Acres and Acres

It stopped raining this morning. Given that it has been pissing down for days on end this was big news. All my local rivers are over their banks, the loughs are full to overflowing and still rising. The forecast was for the rain to return by 4pm, so there was a wee window of opportunity to poke my nose outside without getting drowned. I figured I would try a new lough.

Lough Allen is part of the Shannon system. A large body of water covering over 7,000 acres, it lies almost entirely in Leitrim with a tiny bit of it in Roscommon. If you think of an inverted triangle, that is how Lough Allen looks on the map with the village of Drumshanbo at the narrow southern tip. While it does hold a few trout, it is predominately a pike fishery with a good head of roach in it too. So off I went, under a blazing morning sun to see if I could catch some silvers. By the time I had reached Carrick-on-Shannon the bright start to the day had morphed into low grey clouds with the ominous threat of more rain in the wind. I had decided to look for somewhere to fish on the east shore, based on nothing really, just it looked as good as any other bit of the lake on google maps.

The R207 road took me north until I found Cleighran More pier, a floating mooring for cruisers to tie up to. On this particular day there were no shiny, expensive boats tied up, so I had the whole of the ‘Tee’ shaped mooring to pick from. Selecting a random spot I set up the float rod and plumbed up to find a healthy 11 feet of very dirty brown water two rod lengths out. Lacking any ground bait, I loose fed heavily with casters and maggots, then settled down to await the first bite. You may have noted that I was missing a few of my usual items of tackle. You see works on the house are still ongoing, and the contents of Helen’s studio had migrated into the room where my fishing gear lives while the studio is being renovated. When sorting out gear for today I quickly gave up looking for ground bait, my feeder rods and even my coarse fishing tackle bag, making do with one float rod and a small rucksack of odds and ends I managed to cobble together.

While the scenery was lovely, the air generally dry (apart from a couple of light showers) and the sense of solitude was relaxing, there was one thing missing – fish. I stuck it out for over two hours without registering a single bite. I tried dropping hook size and hook length line to only 2 pounds. I went the other way, and tried a size 12 with a bunch of red maggots. I fed hard, hurling in maggots and casters in an attempt to attract any passing roach. Nothing worked. I am not overly upset by this failure, these big Irish loughs are tough venues and finding the fish is the biggest problem of all. Today the roach were in another part of the 7000 odd acres and not anywhere little old me on the end of the floating pontoon. I packed up and sat in the car trying to decided what to do next.

I couldn’t make up my mind where to try next. The lack of any feeder tackle made things harder as the deep loughs were now out of the question. I set off southwards, still with no idea where I was going. I drove through Drumshanbo and took the Leitrim Village road for no particular reason. Then, on the right I saw Acres Lough and on a whim I swung the old Toyota into the handy car park next to the water. Acres is a small lough which has been developed for the boating brigade. A fine mooring pontoon reaches out into the bowl shaped lough and there is a good spot to fish for bream near the end of that structure. But I had parked a bit away from the pontoon, next to a timber fishing stand. What the hell, I will give it a lash here. Sure, it can’t be any worse than Lough Allen! And so out came the float rod and my meagre kit once more and I set up under an ever darkening sky sometime around 1pm.

Casters and maggots were liberally tossed in and I plumbed up to find a somewhat shallow three feet of water in my chosen swim. A small crystal waggler float, bulk shot at the hook link and a size 14 spade end to 4 pound double strength seemed about right. I have fished Acres before and caught mainly skimmers, so I was sort of expecting the same this time. A few casts in, the float bobbed and I struck into a nice wee hybrid, soon followed by three roach. All good so far but then the tiny rudd appeared and every cast was the same for a while, a four or five inch rudd would snaffle my bait. This was tiresome work but thankfully the rudd dispersed and some roach took their place. Not the biggest roach I have ever caught but they were in terrific condition and a delight to catch. Once the float ducked and I struck but the hook length came in cleanly severed. Hmmm, looked like a pike to me. I tied on a new hook link and carried on whipping out the roach who had now been joined by some small skimmers. Yes, I know it was just silvers but hey, I was enjoying myself.

Another bite, another hook up but this one was a little bit heavier and the rod bent more than usual. What was this then? It stayed deep right up until it was at the net, a jack pike! It had swallowed the maggots fair and square and I had to fiddle about to get the hook out. One very skinny jack was soon back in the water and I resumed operations. The bites were slowing down now and I was looking over my shoulder at a sky which was darkening by the minute. More roach, the best of which might have made 8 ounces, a couple of nice hybrids and a steady flow of skimmers kept me busy before a second pike grabbed my hook. This one was a different proposition altogether and much thrashing on the top of the water ensued, accompanied by screaming reel noises and a horribly bent light float rod. He bit through the fine line of course, but I got a good look at the fish before it sank out of view. It was somewhere between 8 and 10 pounds I reckon. The first spots of rain began to fall soon after that kerfuffle and it was time to pack up and head home.

As I was packing the gear into the car a chap of roughly my age wandered over to ask if I had caught much. We chatted about fishing, me with my weird Scottish/Irish twang and he in broad Aussie. He was on holiday, touring Ireland because his wife had Irish roots. His mother was from Scotland though, and when I explained I was originally from Aberdeen he said that was the city his mother came from. Odd how two guys from the opposite sides of the world but had mothers from Aberdeen met on the shore of a wee lough in the west of Ireland. Light rain in Leitrim had turned to full on monsoon by the time I was closing in on Castlebar and this wet weather is due to stay with us for the rest of the week.

I got what I deserved really, I had set off in the morning with no clear plan or idea of where I would fish, with only a fraction of the tackle I normally use and no back up plan if things did go sideways. On the other hand, I enjoyed my time on Lough Allen despite the lack of fish; it looks like the kind of place which holds good roach and I’ll be back there again to try a different shore. Acres was OK but I was lazy in not going round to the pontoon and the drop off where the bigger fish tend to congregate. What about those pike? One bit me off, then I landed what is the skinniest jack I have ever caught, then the better one chewed through my hook length. Three pike either taking the maggots or grabbing a silver I had hooked. Maybe Acres would be worth a try specifically for pike over the winter?

I am happy with the progress of my ailing left arm. Those nasty, jagged pains which dogged me all summer have gone and I am left with an occasional numbness, but nothing worse. Now I need to exercise to rebuild lost muscle in the arm. God willing, I’ll be fighting for for the 2026 season.