Tag Archives: fly fishing ireland

A Day on the Water with Ken Whelan

Posted on by

I was privileged to spend a day on Carrigavantry Reservoir with renowned fisheries scientist Dr Ken Whelan. This was Ken’s first visit to the Waterford Reservoir but I doubt it will be his last. It was a very enjoyable and rewarding experience to spend some time with Ken who has such an in depth knowledge of fisheries related matters. Ken had his aquatic insect collecting kit with him and we tried several areas of the lake to see what food sources were available for the trout.

IMG_3886

Ken was very impressed with the rich diet of food available for the trout at this lake and it was no surprise to him that the fish are always in such excellent condition. We found olive nymphs, bloodworms, buzzers, various caddis, damsel nymphs, dragonflies, beetles, shrimps, water boatment etc in the lake.

Dragonfly Nymph

Dragonfly Nymph

Water Boatman (moulting)

Water Boatman (moulting)

After the “science bit” I took Ken out fishing on the lake for a while. We caught a few overwintered rainbows that were feeding subsurface.

Rainbow CV April 2014

I suggested to Ken we change tactics and try for some of the larger brown trout present in the fishery. Conditions were good and I was confident as to where the fish might be. After a little searching Ken hooked into into something very large. After a superb fight I netted a MONSTER brown trout for him. He measured the length (64cm) and girth (40cm) of the fish which we estimated at 7.5lbs to 8lbs weight. He then released the magnificent fish for some lucky angler to catch another day.

Brown 2 April 2014

The wind picked up and we tried one last drift before I had to leave and as it seemed to be our lucky day as Ken managed another fine brown trout of around 5.5lbs.

Brown 3 small April 2014

A fantastic end to a fantastic day. Once again the Waterford reservoirs lived up to their excellent reputation. Looking forward to some more fishing adventures with Ken later in the season.

Monsters on the Move

Posted on by

The MONSTER Waterford browns have been active in the last two weeks. We have had some cracking sessions on both Carrigavantry and Knockaderry. With the warmer weather hatches have increased resulting in good surface activity on the calmer days. Expect to see black and grey buzzers hatching on the mild calm days and lake olives on the less pleasant days. The first of the damsel nymphs are also making an appearance on the trouts diet. On my last trip to Knockaderry I had some fine brown trout on both wet fly and on buzzer.

IMG_3834

IMG_3849

Carrigavantry also fished very well to light buzzers and dries. I had two days there recently taking Kuba and Martin out on different occassions. Kuba managed some lovely browns on his trip.

IMGP9302s

Martin and I landed a mixture of rainbows and browns on dry flies when I took him out.

Facebook-20140421-070155

Drowes Salmon Fishing Workshop

Posted on by

Drowes salmon fishing workshop went great last weekend.Click on the presentation below to get the full review.

drowes Presentation2

What a team!

What a team!

Mighty Mike

Posted on by

Mike from Clonmel joined the Waterford Fly Fishing Club for this year and while he had been catching some quality trout he was keen to learn the nuances of buzzer fishing, particularly with the large browns that were moving in the lakes already this season. So we arranged to meet up at Carrigavantry on a day with a nice light southerly wind. Conditions were looking good for some buzzer fishing and there was a reasonable amount of small buzzer hatching too. Once we were on the lake I was showing Mike how I fish buzzers on these lakes when WHAM! I was into a serious trout. It turned out to be a superb brownie. Just what we were after.

IMG_3816

After a quick photo the trout was released back into the lake. A great start but now to get Mike into them! It took a little while and a few missed takes and then Mike nailed one. It was as pretty a brown as you could hope to catch in the lake and it was really big too.

IMG_3823

Mike continued to catch and release a few more smaller fish.

IMG_3825

IMG_3822

And he finished off his session with another large brown. Needless to say he was a happy angler at the end of the session.

IMG_3818

Drainer Disc Flies

Posted on by

Have put drainer discs on a few of the tube flies I tied recently.  I really like the look of these and the idea is that water can pass through the disc and add extra movement to the wing of the fly.  If the rivers ever drop to fly fishing level I am keen to give them a try.  There are available in lots of colours including metallic finish (which I am waiting to get my hands on).  Below is my Mojo tube fly with a pink drainer added to the front.

Mojo Tube

Mojo Tube

Here is a black drainer on an early season tube fly.

turbo 2

The Prince Shrimp

Posted on by
Prince Shrimp

Prince Shrimp

Black flies such as the Stoats Tail, Black Bear Green Butt and Black Shrimp all work very well on the Munster Blackwater river.    I devised the Prince Shrimp a while back when the only fly working in low clear water was the Black Shrimp.    The Prince Shrimp also has a tail of black golden pheasant.

IMG_3721

It has a glow bright lime green tag and some very dark claret boar bristles in the tail.  The rear body is black floss ribbed with oval silver.  The mid hackle is dyed red badger.

IMG_3706

The Prince Shrimp has a front body of UV Neon Silver straggle.  The roof is a pair of dyed red jungle cock feathers.  The fly is finished with a front hackle of cream badger.

IMG_3707

Lough Bumbles

Posted on by

Tied up a few new bumbles to try on Lough Corrib this March.  The bumble is a great top dropper fly in a wave.

IMG_3651

For these flies I have decided to use black, claret and reds.  A few trigger points with fluorescent tags, holographic tails and jungle cock cheeks will hopefully draw the fish.

IMG_3649

The most likely fly to hatch in late March is the duckfly (a black midge) so these bumbles are tied on standard wet fly hooks in size 12 and 14.  You don’t have to tie all your bumbles really bushy.  You can tie some a little sparser for calmer conditions

IMG_3652

Looking forward to giving some of these a try.

IMG_3658

Snakes but No Ladders!

Posted on by

Dave from Waterford Angling is going to fishing in New Zealand later this season so asked me to tie up a few snake flies for him to try on his trip.  The first pattern I opted for was a Black Sculpin Helmet.  The Helmet should add weight and black is a great colour for browns.

IMG_3530

The next pattern will hopefully work for him on the lakes there.  It uses White Barred Rabbit, bright braid and has bead chain eyes.

IMG_3532

I couldn’t send him off to do any streamer fishing without flies in brown and olive.  These are always great colours. I decided not to add weight on these ones so Dave can let his streamer line pull them down.  I did add realistic eyes though.

IMG_3534

IMG_3536

While I had the materials out I got to thinking about these flies and that the big attraction of them to trout has got to be their movement in the water.  However, when fishing on stocked lakes these flies can work well fished slowly. In this case what I wanted though was a bit more body to the fly and a splash of colour without taking away any movement.  So I came up with this variation.  Trials start soon  . . . .so watch this space!

Snake Mk II

Snake Mk II

Final Fling of 2013!

Posted on by

Earlier in the week Kuba contacted me asking if I would like to end the season with a days fishing on Ardaire Springs.  Fishing on New Years Eve – of course!  It was the final chance of 2013 to ‘fling a fly’ into the water.  We arrived at the fishery at 9am and Krysztof, a friend of Kuba’s was there waiting.  I opted to set both my 10 ft Hardy rods – one with a floater and one with a sinking line.

2rods

I put a spare spool for my Greys reel holding a 0.5ips Intermediate line into my pocket – just in case.  The lake was flat calm with not much surface activity.  The first hour or two were action packed for me with a lot of fish on a static bloodworm.

jasbow

The wind picked up and there were periods of torrential rain.  I continued to pick up a few fish as did Martin who I have met at Ardaire on a few occasions now.  Kuba and Krysztof had a few takes on lures but not lots of fish.

krisbow

We took a break for lunch and I met some of the anglers that will be participating in my Stillwater course at Ardaire in February.  Really nice people. This course is now full but there are still a few spaces on the March course.  Later in the afternoon the strong wind and heavy rain moved off but air temperatures dropped.  The odd fish was still falling to nymphs fished really slowly.

netting

I decided to try a black lure on the 7wt and it paid off.  Kuba wasn’t having a lot of success so I gave him a large streamer fly to try.  It was a pattern that had caught a lot of trout for me and anglers I guided on the Rivers Nire and Suir.  Third cast and he caught – result!

kubabow

Even as the light began to fade away and the year came to a close there were still a few fish biting.

fading

Not as many large fish as some previous trips to this fishery but fantastic to be fishing on New Years Eve and really looking forward to 2014.  Have to mention that the fish were in superb condition too.

colourbow

2013 – A Review – Part 2

Posted on by

May

By May the fly fishing season had really taken off.  Another trip to Lough Corrib for the Mayfly (although this was a bit patchy) produced some nice trout.

Corrib brace

Corrib brace

Fishing Awareness Day took place at Carrigavantry Reservoir.  Days like this are really important to get youth into our sport.

2013-05-18 15.22.36

A highlight of the day was the entomology workshop by Willie and Martin.

2013-05-18 13.10.11

And the Waterford Reservoirs continued to produce quality trout to buzzers.

June

It was a case of more of the same in June with the arrival of:

Good hatches on the Suir and its tributaries.

2013-06-16 16.05.34

Grilse and seatrout in the Munster Blackwater.

2013-06-19 11.23.07

And Bass (and bass anglers!) in Dungarvan Harbour

2013-06-24 13.00.49

July

In July the reservoir trout turned their attention to Caddis.

2013-07-03 12.15.23

I took part in the Charity Open Day at Ballyduff Bridge that raised a lot of money for the Crumlin Childrens Hospital.

2013-07-06 11.11.17

And helped out a few other associations with casting demonstrations on the Blackwater and Slayney.  It was around this time that I decided to establish Game Fishing Ireland as a an independent local business guiding anglers in the area for:

trout

2013-07-31 09.20.23

salmon

2013-07-26 16.54.56

and sea bass.

2013-07-09 10.01.592013-07-23 20.51.47

August

August was a busy month with tuition and guiding starting to take off.

I stocked up on some saltwater flies.

2013-08-03 11.50.38

And the bass fishing was tough but rewarding.

2013-08-18 17.10.56