Tag Archives: fishing in mayo

Spate river tactics, part 2

OK, so in the first part of this post I discussed my views on the basics of rod, reel and line for fishing small spate rivers here  in Ireland. Today I want to talk about what we tie on the business end of our lines – the flies to use and how to fish themContinueContinue reading “Spate river tactics, part 2”

Spate river tactics, part 1

Fishing the tiny streams for summer salmon and sea trout are the mainstay of my angling year. I don’t particularly enjoy elbowing my through the crowds for the chance of chucking worms or ironmongery into the slow, deep water of the River Moy so I tend to avoid that prolific system. The Galway Weir isContinueContinue reading “Spate river tactics, part 1”

Conn tricks – catching trout on sandwiches

The word on the street was that there were salmon being caught in Lough Conn so I decided to head out today and give it an auld lash. My boat is on Cullin so it meant driving it across Cullin, under the bridge at Pontoon and motoring half way up lough Conn. The journey wasContinueContinue reading “Conn tricks – catching trout on sandwiches”

The Iron Blue Dun

I want to discuss the Iron Blue Dun (it is too much hassle to write Iron Blue Dun all the time so I will refer to it as ‘IBD’ in this post). For such a tiny insect it has generated a huge amount of words in  angling literature, and rightly so. From the earliest historyContinueContinue reading “The Iron Blue Dun”

A difficult day

Robeen Bridge as a handy entry point on the River Robe. Both banks are clear downstream of the bridge but there is a heavily wooded stretch immediately upstream and this means that you have to get into the water and wade upriver to fish this part. The bottom is very slippery and there are someContinueContinue reading “A difficult day”

Messing around with the Hare’s Ear

A standard Gold Head GRHE nymph The GRHE gold head nymph is one of my standard patterns but I thought I would tie up a variation, so here it is: This is dressed on a curved grub hook and I added some chopped up fl. lime floss and red fur to the HE to formContinueContinue reading “Messing around with the Hare’s Ear”

Bibio’s

Bibios are so widely used that you may be forgiven for thinking that you know all about them. A great fly early in the season when you need something dark and a handy pattern if there are salmon around. What else is there to know? A hell of a lot is the answer! Let’s startContinueContinue reading “Bibio’s”