Salmon at the double

Carrowmore. Just the name sets the pulse racing of salmon fishers. Today we would try our luck on this shallow lake set in the bogs of Bangor Erris. This is very different fishing to the ‘classic’ beats of the Scottish east coast rivers. Modern Skaggit heads and tube flies have no place here. Instead we […]

Spate river fly design

What makes a good spate river fly? I tie hundreds of flies every year. I used to tie much, much more but these days a few hundred come off my vice and most of those are tied during the quiet winter period. Due to the nature of the fishing in the West of Ireland these […]

Three flys from my table

I was trying (unsuccessfully I might add) to tidy up the mess of feathers, hooks and other assorted odds and end which have accumulated on my fly tying bench. In amongst the detritus I found some flies so I thought I would share them with you. First up is a Grey Winged Salmon Gosling. Goslings are […]

Casting practice

Friday morning and the weather vane on top of Lagduff Lodge is still firmly set in a Northerly airflow. Dry again today so the fishing will be little more than casting practice, leaving me less than overjoyed I fished from pol Garrow down to the Rock Pool but the only fish I saw was a […]

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 […]

The Goat’s Toe

One of the great joys of salmon angling is the sight of a fly in the scissors of a fresh fish you have just landed. The hours/days/weeks and months of abject failure melt away when you see your fly in the corner of the king of fishes mouth. We all love the scenery, the company […]

Deer Deer – muddled thoughts

I am a big fan of deer hair. It is versatile and hard-wearing and of course it is buoyant. I first became aware of it when I was given the first three volumes of Tom Stewart’s ‘Fifty popular flies’ by my uncle for Christmas one year. I consumed the contents avidly and can still remember […]

fr. Ronan

Despite the ecclesiastical name I don’t know of any particular connections with the church for this fly. It is a dabbler style pattern for use when fishing for sea trout and salmon but I can see no reason why it would not work for brownies too, especially around the time of the mayfly hatch. It […]

Black Doctor

I think I would right in saying this is a fly which does not get used as much as it used to. More modern patterns has taken its place on the cast of most anglers and it is slowly but surely slipping into oblivion. This is a shame as the Black Doctor can still fool […]

Fly patterns – the Claret Bumble

Since I tie lots of flies and use a small proportion of them when actually fishing so it seems only sensible for me to show you all the patterns that I and my fishin’ buddies use. Let’s start with the Claret Bumble since that is where the name for this blog comes from. I use […]