My boat was kindly moved from the yard to Lough Conn for me yesterday while I was at work so today I partly repaid the debt by helping Ben to launch a boat on Lough Cullin. We like to keep a boat there for those times when we just have an hour of two to spare and can nip out the road to fly fish for trout or do some trolling for salmon. Cullin is not nearly as productive as the Conn but it is grand for a short session.
At this time of the year we would expect huge hatches of duckfly on Cullin. The muddy bottom is ideal for the midges and April is the height of the season for the buzzers on this particular lake. But I spotted precisely two tiny duckfly today in 3 hours on the lake. Maybe everything is just running a bit later than normal.
The rumour doing the rounds in the local area is that Healy’s Hotel has been bought and will reopen under new management in about 18 months. If true, this is great news for the parish of Pontoon which needs all the local business it can muster. There also seems to be some movement in the sale of the Pontoon Bridge hotel too.
There was little wind this morning and coupled with no hatch of duckfly we were left with the options of simply launching the boat or going for an hour’s trolling. Deciding to drag some metalwork around for a while, we headed off towards the bridge and get it an auld lash around the pins there. Sad to report we drew a blank but it was lovely to be out in the fresh air and to have the boat safely launched.
Claretbumbler 