River Erne

For the past two or three years I have been meaning to fish the Erne, either the upper lough, the lower lough or the river. It is such a huge fishery I found it a bit daunting, and because it is a bit of a journey up there I wouldn’t have the opportunity to make lots of trips to get to know the system. Where would the fish be? What bait to use? How do you access the banks? Somehow there was always some reason not to make the two and half hour trip but I finally plucked up the courage and pointed the old Ford towards the border today.

A bit of geography first. All my life I have travelled between Castlebar and Enniskillen on the same road, the N5 to Charlestown, the N17 to Collooney, the N4 to Sligo and then the N16/A4 to Enniskillen. I know the road like the back of my hand. Since I would be hitting Sligo at the height of the rush hour today, I decided at the last minute to take the roads across country from Collooney to Manorhamilton and then to my destination. On the map this looks a bit shorter and bypasses the traffic in Sligo town. Do not, under any circumstances EVER take this ‘short cut’! It was a maze of the twisting narrow roads that took me ages to negotiate. I made it at last and arrived late, but in one piece.

Of course I had done a small bit of research beforehand. Initial thoughts were the Trory shore on the lower lough looked like a good bet but with the wind forecast to be blowing strongly from the west I thought it might be a bit rough on that exposed west facing shore. Instead, I opted for a stretch on the river between the two loughs. This was a bold move on my part as I am generally useless when coarse fishing on flowing water. Stick me on a stand on the edge of a lough or canal towpath and I can make decent fist of float fishing, but on a banks of a deep, wide, flowing river and I seem to go to pieces. Locating the fish is always my problem, I never seem to be able to find a shoal, let alone keep the fish feeding in front of me. Never-the-less, I wanted to try out the Erne and attempt to catch some of its legendary hybrids and roach. We have all seen the videos or read the match reports from the erne where huge bags of quality fish are not uncommon. In the Irish midlands a one pound hybrid is a good fish, but that would be regarded as a tiddler north of the border.

I brought one feeder rod and one float rod, presuming I’d fish the feeder. Deep flowing water could suit the pole angler but that is not my kind of fishing, so I had looked out my heaviest feeders and bigger reel. As it turned out, all of that research and planning went straight into the bin once I arrived in the town. I found a floating pontoon jetty I could fish from in the middle of the town and when I plumbed it I found I could fish a waggler in 12 feet of water off the very end of the pontoon. There was lots of traffic on the river, but it was quiet on the jetty and I had the place to myself for the whole session. As you can see from the thumbnail at the top this is a lovely spot. For a river novice like me, fishing into a back water out of the main flow was a perfect introduction to this mighty river.

After lugging all the gear down from where the car was parked I set about feeding the swim in front of me as the sun peeked out from between the clouds above. Three good sized balls of ground bait plus a handful of maggots went in while I made final adjustments to the float so it fished hard on the bottom. I was using 5 pound mono main line to a 4 pound hook length under a 6BB waggler with bulk shot at the connection. Hook was a size 12 spade end and I fished with 3/4 maggots most of the time, giving the worm a try for a change some casts. The river bed was fairly level but it deepened under the jetty. Happy I was ready, the first few casts were unproductive, but then a solid bite led to a nice roach coming to hand. At least I had not blanked. There was a flurry of activity with roach, hybrids and perch all coming to hand and a couple of those hybrids requiring the use of the net.

All was going just dandy until the rain came. The heavens opened and a deluge fell on this exposed angler. For about 30 minutes it absolutely lashed down, soaking everything and the cold water finding its way inside my waterproofs. Stoically, I fished though the monsoon, the pool of water inside my waterproof trousers causing more than a little discomfort in the nether regions. I wouldn’t mind, but the fish stopped biting during the rain, so I sat it out in soggy silence. Finally, it eased off to a steady drizzle and the fish became active once again.

First to nibble my maggots was a perch, followed by another, and then another. None of the trio were very big, but soon after I started to hit hybrids of about a pound. They eased off and the roach came back on the scene, accompanied by a couple of skimmers (one large and one tiny). It occurred to me that I had not been taking any photos, so I vowed to snap the next one I landed. Then the rain came on again! This time the fish didn’t seem to mind and I was kept busy with a mix of roach and hybrids in the piddling rain.

The rain/dry/rain/sun/rain thing kept up for the whole session. Just when I began to dry off a bit the heavens would open again and drench me once more. I spend a big chunk of my life outdoors so getting wet doesn’t put me up nor down. I did manage to snap a couple of fish in the net but much better ones were slipped straight back into the water as it was raining so heavily at the time. While there were some decent hybrids, none of them would be much over a pound in weight.

By 3pm I was beginning to tire. Looking over my shoulder I could see heavy black clouds building for yet another down pour, and so I decided to call it a day. Two journeys back to the car with all the sopping wet gear and a quick change into dry clothes were accomplished before the first drops fell. Once home I decanted it all from the car and as I write most of my tackle is drying in front of the fire (I am planning a short session tomorrow so I want everything dried out). I have mixed feeling about today. On the one hand I caught a few fish on a river I have never wet a line in before, so that is good. The final tally was a round dozen roach, 15 hybrids between half and one pound in weight, 11 small perch and a pair of skimmers, making a grand total of forty fish in just under five hours fishing. Being negative about it, I am a bit disappointed there were no bigger fish in my catch. I’ve read about huge shoals of BIG hybrids in the Erne system and roach between one and two pounds are often described as ‘common’. Today I could not find these leviathans, but both lakes and the connecting river are a huge system and with no local knowledge it was always going to be a bit of a lottery trying to find the big guys.

The question is would I go back? The journey is long, and therefore expensive with the price of petrol these days. The Erne is never going to be somewhere I fish a lot, but I do want to learn more about it and I shall return for another tilt at it, but maybe pick a somewhat drier day the next time!