All quiet on the western lakes

Sunday was a fishing day. Thick clouds scurried across the sky, driven by a strong south-westerly. The air was warm and moist. There had been rain last week and the ground was still damp. Yes, Sunday was most definitely a fishing day. The only trouble is that nobody had explained this to the fish. […]

The first day of May

Still dark. Awake, I decide to go online and check out the news in the hope my brain will tire and sleep becomes feasible again. One of the disadvantages of advancing years is sleep becomes erratic so these nocturnal forays into cyberspace feature more frequently now. Chaos in Iraq, a building collapse in Nairobi – […]

Apres fishing

Angling in Ireland has many facets, some challenging but most pleasant and convivial. I want to talk about one of these additional joyous addendums to our sport today, the Irish pub. I expect most (if not all) of you have visited a so called Irish pub close to you. They have, after all, polluted the […]

Grilse still in short supply

July is often a wet month in Mayo. A little rain fell on Tuesday night and some more as the Wednesday morning wore on, so I decided it was worth a look at a small river I sometimes fish in North Mayo. Expecting a small rise in the water I was instead confronted with a […]

Mayo angling update

It has been generally quiet from what I can gather but here is the latest angling news from the area around me here in Mayo. Loughs Carra and Mask are turning up the odd brown trout but the sport is far from hectic by all accounts. Evenings are best. Lough Conn is patchy with some […]

Quiet day on Conn

Out for a few hours on Conn today but the lake was extremely quiet. No signs of any salmon and very few trout moving to a small hatch of mayfly. I trolled for a bit to start with as there was very little wind. One fish gave the rod a heafty thump but didn’t hang […]

Fly patterns for Lough Beltra

After my posting some photos of Lough Beltra I thought I’d better give you some patterns to try if you are fishing there. Elsewhere in this blog you can find details of the Beltra Badger, Claret Bumble, Bibio, Goat’s Toe and Black Doctor. Those 5 alone would make a good selection for the lough, but […]

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 them […]