2016

I start a new and time-hungry job later this month, meaning my angling will be severely curtailed all Spring. I need to face up to little angling this side of the Mayfly other than occasional outings on Sundays. The new job is close to home, so the amount of long distance travel and periods away fromContinueContinue reading “2016”

Flies for Lough Conn, part 2

Following on from a previous post I will discuss a few more patterns which have worked on Lough Conn for me over the years. Malloch’s Favourite Firstly we will take a look at a Scottish fly which has worked for me during the olive hatch. Each spring the Western lakes get good hatches of lakeContinueContinue reading “Flies for Lough Conn, part 2”

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 theContinueContinue reading “Apres fishing”

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 couple of old spiders for this time of year

OK so there is nothing even remotely new about these two patterns but they are so effective that I think there is no harm in reminding you about them both. Let’s start with the Poult Bloa. Yellow tying silk with the faintest mist of water rat or mole’s fur dubbed on it form the bodyContinueContinue reading “A couple of old spiders for this time of year”

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”