Ronan's Report

I’m just in from my best Dunstan outing so far this season. I had 10 in 2.5hours, All but one on a single simple mayfly pattern I tied for the Mataura last season. I started with a bugger and caught one. I often start this way to connect with the lake. Once I have a feel for what’s going on I adapt to my environment. The fishing was fast and exciting. Fish were up, tracking along the surface and rising multiple times. One fish, which I did not catch, rose about 100 times, constantly changing direction. I got my fly in front of him a few times but he was locked on to something else. The fish were rising like caenis feeders on Lough Corrib so I’m guessing their main diet during this rise was something tiny. I never thought to have a close look in the water and find out! It didn’t matter anyway. The important thing was to be able to put my fly about a foot or 2 in front of a tracking fish, any more and the fish would probably change direction and not see my fly. There were no mayfly hatching by the way. The lake should provide this sort of action for the next few months and I’ll be in the thick of it.

A few years ago while fishing for lake edge cruisers with a single nymph I found myself strip striking! I’ve been doing this for a long time now and this is why.. When you see a fish approaching (or cruising away from you!) you get into position and take your shot. You know roughly where your fly is as it sinks. You watch the fish carefully looking for any change in direction or movement of his mouth when he is nearing your fly. If it moves you strike. If your almost sure, you strike, maybe. If your 50/50 you strike?? I don’t, at least not with the rod. If you strike with the rod and the fish has not taken you will probably spook the fish. If you strip strike you gain 3 advantages. 1, If the fish has taken you will hook up with the strip strike. 2, If the fish has not taken your fly, your fly is still in the zone. Finally 3, you are far less likely to spook a fish with a strip strike as you would be with a rod strike. With a failed rod strike you also have to recast! There are other applications for the strip strike in trout fishing. It’s very useful when lure fishing. A fish might be so close to your fly that you think he has it taken. Don’t strike with the rod! Strip strike and keep your fly in the zone. The strip often induces a take too..  Try it out if you haven’t done so already!

Tomorrow night is card night for the boys (I won about 150 bucks last time) and on Saturday I’m off to James Wilkinsons wedding. James did you invite some single women?? I sure I’ll squeeze in a few hours on a river somewhere… but maybe not!

Thanks to all my new subscribers! I will endeavour to keep this interesting.. Below are some random shots from about 2 weeks ago to today.

Tight Lines.  Stuntman Ronan..

I tied these few dry-flies for John O Malley to try on Corrib. I have no doubt that they will work. The mayfly patterns are an adaptation of my NZ emerger. They’re tied with a tail to keep the body on rather than in the surface film. The little ones are that same emerger, just tied in black and much smaller to represent caenis. Caenis time of year in Ireland is rapidly approaching!

Tight Lines..   Ronan..

Fly-fishing brings endless new challenges and targeting Corrib trout feeding on Caenis at dawn is my latest one. John and I were on the water at 5am and we had the whole 44,000 acres to ourselves, at least we might as well have had, we didn’t hear another engine or see another boat until 11am. Neither john or myself had fished for caenis feeders before so we did a little research and tied a few dries to match the hatch. Our flies seemed good and fish started to move as soon as we set the boat up on the first drift. We were confident. Like fishing at dawn on the Great Lake in Tasmania most of the fish were traveling up the slicks (known as windlanes in Tassie but windlanes here could also be known as foam lanes so I’ll call them slicks so as not to confuse matters though I may already have!!). We did not get many shots and we each missed one fish. Watching the fish move to these tiny flies was worth getting up at 4am for. Its only a matter of time until we get it right.

The fish stopped moving to caenis at about 10am and for the rest of the day we switched between trout and pike fishing. Between the 2 of us, all we landed was a 12lb pike for 14 hours fishing but it was a good day and neither one of us wanted to get off the water.

I hope to get out again on friday at 4.30am. I also plan to fish Lough Na Fooey for pike and maybe trout too if I see any on Saturday. I will report back on those next week.

Until then, tight lines.. Ronan..