Ronan's Report

No trip to Ireland is complete without a few days on Corrib. It’s a lake that has rarely been very kind to me but that does not stop me wanting to go back. It’s an amazing lake. It would take a lifetime to get to grips with the entire 44,000 acres. Maybe multiple lifetimes. There is still so much of Corrib I have not seen. It’s an explorers dream with deeps, shallows, points, bays and islands making up the lake. It encompasses many townlands on it shores from Galway to Oughterard to Cornamona to Cong to Headford. The fishing varies from early to late season with very specific times of different fly. The chironomid first, then the olive (a small mayfly), then the large danica mayfly then the sedge. Of course the fly seasons overlap but with such specifics in trout food, the fly and method selection is very important. There are many other flies on the water too just to add to the puzzle. Caenis and terrestrials for example. Traditional wet fly techniques have taken a back seat to various nymphing methods in the passed 20 years, especially with chironomid and olive fishing. Let me know if you ever want to go and I’ll connect you with the right people.

I had 3 days out while at home. John and I went out on day 1. John hadn’t been out for a while so he was unsure where the good fishing was. We went to some trusted deep water where wet fly fishing can produce the goods. John got 1 of about 1.5lbs and I blanked. 

Day 2 was with Dad and Tom Doc. This was a social outing as much as a fishing day and the craic was great. We went out in Toms dad’s boat. A beautiful custom built Philbin Lake Boat. A pleasure to be out in. That boat has seen some action and anglers over it’s lifetime, and she still looks new. We fished very close to where John and I fished but we were on the fish. Tom is a guide on the lake and fishes most days so he knows where the fish are. It didn’t take long for us to start moving a few. This was my day as it turned out. Out of 8 landed I had 6 with the best over 3lbs. I was delighted, as was Dad and Tom. Lunch on Inchagoill with the traditional Kelly Kettle was super. The cup of tea from Tom’s Kettle will not be beaten! It’s so good that I decided to bring my Kelly Kettle to NZ. Thanks Tom for a great day out..

Day 3 – I didn’t expect much. The forecast was for horrendous wind. Rain too, and the lake was high and rising after rain. The reason for going out was give the New Zealanders who were over for the wedding a taste of Corrib. We had 3 boats. John and Fraser in one, Dad and Damien in another and Myself, Wesley and Mark in mine. It was a day where open water would have been very dangerous so we stayed in relatively sheltered bays. The craic was good but the fishing was bad. The pints flowed afterwards which made the world good again!

Still lots of space available in the current season for guided fly fishing in New Zealand. Contact me on ronan@sexyloops.com or visit my website.

Tight Lines, Ronan..

The biggest bit of news since my last blog has not been the 11.5lb brown which equals my second biggest to date, it’s been the arrival of our daughter Adaline Betty Creane. She hit the scales at 6.5lbs. Mother and baby are doing great, though I’m a little worse for wear. Nobody ever thinks of the poor father! My paternity leave was timed to perfection. The due date was the 19th of December so I kept the 16th to the 28th free in the hope that she wouldn’t be late. As I was driving out of the driveway after dropping off my client on the 15th, I got the call from Iza. “Get to the hospital”! was the gist of the call. Some complications meant that she went in the chopper from Dunstan Hospital to Dundedin Hospital while I followed in the 3L V6 Maxima keeping to the speed limit the whole way there. After a long labour Iza popped out the most beautiful little thing I’ve ever seen (apart from Iza). We didn’t know the sex, nor did we care. We got just what we wanted in this healthy bundle of joy!

I have had quite a bit of time to fish myself in the last couple of months and most of that effort has been on the lakes. Fraser and I had a weekend away recently in the Central Lakes. We stayed at Buscot Station Backpackers (there is no other place I want to stay near Omarama!). Day 1 we had a look at the canals then went to check out a spot I stumbled upon last winter. We found a few fish but we needed sunshine to get the most from it. We left to try some other spots but returned early the next morning hoping for some midge eaters. We didn’t find any but the cloud broke up quickly for a perfect blue sky day. There was just enough wind to put a gentle ripple on the water opening it up for perfect sight fishing. A soft ripple like this often makes it easier to see fish farther away than with flat calm. The fishing was insane! We landed 12 trout for a morning session, most between 4 and 5.5lbs. I felt a little sorry for another angler on the opposite shore, he hooked none. A small gold bead PT nymph did the trick. I suspended it under a dry at trout cruising depth. Simple! One of Stu’s I think..

Another day worth a mention was on a local dam day with Robbie. The first farm dam we fished was very low but there were a few feeding fish. The exposed weed made it quite hard to fish. I hooked a few but we landed nothing after a few hours fishing it. We moved to the middle dam, I always thought it was the top dam but the farmer told me about another – the top dam! Anyway, the newly named middle dam was super. The water was high and there were a few trout cruising the margins. Short accurate casts did the trick. Any fly – these fish were opportunist feeders. We caught a few fish, all beautiful hard fighting specimens. One of them was certainly in my top 3 stunning fish this season. I really enjoy to fish with Robbie. There is no greed for fish, no ego, just a genuine love for the game and everything that goes with it from the friendships to the flowers on the banks to the fish. We’ve become great friends over the years, ever since he appeared at mine and Kristians camp way up a back country river at 9am. I was bleary eyed as I looked from my sleeping bag after hearing some rocks move. “Who the hell could have made it this far up river by 9am” I thought to myself.. I then answered my own question.. “It could only be Robbie Mcphee”. It was of course. What did we do? We all fished together. That day we landed about 10 fish from 6 to 11lbs with 2 doubles. Here is the blog! https://www.sexyloops.com/blog/2013/03/27/two-10lb-plus-trout/

Speaking about doubles, I managed to land a monster of 11.5lbs last November. Some solo wilderness exploring certainly paid off!

I’ll leave the photos to tell the other stories! Dunstan has been fishing great but I don’t bother taking many photos there anymore. The silt flats are still firing if you’re light enough to wade them and the willow grubbers on the edges will drive you to drink!

Not too much in the guiding gallery today since I had 2 weeks out. The highlights are in there though. January is booked up so all going well the next guiding report should be pretty colourful.

I’ll take this opportunity to wish my great friend Paul and his wife to be, Ashly all the very best in their life together. I wish I could make the wedding but Paul’s spontaneity is hard to plan around. That is going to be quite a day. Miena will never be the same again! All the best, mate! Next time I’m in Malaysia you’ll have the air conditioned houseboat. Bliss!

I still have some availability in Febuary and plenty in March and April. Let me know if you’d like me to guide you on your NZ adventure. ronan@sexyloops.com or visit my website http://www.ronansflyfishingmissions.com

Happy New Year everyone.. May it be filled with happiness and fly fishing!

Tight Lines, Ronan..

There was a serious downpour of rain a few nights ago which rose the rivers around here but they’re in good order again. Another weekend has almost landed so, as usual, I can’t wait to get back out there.. actually, it’s going to be a long weekend for me, maybe very long! I gave up the day job as a woodworker so I’ll have plenty time to concentrate on my guiding and what ever else may come along. I have a few ideas.. Exciting times!

The trout are starting to look up! I had a couple on my dry (aka strike-indicator) last weekend. I fish a dry instead of a fluff strike indicator. I like always having the chance to take a trout off the top. It’s not perfect though. There have been many times where I cast to a fish trying to cover him with the nymphs allowing the dry to land close to the fish. The fish spots the dry, swims vertically then turns downstream as he eats, I remember Paul Arden calling this a compound rise?? It’s very easy not to hook these fish! But for the most part, I prefer it. A buoyant dry, usually about 4 feet to a weighted nymph, then about a foot off that to an unweighted or lightly weighted size 16. For smaller streams I usually shorten the dropper or fish one nymph under the dry. In fact, I have no problem changing my rig to suit every fish I see but the dry-double-nymph-rig covers most bases. The fact that they’re so far apart means they can also be fished independently. Cover with the dry first, then the nymphs or visa versa..

November and December are starting to fill up a bit but there are still plenty spaces! ronan@sexyloops.com for any questions or guiding enquiries.

Please feel free to subscribe to my blog. Hundreds of entries from NZ and around the world!

Tight Lines everyone.. We can fish the rainbow rivers from Saturday!

Ronan..

A good trout from a local river..

Matt with his first of a few fish for his day.

Fraser into one. No stranger to trout!

What a day to be out in my element!

The perfect blue sky day!

Best fish of the day!

Matt into a solid trout..

Lunch time!

Fighting fit!

A great riffle.. There must have been a trout there somewhere!

I landed quite a few of these!

A stunning golden trout..

P1040012

Back he goes..

Another swims away..

Last weekend I went to Waikia to meet and to fish with Ken Whelan and David Lambroughton. Ken has been working in Ireland since 1975 as a fisheries scientist and his work is well known throughout the country. He has been in charge of the Marine Institute, amongst other organisations, and has run many projects studying everything salmonid and beyond. I often heard his name when I was growing up in the Irish angling circuit so it was great to meet and fish with him to put a face to the name.

On Saturday Ken and I fished the Mataura below Gore. The day was very cold and overcast and not a day for David’s style of photography, so he did some editing instead. On speaking to a local angler we found out that there was no evening rise to look forward to. Also he mentioned seeing very few fish in the flat water this season. This didn’t bother me too much. I took Ken to a favourite spot of mine with plenty of riffles. They were slow by Mataura standards but we managed to hook about 12 or 13 fish in the morning session, landing 4. We explored some new water in the afternoon but did not have much action. That said, I had a totally absorbing hour fishing to willow grubbers. I hooked and lost 2, but it was a super 60 minutes.

Back at base that night the steak sizzled on the barbecue, beers were cracked and the craic was good. We spoke about all things fishing and non fishing until Ken and I got stuck in a heavy conversation about Irish seatrout, salmon and salmon farming. This put David to bed. It was great to speak to someone like Ken who has put his life’s work into the topic. I learned a lot and the following are a few facts I’d like to share.

1. Ken filmed what I’m about to outline with a childhood hero of mine, Eamonn De Buitleir. When Salmon pair up to spawn on the redds, the female will usually be accompanied by more than one male. This I knew, what I did not know was the fact that male par (3 to4 inches long) can also fertilise the eggs. This is the piscatorial equivalent of precision bombing! These little par can get right in amongst the gravel to deliver the goods right on target. What is not known is whether or not they die after spawning like most Atlantic salmon do. Pretty amazing anyway. If salmon do it, trout might do too.

2. Most of us know seatrout as a sea fish which enters fresh water to spawn a number of months after arrival. In Ireland, most seatrout enter the rivers in July and don’t spawn until December. There is another strain of seatrout around the Irish coast which enters the rivers from the sea in December. They spawn asap and get back to their life in the salt in as little as 36 hours.

3. Ken told me about an experiment in which he needed a number of small brown trout to see how quickly they could adapt to saline conditions. The plan was slowly subject them to salt water, but for a reason he told me that I can’t recall they ended up putting all the trout straight into full on salt water. The trout appeared to be out of breath for a short while, but then they were fine. None died. These fish’s ancestry had not seen salt for 10’000 years. So estuarine fish can easily feed in salt and fresh without hesitation. My own fishing experience had suggested this, but now I know it.

4. All of the remaining wild salmon from Portugal, Spain, France and the South of England as well as Ireland, pass by the Aran Islands on their migration to their feeding grounds. To place a salmon farm right in this salmon corridor will put these wild fish in grave danger. No person has the right to give this proposed farm the green light. This is not just an Irish issue.

5. There were heaps more interesting facts, but I’m getting tired typing! Ken’s new book, Nomads of the Tides, is on sale now. I’m looking forward to reading it. I’m sure there is plenty info in the book which I can apply to NZ seatrout. http://www.medlarpress.com/8166-Fishing-Books-Nomads-of-the-Tides_by_McCully–Whelan.html

After a good nights sleep in a farmhouse bed, I was awoken by 12 gunshots from an angry farmer. The shots were fired while he roared like a man possessed at his dogs. Some may have died, I’m not sure. The insanity was at the next farm and neither I, David or Ken investigated.

I think I heard of David Lambroughton a year or so ago. He’s a photographer and a fly fisherman. His work is vibrant and colourful, some may say too much so, but on meeting the man all the colour makes sense. I really like what I’ve seen of his work and some of it is simply spectacular. Check this out… http://davidlambroughton.com/?pageID=813801#

David made me his special concoction for breakfast. It consisted of juice, banana, oatmeal and other stuff all whipped up in the blender. It was guaranteed to keep us going all day. Shortly after, we all set off to fish a section of a favourite river of mine that I had never fished before. The water was ideally low. The river was pretty tough going, which was no surprise to me as it usually is. The slippery rocks were a surprise though. Like ice! I need to replace all the studs in my boots. I have 3 left out of about 40! We were in the water almost all day. The banks were impenetrable. After about 4ks and 3 sighted fish we emerged from the forest. David did not get any pictures, which was his mission for the day. Neither Ken or I had a fish. Ken wandered on up river which was straight at this stage and flowing through easy farmland. I spotted one in a deep riffle which ate the nymph first cast. Shortly after I had another shot which I made a balls of. Ken had a shot to a rising fish on his bank without success. 100m from the truck I spied a nice fish, I put on David’s dry cdc pattern which he had given me after breakfast. First cast, the fish ate. That was it. As many fish in the last km to the truck as in the whole day up to then. That’s how it goes.

Ken and David, Thank you both for your hospitality.. David, Thanks for putting up with two mad Irishmen! I realise one is difficult enough..

The weekend with Sean McCarthy and the following weekend with the Wakitipu Anglers Club mission to Manorburn will have to be told in photo’s below because I’m all typed out!!!

To those of you who emailed me, I’ll get to you as soon as I can. Every minute of every day is accounted for these days, which is just how I like it!

Have a great week, Ronan..

It was hard to plan any time away from home over the Christmas break. The forecast was never good for more than a day or two in any direction. I was not keen to drive for hours to meet rain and high, dirty rivers so I saved time and petrol and spent a few days on my water feature, aka Lake Dunstan. With all the rain, the lake has been very high which is usually a good thing. Daltona is still out of action so I was shore bound. When the lake was carrying some colour shortly after the heavy rain the fishing was great. I fished some mud and soft silt flats with a size 10 skinny bugger which was irresistible to the fish. Big enough to effectively fish blind, small enough to fish to a cruiser and light enough to use for the tailers in the weed beds. When the lake cleared, the bugger was ignored but buzzers and spiders nailed ’em.  The seemingly gale force winds rarely relent on Dunstan. The only time it seems to drop is to change direction and this only lasts about 15 minutes. The odd time the lake is calm it’s amazing. The fishing to tracking fish on dries has to be experienced to be believed. I have not seen it yet this season! Fish numbers are good this year and the quality of the fish is the best I’ve ever seen.

At the end of almost a month off work with testing fishing conditions, the stars finally aligned and a perfect fishing day occurred unexpectedly. Jeff and I had planned to fish together and the forecast was okay. Then Fraser decided to join and the weather turned out to be perfect. Both Jeff and Fraser are great fella’s to fish with and this was the first time we all fished together. We worked as a team and did well with our chances. We spotted for for each other, which sometimes involved climbing up on rocky bluffs to get the perfect view down into the pool. We helped each other with netting fish, we passed on advise to each other when we could see something the angler could not, and I think we all made each others day a little better. Not all people are compatible on a river but we certainly are. We camped out that night. Fire, beer, food and craic. We woke to heavy rain and a rising river so we pulled the pin.

Fraser fishes with me when he can. He’s a busy man with his family, business’s, diving, shooting, fishing, travelling and more. It’s always eventful and fun to fish with him. The last couple of outing’s with me he didn’t do so well, but this time he did. Good casting to a travelling fish and first time accuracy to a fish feeding on station ensured 2 from 2 shots!

Robert and Linda, Thanks for returning my phone! That ancient brick was indeed mine.. Also thanks for subscribing.

Get your willow grubs out.. They’re falling!

Ronan..

One simple observation I made last weekend was about fishing large dries in calm water. Because the water is calm the fish will see a large fly from a long way off. A good approach for a cruising trout or one on station is not to cast the fly near the fish. Instead cast the fly well to the side of the fish and try to induce him off his lie or beat. The plop from a big fly is often enough to trigger this.  Advantage being the fish is travelling toward your rod tip and therefore the tippet will be on the trout’s blind side of the dryfly. This massively increases the chances of a confident take and a solid hook up.

It was great to fish with Fraser again.. He was unlucky to break in a very big fish at the end of the day. The fish took his dry (as described above) and took off off like a freight train, as he did the line jumped from the ground, around Fraser’s forceps and everything locked up. Simply impossible to put the brakes on a fish like that on his first run. Next time Fraser!

I have no idea what’s on the cards for this weekend… I think I might go a little nuts. It’s in the post.

Ronan..

ps. Good to meet Scott Loudon and Ben! Thanks for the stout…

Also, only 17 subscribers to go until I hit 100 and the prize draw! Get in quick!!