The horrendous cost of petrol has clipped my wings when it comes to travels with fishing rods this autumn. Some of my planned trips to far flung corners of Ireland have been shelved and even some venues within a couple of hours drive were just to expensive for me to undertake. However, my tiny pot of disposable income did stretch enough for one more trip to Enniskillen and the fabled river Erne this week. Readers may recall I fished in the town back in mid-August, and while I did catch a few I felt I should have done better, so was keen to give it one more try. Much of the fishing on the big river requires pre-baiting and heavy gear to cope with strong flows, but this being a short session I returned to the Ardhowen marina where I could fish using my normal tackle and still expect to catch some silvers.
Rising in County Cavan, the Erne empties into the Atlantic ocean at Ballyshannon in County Donegal after passing through loughs Gowna, Oughter, and then Upper Lough Erne and Lower Lough Erne. It used to be a prolific salmon river but the building of the dam at Assaroe all but wiped out that run. A totally inadequate fish pass was built but the sad fact is only a handful of salmon manage to spawn in the Erne these days. The reservoir created behind the huge concrete barricade is a good spot for big pike and you can get a permit to fish there from the ESB. With the salmon gone, the Erne system gradually built a reputation as a fantastic coarse fishery with good stocks of roach, bream and hybrids to impressive sizes.
I set off in good time but the traffic ground to a halt before Sligo town and I spent a frustrating hour trapped in stationary queues. Why it was so bad was not obvious, I drive through Sligo fairly often and I have never seen it so congested. Perhaps there was a minor accident and it had been cleared by the time I got through, but anyway a chunk of my fishing time had been eroded sitting in the fumes on the N4 that morning. Once through the town the road was quiet and I swept across the border at Belcoo and pressed on to the town on the island in Fermanagh.
I have to confess there was an additional motivation for heading across the border, a visit to Fishing Tackle and Bait, the angling emporium on the Sligo Road in Enniskillen. Yes, I could have ordered the bits I wanted online but I enjoy poking about in tackle shops much more than clicking ‘buy now’ boxes on a web page. There were no major purchases, just a few small items which I had either run out of or were required for my new whip. Bolo style floats, olivettes, new line, silicon tubing and rig winders made up the bulk of the spend. Only an iron will and a sadly depleted wallet prevented further excessive piscatorial consumerism on my part. From the shop I drove through the town to the very handy car park at the marina and from there it was only a short walk to the floating pontoons.
During the summer many marinas and wharfs are busy with the boating fraternity, but by October the sleek white cruisers are tied up or have been lifted out of the water, and only the die hard live on owners remain. These are usually interesting individuals who have stories to tell if you can engage them in conversation. In general though, the frosted pontoons are devoid of life until Easter comes around and the boaters appear again as if my magic.
The whip was in the car and now I had all the little bits required to set it up, but I decided not to waste time on the setting up today and fished with a waggler instead. The first thing that struck me was the water – it was very high and absolutely filthy. Dead reed, leaves and general rubbish floated on top of the water, but worse were the rafts of algae, noxious looking green stuff all around the pontoons. I can’t say this inspired much confidence in me, but I was here now so I had to make the best of it. A line at roughly three rod lengths out was about 12 feet deep, so I fed that with ground bait (Sensas 3000 black lake with some castors and corn added), then commenced fishing with a size 14 barbless under a 3BB waggler and 3 or 4 red maggots on the hook.
Barbed or barbless hooks? Since taking up coarse fishing this has been a question which has caused me much soul searching. To go back to the very start of my coarse angling journey, I bought lots of different hooks in various sizes and designs. The whole sport seemed to be utterly confusing to me and so I covered all the bases and purchased hooks from size 4 down to 24, some were eyed and others spade ends. Coming from a fly fishing background I started out using eyed, barbed hooks and they worked just fine when it came to hooking and holding fish, but not so good when unhooking them. I switched to barbless styles and did notice I was losing a few more fish than before. A period of trial ensued and I finally settled on using barbless for most of my fishing, but mirco-barbed hooks when targeting bigger fish. At the same time I moved over to spade end hooks for all my smaller sizes as I think they align better with the line and are generally better at hooking than eyed hooks. I overcome the issue of worms wriggling off a barbless hook by tipping it with either a maggot or a tiny sliver of brown elastic cut from a rubber band.
On the third cast the float dipped and I felt a decent weight on the end. An utterly gorgeous roach of about 10 ounces came to hand. I admired the little beauty and popped it back in the fetid water, only then thinking that I should have taken a photo of my catch. Ah well, another one will come along soon I mused, and sure enough a few minutes later I caught a near identical roach. Lining it up in my left hand, I was fumbling about with my mobile to take the perfect snap when the fish bucked and leapt from my grasp, landed on the pontoon and flip-flopped back over the edge and was gone. Damn! 20 minutes elapsed before a slow draw on the waggler signalled the next action and I wound in – a sock! So, instead of a photo of those glittering, fin perfect roach I present to you someone’s discarded sock which by the look of it had been on the bottom of the Erne for some considerable time.
Always ready with an excuse, I will testify that conditions were far from ideal on Monday. The river was high and moving fast in the main current, but even where I was in a quiet backwater there was a strong undercurrent which pulled my tackle from left to right, while the strengthening wind blew from right to left. The dirty water was a huge factor too in my estimation and bites were few and far between for the first three hours. A change to worm brought me some success with the local perch population, including a pair that would have tipped the scales at over the magical pound mark (see below).
By 2pm I had landed only 6 perch and those two fine roach from the morning and things were looking grim. Clouds were thickening and growing darker, threatening rain before too long. An auld lad, walking his lovely black spaniel, came over for a chat and we talked about fishing for a while. He used to fish lough Melvin and holidayed in Scotland years ago where he fished the river Moriston. As anglers do, we swapped tales of great fish landed and lost and how the fishing had been reduced to nothing over the years. It is always a pleasure to meet fellow anglers and time spent chatting with this gent was a joy. He headed off before the rain came and I returned to my business in hand.
Firstly, I made up and fed more ground bait into the swim, then adjusted the float to lift the hook a few inches off the bottom. After that, it was a case of concentrating hard on hitting the right line and fishing each cast as if it was my last. A roach obliged, then another. Not big ones, but on a hard day I’ll accept fish of any size. I kept this up until the drops started to fall, small and nearly inconsequential to begin with but I could see the heavier stuff was on the horizon. Enough for one day, I packed up in haste and toddled back to the car and made it before I was too wet. The long road home took a couple of hours but at least Sligo was not as bad as on the way up to Enniskillen that morning. By the time I packed it in I had landed 15 roach and 7 perch, only two of the perch requiring the use of my net. Far from my best session, it was still good to be out and to face the challenges of the day. I doubt if I will be back in Enniskillen again this year, but I will be making plans for the 2027 season over the coming winter and the Erne will most likely feature at some point.
Fishing marinas will be a staple of my winter fishing from now on. In high water conditions the small fish seek shelter from the strong flows in the main river and they hole up in the slack water at the man made moorings. While far removed from my normal trout fishing from a drifting boat, it is still an enjoyable way to spend some time during the scant few hours of winter daylight. I get that this sort of angling is not for everyone; sitting on a box in the frequently cold and wet weather, (hopefully) whipping out small, silvery fish would verge on torture for many anglers. Indeed, much as I enjoy it, I find it hard to explain exactly why I do. Perhaps it is just being outdoors at a time of the year when I am normally cooped up in front of a blazing fire at home.
