It was great to get out guiding on the Blackwater this morning. Unfortunately, for my salmon fishing newbie the water was too high for safe wading for fly fishing and was continuing to rise and colour up while we were at the fantastic Cable Island beat. My client had a go with his spinning rod.
We did see two very nice salmon show which bodes well. It was more a case of salmon watch than salmon catch.
There has been some fantastic bass fishing along the copper coast this September and October. Good numbers of fish have been caught and the average size has been great with quite a number of fish over 70cm reported. All methods have worked but I have concentrated on fly and lure fishing with my clients. Our best fish came on fly at night. Unfortunately we were unable to get a good quality picture of the beast but even so the photo we did get shows the with of the fish before we swiftly released it back into the sea.
Successful flies included wake flies, sandeel imitations and the ever reliable Dahlberg Diver.
The usual lures produced the goods with Black Minnows being very successful especially at low tide in the deeper channels.
Over shallower rough ground Komomos and soft plastic worms fished well as always. It never ceases to amaze me how bass absolutely love these things.
Another lure that has been working well is the hard needlefish type lures. Bass Bullets, Line-thru lures and Westin Kongetobis all performed well at long range. My new “favourite” are some custom made lures I ordered from the UK. They fly out like bullets and the bass just hammered them.
If the water temperatures stay high then fishing may continue well into November. What effects ex-hurricane Ophelia will have on the fishing I cannot say but a lot of coastal areas in the south east have taken a real bashing. Tight lines!
I haven’t had much opportunity to post a blog for some time but rest assured the fishing has been very good if a little patchy at times. The Waterford Reservoirs fished well in April. I had a great day out with former Waterford Hurling Legends Tony Browne and Brian Greene at Knockaderry.
May was a good month for Salmon on the Blackwater and the Suir Rivers.
June/July was excellent for bass on the fly with a lot of schoolies about and the occasional Mullet.
As we enter into the Autumn some larger bass are being caught and the September tides should throw up some crackers on the fly if conditions are favourable.
Likewise expect some good salmon fishing if we get rain at an opportune time.
First off, it’s been a while since I have had blogged about anything fishy but I decided to take a little break after a fairly hectic end to the 2016 season. I didn’t do a whole lot over the closed season except tie a few flies including some intruder style flies for my pal Ned for his trips to Canada. One of these years I will join up with them as the whole experience seems mega.
September 2016 was a bit of a scramble with the river trout and salmon seasons coming to an end combined with some fantastic bass fishing tides! The weather was good and the bass fishing continued to provide decent sport right through November.
I didn’t do anything like as much winter reservoir fishing as I have done in previous seasons and 2017 kind of crept up on me and before I knew it I was off to Dublin for the Ireland Angling Expo in February. This is always a great event and this year was no exception although if anything there was more for the predator (bass/pike) angler to see than some previous years. There was still a lot there for the trout and salmon angler too with top brands like Simms, Redington, Mackenzie, Airflo, Nautilus, Hardy/Greys etc etc all on display. The attendance at my talks each day was brilliant and as always it was epic to meet up with the Mackenzie Pros and all of the various people who make the show tick in one way or another. I always say this show is much much more than just tackle sales.
March is now upon us and things are already starting to get busy. I have been out giving tuition and guiding and later this month I have two stillwater courses running, a Match the Hatch course in Wicklow with Ken Whelan and a Stillwater Tactics course at Ardaire Springs in Mooncoin. In the meantime I am putting a lot of effort into testing the absolutely awesome prototype for the new 10ft 6wt Mackenzie FX1 Graphene single handed rod. So far the results have been superb. It casts really well and everyone who tried it at the show in Dublin gave great feedback. Trials have indicated that this will be a great buzzer/nymph rod that can also be used for some dry fly and small lure fishing if needs be. I am enjoying the testing so much with this weapon that it will take another while before Scott will be getting it back!!!!
So everything is looking great so far for 2017. While some salmon rivers in Ireland had a disastrous start the Munster Blackwater seems to be performing quite well. The quality of trout in Ardaire and the Waterford Reservoirs is excellent. Initial reports on the river trout fishing in the Blackwater and surrounding rivers that are already open suggest that fish are in excellent condition. With lots more courses running during the year including our new Saltwater Fishing Course in June and the North West Angling Fair in Strabane in April not too far away it is difficult not to be positive.
However, in spite of this optimism it is still early in the year to get carried away as to what the salmon season here will produce. The same can be said as regards sea bass. It will be interesting to see the effect of current conservation measures over a long period of time. Many rivers in Ireland are now classed as ‘closed’. This seems to be causing great confusion as to whether an angler can still fish them for brown trout and indeed sea trout under 40cm. Factor in the complete confusion as to what the rules are about fishing for sea trout in saltwater and you have something of a Gordian Knot. More on this to follow in my next blog (not to be missed)!!!!
The first of our 2017 beginners and improvers courses will take place this March. Ken Whelan and I start everything off with a Stillwater Match the Hatch course at some Private Ponds in Wicklow on March 19th. This is a very comprehensive stillwater course covering an entomology of all the major insects and likely hatches during the fishing season. Learn how to select and fish imitative flies successfully. Fee €80
Following on from the match the hatch course I am running my annual Stillwater Trout Fly Fishing Tactics course at Ardaire Springs, Mooncoin, Kilkenny on March 25th 2017. This course focuses on the various techniques and tactics that can be used throughout the year and is an ideal follow up to the match the hatch course. One of the most frequent questions I am asked at demos, shows and on the water is how to select the correct tackle for specific tactics. Learn how to tackle up and fish wet flies, nymphs, lures, buzzers, dries, indicators, boobies, blobs, mops, bloodworms and more. Fee €65
I recently spent a few days guiding Ken, Brendan and Lee for sea bass along the Copper Coast and around Dungarvan. We had some of the best bass fishing in a long time. It wasn’t just about the numbers of fish but the average size too. We had some seriously well conditioned bass.
One of our best hard lures was the ever reliable IMA Komomo (sf125, slim 130 and Komomo II). It really does do the business over shallow rough ground. It casts well and works great on a slow retrieve. The IMA Sasuke 120 is another similar and reliable lure.
I can’t explain the delight when Brendan caught his first bass in over 40 years!! He seems to be a natural when fishing weighted soft plastics like the Fiiish Black Minnow and HTO Artic Eel.
Ken was keeping up with brother and nailed some really good fish.
When everyone had caught the boys were very generous and said I could fly fish for a while. I didn’t need to be asked twice because normally I never get to have a cast when guiding and if there’s one thing I love to do it’s catching bass on fly. I tie my own bass flies but also use some tied by friends of mine who are commercial tyers of predator flies. Andy and Paula of Chasing Silver Flies tie some awesome proven bass patterns. My pal Dougie from Scotland also ties stunning predator flies.
We caught bass just about everywhere we fished, shallow rough ground – deep channels – clean sand bars and beaches. Tactics were altered to suit the conditions – jigging soft plastics, weightless/weedless stick worms, shallow diving and surface lures. Changing colours for different light conditions. There is a lot to learn but what a way to do it!
The Copper Coast was just on fire and it one of the nicest places to pursue this hard fighting wild fish.
Of course when you are catching good numbers large fish it is important to practice catch and release. Bass are a very slow growing species.
There are still good opportunities to fish for bass right through October and into November. I’m looking forward to some more good sessions and I know the boys are itching to get back out there.
Guiding was really busy all summer and of course family time is very important too, especially when you have two young kids. Anyway, there was little time to sit down and write blogs about the fishing. To be fair, salmon fishing slowed down towards the end of summer this year. As always September is a mad hectic month for me as customers are keen to finish off the freshwater season with a salmon, trout or seatrout. Saltwater anglers know that some of the best bass tides of the year fall in September too. There was a lack of fresh salmon in most rivers and a few days on the lower Munster Blackwater with clients resulted in three salmon landed, two lost and a few seatrout in the mix. The water was very high then dropping nicely and clearing then rising fast all in the space of a few days! All but one of the fish the guys landed and lost were red. The high coloured water meant fishing from the bank rather than wading so we had to use the landing net and place the fish up on the grass for a quick photo before release.
My clients exercised their discretion to tag and keep a fresh salmon for the table. I rarely keep a fish anymore but at the end of the day it was up to them.
For me the seabass is one of the best game fish in our waters. I just love fishing for them. The September tides always produce some crackers and with some settled weather things looked really promising. I guided during the spring tides with Lee, Paul and Daire on alternate days and we had several superb fish with the best measuring 74cm. Belter!!
We had fish on soft plastics, surface lures and hard lures. One of my favourite shallow divers is the Feed Shallow but this year I have really taken to the IMA Komomo and Komomo II. These are excellent lures and fish well on a slow retrieve.
As often happens you can get a day or two when the sea conditions make bass fishing a less than promising option. However, the great thing about Dungarvan is that there are other good fishing options available, such as salmon or trout. So when the water got really discoloured Paul agreed to do some fly fishing over at Ardaire Springs in Mooncoin. I lost count of the amount of quality trout he landed on dries!
So we the rivers closing at the end of September there is still lots of opportunity to bass fish. Keep an eye out for my next blog on some awesome fly and lure fishing for large bass along the copper coast!!!!!
Been very busy with guiding and tuition since I got back from the Northwest Angling Fair in Tyrone. At the Clancy festival in Carrick on Suir I did some casting demonstrations and tuition on the local Carrick on Suir Club waters. This is a super club who are very interested in promoting fly fishing and have worked hard to provide fantastic facilities of members and day permit holders. They have a really impressive stretch of water along the River Suir.
The daytime trout fishing has been tough in the bright warm conditions but we still had lots of fish on nymphs and dries but no really big ones. Having said that wild brown trout certainly don’t have to be big to be pretty fish. Just look at the beauty we had from a local stream the other day. Remarkable colours.
On the other hand the bass fishing along the copper coast and into Tramore has been awesome over the last set of spring tides. There were large numbers of fish caught in the Tramore area during night sessions. When the weather is very warm and sea is calm night fishing over shallow sandy surf beaches can be very productive indeed. However, as a fishing guide a lot of my clients either cannot or just do not want to fish during those hours so I am faced with trying to get them onto fish in daylight during the same conditions. This means trying a lot of tactics but the big tides do help quite a bit and we had some fantastic bass recently, with several over 70cm and one over 80cm.
Adapting to the fishing situation is important and we had fish on surface lures, shallow divers and in particularly the soft plastics. Senko worms are really doing the business along with some paddle tails.
The next spring tides are not far away so I’m really looking forward to getting out there. Remember the be familiar with the bass angling regulations and practice catch and release.
On Friday evening I made the long journey from Waterford up to Strabane, Co. Tyrone to the North West Angling Fair. This was a new event on the Irish fishing fairs calendar so I wasn’t sure what to expect but I knew there were some really good people involved in the organising of it so I was quietly confident it would be a good one. It was late enough when I arrived and got checked in to the Fir Trees Hotel where I was joined by my good friend Dr. Ken Whelan who was going to be giving a series of talks with me at the fair. On Saturday morning Ken and I went down early to the Melvin Complex which was the venue for the show.
Everyone was busy setting up their stands and it was great to meet a few familiar faces on fly tyers row and the trade stands.
My good friend Shane Rodgers from Rodgers Tackle was there with his fly tying materials and Brendan Winters has a fantastic range of fishing tackle. Declan Tuffy, Stevie Moates, Roy Christie, Brian Finaly, Peter O’Reilly and many more were tying all sorts of wonderful flies.
I also saw some very informative stands manned by the Loughs Agency people.Outside there was lots of free tuition for beginners and especially youngsters.
The river was only a stones throw (and I mean this!!) from the venue and there were casters giving demonstrations down there including my good pals from Mackenzie, namely Scott Mackenzie and Andrew Toft. It was great to catch up with these guys at the fair.
The atmosphere at the fair was great with lots going on including the talks in the lecture room. Ken and I gave talks on Saturday on Seatrout fishing which were really well attended and we had lots of interest at our stand area in our courses and people were getting Ken to sign his book Nomads of the Tides.
After the fair closed, I nipped down to the river with Brian and Ken and spotted some nice wild browns rising. I tackled up with a dry olive pattern of mine and waded out. I managed to land 7 lovely trout in less than an hour and lost a few more including two about 1.5lbs. It was somewhat inevitable when I was trying to get them back across the current to the guys on the shore to get a photo. We did manage one nice video clip of a fish approximately .75lbs going back.
On Saturday night we had an excellent dinner at the hotel and chatted with some of the other contributors to the show over a pint of beer. It was clear that they really enjoyed the fair and were keen to see it continue into the future. It was more of the same on Sunday and again our salmon talks went really well. We were followed in lecture room by Stevie Munn who was talking about Dollaghan fishing. I didn’t mind the journey back on Sunday evening because the buzz of the fair was still there and the weather was great. This fair has great potential into the future and the organisers did a fantastic job for their first attempt. They deserve all the credit that goes their way.
I’ve been very busy lately with casting tuition and guiding. There is a good run of salmon at the moment but most of my guiding has been for wild river trout and a day or two on stillwaters. The reservoirs have been fishing really well.
The hard fighting rainbows give a great battle.
Still there is something about wild river browns that makes them special regardless of size.
Although when you hook up into a good one the heart races. One of my clients from Atlanta lost an 18inch brown at the net on the River Blackwater the other day. His face said it all!!
There is a lot more trout food in that river than some people realise.
I have been hearing a lot of talk lately about getting more youth involved in fishing and fly fishing. I know my local club has a youth day coming up and despite a hectic guiding schedule that weekend I will be there to help out. But there is no point talking about it, you have to get out there and do it!
This weekend I’m one of the experts at the Northwest Angling Fair in Strabane. I’m looking forward to it a lot. I’m demonstrating and giving casting advice on the Suir next weekend and on a stillwater the weekend after. And Ken Whelan and I have Seatrout fishing courses coming up in July and August. I think the August one will be a cracker so watch this space!!
Game Fishing Ireland 