Tag Archives: wild brown trout

Savage Fishing

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The local reservoirs have been fishing well lately.  Today was another great example when Wayne who has returned to Ireland from Australia had a super session on Carrigavantry.  The fishing was quiet in the morning but fish were moving.  I suggested a few tactical changes and after lunch he was just slamming the resident bows on dries.

fish on

Fish on

These were not easy fish to fool but when they did hit the takes were just SAVAGE!

A quality bow.

A quality bow.

We even managed a few double hook ups which came as a surprise to Wayne as earlier in the day a lot of these fish were not interested in his offerings.

One each safely in the net

One each safely in the net

It was very pleasing to see that Wayne is a fan of catch and release.  He rarely ever keeps a trout.  One trout that we spooned was his bag limit for the day.

CPR (Catch Photo Release)

CPR (Catch Photo Release)

 

Festival Fishing

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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

marching band

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

Fly tying

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.

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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

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!

2 festival flies!

For more info on the festival click here.

Monsters on the Move

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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.

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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.

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

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Mighty Mike

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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.

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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.

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

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

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Corrib Duckfly Weekend 2014

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We spent the weekend on Lough Corrib. As usual we stayed in Grasshopper Cottage, Dooros.  For us, this is an ideal guesthouse, overlooking the lake, and where the owner knows his fishing on the Lough. It is also just over the road from where our good friend Tom Sullivan lives. He is always a great help to us when we go to Corrib. We like fishing around Cornamona, you can generally find a sheltered bay somewhere!

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The start of the weekend was horrible weatherwise, bitterly cold and strong winds. We knew from last year that with little duckfly hatching in such conditions the fish might be feeding on hoglouse.

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This proved to be the case as is evident from the photo above, and we caught on dabblers and hoglouse patterns. 

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The Sage One 7wt performed great for pulling wets. I think the 6wt would be an ideal “all round” rod.

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The forecast was much better for Sunday – warmer weather, light winds, and no rain.  Time to change tactics.  We set up the 7wts with smaller wets (duckfly emergers). The fast intermediate lines were replaced with slow intermediates and hover lines.  On the Sage One 5wt it was a full floater and buzzers.  I also prepared a leader with 2 CDC dry duckfly patterns in case there was a good rise.

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Conditions were very good and a lot of fly hatched. We caught on wets and buzzers.

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After lunch the lake went calm and we spotted trout rising in one corner of a bay.  We switched from buzzers to dries.  I hooked one trout on a shuttlecock fly but failed to land it. It was a good days fishing where we kept two trout that we had spooned.  They had been feeding on buzzers rather than hoglouse.

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Lessons learned:
– there is no guarantee of good conditions in March so be prepared for tough weather and fishing
– you have to adapt to the conditions and what the trout are likely to be feeding on
– when the conditions are good the potential for great fishing is certainly there
– make sure your digital camera is properly charged for the weekend so that you don’t have to use your phone (oops!)
We will back again around the same time next year. Hopefully we get a full weekend of good weather.