Category Archives: coarse fishing

Let me start this tale of piscatorial ineptitude last Tuesday evening. While sifting through the coarse fishing gear I found that my box of pre-tied hook lengths was very low on certain sizes, namely my much favoured 14’s and 16’s. While Helen watched something on telly I busied myself making up new hook lengths toContinueContinue reading “Be prepared (or not)”

My near total inability to catch tench this year is rankling me. Whenever I contemplate a bit of fishing the need to catch a tench is right at the very top of my list. The longer my tinca drought goes on the more it vexes me, like I am trapped in some sort of red-eyedContinueContinue reading “Still struggling”

There are a lot of them around here. Nameless bodies of water which pepper the pancake flat boglands of east Mayo and across the border into Roscommon. They probably do have ancient Irish names but these are long forgotten or only spoken of softly by the old people of the immediate locale. Nobody in theirContinueContinue reading “Sunday, parts 1 and 2”

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 theContinueContinue reading “Clare Lake”

A tough day ghillieing on a very quiet lough Conn on Wednesday left me wondering where I could fish on Friday. My hopes of doing a bit of trout fishing were dashed so I needed a plan B and plumped for a spot of coarse angling in county Sligo. Ruggedly beautiful Sligo may not beContinueContinue reading “Mucking about in Sligo”

Not the famous salmon fishery in the west of Ireland, this is instead a coarse lake near to Strokestown in the county Roscommon. I had planned to fish on Monday but the Mayo victory against Kerry the previous day scuppered that as celebratory drinks got completely out of hand. An alcohol fuelled late night renderedContinueContinue reading “A morning on Finlough”

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”