Blackwater salmon

Posted on May 14, 2018 by gamefishingireland

Recent guided sessions produced some nice spring salmon from the Munster Blackwater river. This season the water levels have been quite high on our local rivers and fly fishing opportunities have been fairly limited. Luckily the weather has been improving and the rivers reached a better if not ideal fly fishing height, particularly in the upper stretches. As a consequence we managed a few very nice salmon.

My guests were using two outfits, one was a 13’7 Mackenzie Atlas rod matched with a Mackenzie Phased Density Shooting Head in Float/Sink 2 and a short leader to a White Francis fly.

The other client used a 15ft Mackenzie FX1 GRAPHENE Rod matched with a Mackenzie Float/S1 shooting head and attached to the business end was a local shrimp fly pattern called Hick’s Bug. The guys were blown away by this kit and when good fish came the were even more impressed.

So some very happy anglers and a nice tackle test was a great result. The river is coming into good order again after the latest flood so fingers crossed for some more action. 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)!!!!

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!!!!!

Erriff Salmon Course

Posted on April 28, 2016 by gamefishingireland

Last Friday evening I arrived at the wonderful Aashleagh Lodge on the Erriff Fishery that divides Galway and Mayo. The Lodge itself was stunning and I received the warmest of welcomes from the fishery manager and the staff.

Osgur, the fishery manager accompanied me on a walk from Beat 9 (near the tide) up to Beat 7. He also gave me a very comprehensive leaflet that contained descriptions of all the beats and the taking spots at various heights of water.

Just below the lodge was a bridge across the river and below this bridge was the wonderful sea pool. Above the bridge was the famous Aashleagh falls. With the good weather the scenery was simply spectacular.

When we got back to the lodge some of the 13 course participants had arrived and my colleague and fellow course instructor Ken Whelan. After a short briefing session it was early to bed for breakfast at 8am Saturday morning. Breakfast was followed by a classroom session where Ken and I explained about salmon and salmon fishing.

Then we headed down to the lawn to demonstrate some basic casts including overhead and roll casts.

Following a light lunch we headed up to beat 7 and the participants all worked on their casting with some advancing to the double spey cast.

In the evening we had a most fantastic three course meal at the lodge. My compliments to the Chef! Some participants headed to the pub and others went upstairs to watch a video about salmon. The schedule was to all meet up again for breakfast at 8.30am.I had taken some Mackenzie Atlas and Mackenzie Switch outfits with me in case anyone wanted to try them and one of the participants was so taken with the 12ft7in that he bought one for the following day!!

On Sunday morning we reinforced the tactics and casting covered the day before and also explained some useful knots etc.

After a light lunch we were back on the river with the participants all fishing away. It was great to see how well they were doing. The course ended around 4pm but participants fished on and one of the guys was unlucky not to catch a springer as he had a good follow at the sea pool. With the low water conditions this seemed to have been the likely spot and several fish were seen jumping there over the weekend.

Overall it was a great weekend and the feedback has been tremendous. It was noticeable how blown away the guests were with the facilities and the environment. Ken and I are off to Leixlip on Sunday for our match the hatch river course. We will have another weekend course later in the year on the River Slayney but this time for seatrout. It takes place in July.

Salmon Fishing Courses

Posted on March 14, 2016 by gamefishingireland

Yesterday I had a very successful stillwater trout fishing course at Ardaire Springs in Mooncoin. Luckily we had some great weather for the day.

For anyone interested in improving their salmon fishing skills I have two courses coming up. The first is a local course taking place on the Munster Blackwater in early April.

This was a very popular course last year and there are still a few places left.

The next course is a full weekend salmon courses where I have teamed up with Ken Whelan, renowned fisher, author and qualified instructor. This course takes place on the River Erriff on April 23rd and includes tuition, accommodation, meals and fishing. So far we have had an excellent response for this course.

Exceptional Salmon Course

Posted on May 18, 2015 by gamefishingireland

On May 17 we held our salmon fishing course on the beautiful Ballincurrig beat of the Ballyduff Salmon Fisheries. I was joined by Maurice Cahill (Mackenzie Pro) and Denis O’Toole (Pro Fly Tyer). Our regular top photographer came along to take more amazing photos for my blogs! We met up with the participants at the village of Ballyhooly and then headed over to beat. We got our waders on and headed off down to the river.

In the morning I explained some different fishing outfits to the guys, including: spey, switch, skagit and shooting head. The approach was to simplify the range of available tackle into matching outfits for different fishing situations.

After this I demonstrated 4 useful spey casts: single spey, double spey, snap-T and snake roll. Maurice explained some likely holding lies and we had a great informal discussion about fly selection and leader set up. Denis showed the lads different styles of salmon fly and talked about how they would behave in the water – really useful stuff.

We took a break for lunch and held a raffle for the free Mackenzie Perflex rod which was sponsored by Scott Mackenzie. The lucky winner was Cal from Bandon.

Denis did a fly tying demo and tied some cracking intruder flies on tubes. Then he gave everyone on the course some of his amazing flies to use for the evening. What a nice chap!

The guys then worked on their casting and everyone saw a good improvement in what they were doing. A few useful tips and a little confidence made a significant difference. They fished on and Frank from Dundalk had a short take not long after Damien had seen a fresh fish enter the pool below.

The course came to a close but it was great to see lots of happy anglers and get some fantastic feedback. I received several messages after the course which were all very positive. One participant wrote that: “It was a really great day, exceptional in every detail. I think the course content, the simple and effective delivery, having the opportunity to get coached on how to cast a double hander and the fly tying demonstration from Denis made the day great value for money. For myself it gave me a greater understanding of what I need to do to enjoy fishing the fly for salmon.”

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!

Fine Weather & Fine Fish

Posted on August 14, 2014 by gamefishingireland

The dry summer has continued into August in the South East with high temperatures and little rain. This fine weather is great for the beach etc but can make for some very tough fishing conditions . . . . tough but not impossible. On the trout front the rivers have been down to their bones. Still there was a rise in the evenings and this also included a rise of seatrout, particularly on the Munster Blackwater. The opportunity to catch seatrout on light tippet and small dries was not to be missed and casting pupil Peter and I had some superb fishing.

Blackwater Seatrout

Lovely Wild Brown trout

Most of our productive bass fishing had been by night using soft plastics but the tides were springing this week and the brisk wind from the land was making a nice disturbance on the water. This allowed for some decent lure fishing during the evenings.

Bass over 50cm

Soft plastics continued to work well fooling some fine sea bass.

Bass over 60cm

Salmon fishing had been really difficult. A few fish were laded in the lower Suir on fly in the early mornings but it was very difficult. The Blackwater was a similar story. Regular visitor Brian had one nice 10lbr on spinning tackle from the tidal waters but nothing on fly on this occasion.

10lb salmon

The Suir rose by 1ft on Sunday which gives very good salmon fly fishing prospects in the lower river for the coming days.

Festival Fishing

Posted on June 2, 2014 by gamefishingireland

I was delighted to be asked to some fly tying and trout fishing demos at the Clancy Brothers Festival in Carrick on Suir today. There was lots going on and a fair old crowd about enjoying the mild weather. My good friend Kuba came along and as usual took some cracking photos.

marching band

I spent the first hour and a half tying flies, concentrating on salmon and seatrout flies.

Fly tying

A few of the local fly fishermen dropped by and asked lots of interesting questions. It was great to get some nice comments on the flies on display.

Next on the agenda was a wild trout fly fishing demo. The weather was fairly bright and I knew the town waters would be very heavily fished by local fly anglers and those expert Carrick bubble & fly men. Catching wild trout here could prove tricky and there was also a very stiff downstream wind that was going to make nymphing difficult, but not impossible. I set up a nymph duo rig under an indicator and I must have got the depth just right because I managed 3 trout in the first three casts.. . . . Result!

fish on

They weren’t very large trout but welcome all the same. I’m always impressed by the beauty of these Wild Suir trout. The highlight of the evening for me was the great interest shown by the local people, especially the kids, when they saw me catching those trout. I managed 6 nice wee trout in a very short space of time proving once more how fantastic the river Suir really is. A big thanks to the organisers and everyone who dropped by to the fly tying area and fishing demo. Looking forward to next year already.

2 festival flies!

For more info on the festival click here.

Drainer Disc Flies

Posted on February 22, 2014 by gamefishingireland

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

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

Game Fishing Ireland

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Tag Archives: salmon flies

Blackwater salmon

The Year Ahead – Cautious Optimism!

Autumn Gold (and Silver!)

Erriff Salmon Course

Salmon Fishing Courses

Exceptional Salmon Course

Lessons Learned

Fine Weather & Fine Fish

Festival Fishing

Drainer Disc Flies

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