nights.  Although the nights have turned cooler of late the smashing fishing has continued with clients catching 10 or more seatrout to their rod at night and losing many more.  In fact one night last week I had 2 clients from Clonmel hook over 30 seatrout in a few hours.

A nice seatrout caught by Mike from Clonmel.

Admittedly most of the fish were not big by usual standards here but the guys were simply raving about the sport they had on light weight 7ft and 8ft rods.  They were very sporting and only kept 3 fish for the table releasing all the rest.  Successful flies recently have been Butcher, Peter Ross and J’s Wake Lure.

Breakfast for the Clonmel lads.

September started in style for my Tyrone clients.  Game Fishing Ireland customers from Strabane had superb fishing at Cappoquin on the Munster Blackwater catching 14 salmon in 3 days.  Day one was slow with just two fish.

A wee coloured cock fish.

Day 2 was fantastic with 5 salmon landed with Maurice Brolly catching and releasing what he believed was his hardest fighting Blackwater salmon to date.

Maurice Brolly with a big Autumn salmon that was released.

Day 3 saw a few more fish arriving off the big tides and the guys had a bumper day landing 7 salmon including some cracking fresh fish.

A chuffed Mike Devine kneels beside some of the days catch.

A client of mine told me about this awesome phone app called UFindFish.  It’s a great idea.  Basically you download the app to your smartphone and set up an account.  You can then mark your fishing hotspots on a map using GPS and Google Maps and save them to your account. You can add information about species of fish, lures that worked etc. It is up to you whether or not you want to share your hotspots.  You can also search the app for other anglers hotspots that they have shared.

Other features include hints a tips and a gallery for photos and video clips.  The app also has a Pro section where you can ask a Pro Fishing Guide a question.  You get a reply within 48 hours.  I am delighted to announce that I am the Pro for Ireland.  In fact, I think I am the first and only European Pro with UFindFish!  You can view my profile here.

This weekend saw some very weak tides, crystal clear water and very calm conditions.  Not exactly what you would consider to be good bass conditions.  However, sound tactics and a positive mental attitude paid off and Mike D was delighted with the hard fighting qualities of the bass that he tempted.

A really nice bass for Mike D.

Even some of the smaller bass we had this weekend fought really strongly for their size.  As anglers we all like to catch big fish but as I stressed to Mike, catching various sizes of fish at the moment is invaluable from a research perspective as Game Fishing Ireland is assisting Inland Fisheries Ireland with scale sampling again this season.

Some scales from this fish are in an envelope to be sent to I.F.I later in the year.

A few scales carefully removed and back into the sea for this fella.

If you are a bass angler and not yet taking part in the National Bass Programme I’m sure its not too late to get involved and request a scale envelope pack.