Category Archives: coarse fishing

So I used to fish this small lake in county Leitrim for tench. Note the use of the past tense, as this venue had but one stand to fish from, the entirety of the circumference being covered by a 50 yard deep belt of rushes. That rickety wooden stand collapsed into the water a coupleContinueContinue reading “Happy in defeat”

Part 1 I fished Mayfield lough in Claremorris earlier this year and caught a nice bag of skimmers and hybrids. With half a tub of maggots to be used up I decided to give the lough another try last Sunday morning. I had to pick up herself in Tuam around lunchtime, so Claremorris was onContinueContinue reading “Mayfield, parts 1 and 2”

Despite the outrageous title, this post is just more musings of a fisherman trying to catch tiddlers on an Irish river. Family stuff meant I was dropping my other half at her sister’s in Tuam on Saturday morning, so being that far down the country anyway I figured it would be rude not to doContinueContinue reading “Sucking and blowing”

Mississippi Fred McDowell wrote the blues standard ‘You got to move’ in the mid-sixties and it was famously covered by the Rolling Stones on their Sticky Fingers album. It was one of the first blues songs I learned to butcher on the guitar and it remains a favourite of mine. Todays tale from the watersideContinueContinue reading “You got to move”

My first tench trip of the year had ended in disaster with the loss of one very large fish. After much licking of wounds it was time for me to get out there and try for a tench or two again. To give myself a fighting chance I drove down to the royal canal andContinueContinue reading “Weeds”

Lord only knows how often I have driven past Lough McNean. A lifetime of journeys to the north or onwards to a ferry bound for Scotland entailed crossing the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic at the bridge over the river which joins upper and lower Lough McNean. The road passes along the northContinueContinue reading “Missing bites on the border”

While I had a reasonably good session fishing for roach in one of the rivers which flow into one of the big loughs in my area, I had heard big bream swam into the same pools once we were into the month of May. Well, here we are in the merry month so it wasContinueContinue reading “Not yet!”

Naw, not Charlie being pals with Trump, just me making my first trip to the Royal canal this year. Like an itch that I just had to scratch, the Royal canal was calling me even though the local rivers are fishing really well right now. The day was promised bright, dry and warm but withContinueContinue reading “Royal visit”

My last session hunting for big roach has me fired up for more of the same, so I set an alarm for silly o’clock on Sunday morning and headed back to the same spot to try my luck again. I was ghillieing later in the day so this was going to be a bit ofContinueContinue reading “The early bird”

Brown trout are the staple species in the county Mayo. The huge salmon runs of yester year have gone, wiped out by the industrial fishing around the coasts, so anglers come here to fly fish for the lovely browns which live in just about all the local rivers and loughs. Go back a couple ofContinueContinue reading “Mayo roach”