Saltwater Fly Fishing

Posted on June 6, 2022 by gamefishingireland

One of the most common queries I get is around my approach to saltwater fly fishing. So here is a quick introduction.

I use 2 set-ups for most of my saltwater fly fishing. A 9ft 5wt with full floating line. This is my go-to kit when fishing over very shallow clean ground in clear water. One reason for this is the lighter outfit is less likely to spook fish. Another is that the flies I typically use here are small, similar to the size of most trout flies. Another plus is that this outfit doubles up as a mullet rod so I can target both species at the same time.

A nice 62cm fish taken over clean ground on a shrimp pattern.

The other outfit I use is a 9ft 9wt. My personal favourite is the Mackenzie FX1 Salt rod. I have a few different lines that I use on this rod. Mostly I use a Rio Outbound Short coldwater line in intermediate and I also carry the full float in the same line (for surface flies). Another line I use is an OPST shooting head with various density tips. I find this line great for really big flies.

A fine bass taken on a baitfish pattern using the 9wt over rough ground.

The majority of the time I am using the 9wt is for casting larger flies and or fishing over rougher ground. I also use it in estuaries in channels with a strong current.

October Bass

Posted on October 16, 2017 by gamefishingireland

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!

The Year Ahead – Cautious Optimism!

Posted on March 1, 2017 by gamefishingireland

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)!!!!

October Bass on Lure and Fly

Posted on October 8, 2016 by gamefishingireland

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.

Autumn Gold (and Silver!)

Posted on October 1, 2016 by gamefishingireland

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!!!!!

All about the bass, about the bass!

Posted on June 9, 2016 by gamefishingireland

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.

All in the Hands!

Posted on October 22, 2015 by gamefishingireland

On many of our stillwaters at this time of year the fish are well acclimatized residents used to natural feeding and the water temperature is dropping steadily. In other words the fishing often gets that bit tougher. In recent weeks I have noticed rod catches dropping on our local reservoirs even though fishing continues to be good and the quality of trout is excellent.

The obvious question is why are anglers that were doing so well in the summer suddenly not catching. A few things come to mind:

are they using the wrong flies/not matching what the fish are feeding on?
are they concentrating on the wrong areas?
are they presenting the right flies at the wrong depth or speed?

Shrimp and hoglouse should be on the menu

To my mind most anglers now know the various food sources fish are likely to feeding on at various times of year. They also have a good grasp of where the fish are in their local lake. That just leaves the third possibility – they are not presenting their flies correctly. Quite often when I am guiding beginners they think that presentation is only important for dry fly fishing – MISTAKE, BIG MISTAKE! Presentation is ALWAYS important.

At this time of year resident browns often switch to feeding on snails

To cut to the chase, as the water temperature drops and hatches slow down fish are more likely to be feeding deeper in the water on slow moving creatures, e.g. shrimp, hoglouse, snails. This all seems fairly obvious but time and time again I see anglers ripping back every fly (buzzer, nymph, shrimp, etc) just as if it was a wet fly or lure. Even when I say “slow down the retrieve” it often only goes from super fast to very fast!

A slow retrieve fooled this brown trout in cold conditions

So concentrate on your retrieve, try to incorporate slow short pulls, lots of pauses and of course the lethal slow figure of eight or static retrieve (just keep in touch with the flies as they drift). Remember – it’s all in the hands! Enjoy your winter fishing.

“Spoiled for Choice” – South East Lakes Fishing Well

Posted on March 18, 2015 by gamefishingireland

I finally got around to fishing Knockaderry for the first time on St Patrick’s morning. This lake is one of my favourite fisheries and I was really looking forward to wetting a line there. The day itself started out cool but the day got warmer and by mid morning there was a great midge hatch. The sun shone and the breeze was gentle giving a lovely slow drift, ideal for buzzer fishing.

By lunchtime my car was covered in small midge. The big hatch really got the large rainbows moving and quite a number were rising and feeding on natural fly. Fishing small buzzers through the layers was the effective tactic.

There are some serious trout in this lake and the average size of the rainbows was 5 to 6lbs.

These fish will take you to the backing and I was glad I decided to fish with a 10ft 7wt and not a lighter outfit.

Ned Maher told me that Ardaire Springs also enjoyed a bumper day with the rise in temperatures. The last time I called over there I managed a fantastic 18lbs rainbow.

Looks like we are spoiled for choice for quality stocked fisheries here in the south east at the moment!

Lessons Learned

Posted on March 10, 2015 by gamefishingireland

Last Sunday I held our River Trout Fishing Course on the Blackwater River. I was joined on this course by fellow Mackenzie Pro Team member Maurice Cahill and our ace photographer Kuba Standera. On the day we met up at Ballyhooly village with all 11 participants for the course. From there we traveled over to the Ballincurrig beat which was our venue for the course. Access to the beat was a short walk from where we parked.

This is one of the nicest stretches of the river I have fished over the years.

I started off the course with a chat about tackle choice for different fishing techniques and also what might be suitable for small and large rivers in Ireland. We had a range of Mackenzie rods to use for demonstration from 9ft 5wt to 11ft3 7/8 switch rods. Maurice did a demo on dry fly fishing and another on wet fly fishing to a captivated audience! As it was still very early in the season there was little chance of anything on dries but he did get a pull on the wets.

After this I went through various nymphing tactics from short lining with heavy nymphs to long lining and using French leaders. Kuba showed everyone a range of “genuine” Polish nymphs and many gasped at the size and weight of some of the flies on display. I demonstrated some nymphing at medium range but it was obvious that this was not going to be productive with the high cold water. So I changed over to short line with heavier nymphs. Everyone was happy to see how the leader was constructed and fished.

I used an indicator and had a take within a few casts that everyone managed to see. It was a small trout but it showed how a change in tactics can produce a trout from a spot that appeared fishless shortly before this.

Once the nymph fishing was explained I then did a demo on streamer fishing. I used a 10ft 7wt Mackenzie and streamer line for this. This is an awesome rod that I often use for big lures at stillwaters so fishing a large streamer on a specialist streamer line was no problem.

One of the things that often happens with streamer fishing is that some really good locations do not allow room for a good backcast so double hauling a large streamer is out of the question. Roll casting streamers on fast sinking shooting heads is not so easy either! So I also showed everyone where a switch rod with a compact switch line with a sinking head is really useful here. I simply spey cast the streamer across using this Kit and the evidence was there for all to see.

I had one hook up on the streamer during the demo but mentioned to the participants that there was a really good piece of streamer water further up that I was leaving unfished for later. Cal headed up there after lunch with the Mackenzie outfit and sure enough he had his first ever streamer caught wild brown trout. Result. Everyone fished different techniques for the evening and there were hook ups, lost fish and one or two landed on nymphs and wets.

The weather on the day had started cold but the sun shone for the afternoon and everyone seemed to have a great time. We took a little group photo in the evening and there were lots of smiling faces. Our next course on the Blackwater will be a salmon fishing course in May. There will be tips on casting and fishing, and we also have a top Irish Pro Fly Tyer to tie a few fish catchers!

Full House

Posted on February 15, 2015 by gamefishingireland

We had a full house today for our Stillwater Trout Tactics course at Ardaire Springs. Eight hardy souls were at the fishery bright and early this morning and we set about going through various techniques in theory in the tackle lodge. Before lunch I demonstrated a number of fishing techniques using the 9ft 6wt, 10ft 7wt and 11ft 5/6 Mackenzie Rods. I managed to catch 4 nice rainbows during the demonstration session which was very pleasing. The day turned cooler but we were not deterred as Ned had prepared burgers and sausages. After lunch the participants tackled up and tried out some of the techniques they had learned.

Some cracking fish were caught on dries:

Bloodworms:

Wets:

And Lures:

A massive well done to all. I hadn’t even made it home and I had received positive feedback by text from some participants which really made my day. Our next course is our River Trout course on March 8th.

Game Fishing Ireland

Expert guiding and fly casting tuition

Tag Archives: County Waterford

Saltwater Fly Fishing

October Bass

The Year Ahead – Cautious Optimism!

October Bass on Lure and Fly

Autumn Gold (and Silver!)

All about the bass, about the bass!

All in the Hands!

“Spoiled for Choice” – South East Lakes Fishing Well

Lessons Learned

Full House

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