Following on from his last visit to Waterford where Dr Ken Whelan caught a superb 8lbs brown trout after kick sampling the margins of Carrigavantry, he was back again but this time it was Knockaderry Reservoir. To say Ken was impressed with the rich variety of quality food items available for the resident trout would be something of an understatement. Each area of the lake sampled showed some fantastic aquatic insects. There were everything from tiny fish, various caddis, chironomids, water worms, leeches, to nymphs shrimps and water boatmen.

One scoop of the little sample net near the boat dock contained some cracking damsel nymphs. Any trout would be glad to get hold of these beauties.

There was also some serious snails in the margins and lots of hoglouse.

snails

After the sampling was completed Ken had a try at catching some trout. Conditions were more suitable to nabbing a rainbow trout as it was very warm and bright. There were a few rainbows rising in the wind lanes and Ken managed to catch several of these on emergers.

They were very hard fighting trout and some of the overwintered rainbows were fin perfect and of a good size. Nice going Ken.