Clare Lake

I have written elsewhere about the fish kill on Clare Lake in Claremorris and the devastating effect it had on the fishing. It was already a fishery under pressure due to poaching, but the effluent spill finished it off and the five angling stands have been deserted ever since the foul waste water entered the lake in the spring of 2024. My question today was had the fish begun to return yet?

This small lake sits at the heart of a much loved park where locals and visitors enjoy walking, cycling and running around the circular pathway. Dogs are walked, children play on the grassy areas and wildlife has a small space to live. It is an example of how a forgotten and abused patch of land on the edge of a town can be turned into a wonderful amenity for all. A similar scheme in Castlebar has also been a huge success, where Lough Lannagh had a path built around it, the work incorporating a substantial bridge and a play park for the kiddies. I’m not one to lavish praise on the Irish government or local authorities, but I have to say in both cases the parks in Castlebar and Claremorris have greatly added to the quality of life for local residents.

Clare Lake used to be home to a head of bream, some small perch and a few pike. With nearly a thousand fish killed, it seems unlikely many were left alive in such a small water. The effluent removed the oxygen from the water and with very low flow there would have been no rapid turn over of fresh water coming in, so pretty much everything was suffocated. Given that scenario, I was curious if fish from the adjoining Mayfield lake had managed to repopulate Clare as they are linked by a short stream. This is a tiny rivulet, about 5 feet wide and only a few inches deep. Shaded by dense reeds for most of its roughly 300 yard length, I thought it possible that bream and perch would have travelled downstream in winter floods in late 2024 and 2025, meaning there might be a few in Clare Lake now. Added to this was the large population of roach which are present in Mayfield these days. Like so many other Irish waterways the roach appeared out of nowhere and rapidly expanded to the point where they seem to be the dominant species. I was confident that if nothing else, roach and hybrids would have dropped down to Clare Lake. So the plan for today was a short session on Clare Lake and if I blanked I could hop up to Mayfield for an hour there.

There was no mad panic to get going this morning, I sorted out a few bits, fed the cats and then myself, loaded up the purple Focus and was on the road about 9.30am. As always, a few dog walker’s cars were in the car park when I arrived and I quickly togged up in waterproofs and wellies. It’s only a short walk to the lake where five angling stands are spaced around the perimeter. With a strengthening west wind I opted for the first stand on the west bank as the tall trees behind me would give me a nice bit of shelter. The first thing I noticed was the stands themselves, the rickety old wooden ones have all been replaced with floating pontoons. As far as I can make out these were in place just before the pollution killed off the fish, so that can’t have had much use. An empty Heineken bottle lying on my stand suggested these pontoons are serving other purposes than just coarse fishing!

The stand was a fine affair, broad and stable. I set up the old ABU 13 foot match rod, anticipating deep water like there is in Mayfield Lake. Not for the first time in this life I was wrong, and plumbing up showed just over 6 feet of water in front of me. Settling back on the seatbox I surveyed my surroundings. Extensive lily pad beds fanned out on both sides of the stand, even reaching the small island over to my right. Weed growth was abundant but not intrusive and would be able to fish without too much hindrance from the green stuff for the whole session. I was using five pound mainline to a four pound hook length and a size 16 barbless hook. Bait was maggots (of course), 2 or 3 on the small hook. On the very first cast my float slowly dipped and I struck into a lovely roach of about 5 ounces. Not the biggest roach I’ll grant you, but what struck me was the perfect condition the wee fish was in. I missed another bite on the next cast then it all went quiet for about ten minutes. The next fish was a nice skimmer of about 10 ounces, and it was quickly followed by another roach. And so it went on…

This was not one of those hectic sessions where it was all action. Instead there were gaps between bites and on three occasions much longer pauses which I presume were due to pike in the swim. Out in the middle I could see heavy swirls and the odd splash, as well as small fish leaping to try and escape a predator. I fished on, the weather constantly changing between sun and clouds, rain and warm dry winds. The rest of the lake was ruffled by that west wind, but here in my little nook I was granted flat calm conditions, perfect for waggler fishing. I tried lifting the hook off the bottom for a few casts, but all that garnered was one small roach, so I soon went back to fishing slightly over depth and began catching again. The one big drawback on this lake, as with Mayfield, is the ducks. Mallards on both lakes obviously regard any humans as as source of food and they pestered me the whole time I was fishing. It was distracting trying to watch out for the ducks instead of concentrating on my float, but there was not a lot I could do about it.

One unexpected aspect of the day was the near total lack of perch. I caught one tiny wee striper, suggesting there were not that many in this body of water. That would be odd as Mayfield is full of small perch. Given how voracious perch are I had expected to catch a few if they were there today, but no, just one token perch for three hours fishing. By the time I had packed up just after 1pm I had landed 12 skimmers between a half and three-quarters of a pound. Eleven beautiful roach, all pretty much identical in size and none weighing more than 6 ounces came to hand. A solitary hybrid and that baby perch rounded off the catch, for a grand total of 25 fish for the session. The overall impression of Clare Lake is that the fishery is recovering well after the disaster in 2024. I felt there was a reasonable, but not huge stock of roach and skimmers, certainly enough to tempt me back there again. The lack of bigger fish is understandable and all we can is hope the current stock survive and grow over the coming years.