The weekend before last John arranged a Corrib PFFA Ireland (Pike Fly Fishers Association) meeting. It was attended by Stuart, Steve, Kristian, John and myself. Day one was in Maam and once again the area did not fire. 4 rods (I only got to bed at 10am on day one so missed the day… Lucky me!) and not a single fish. Day 2 was a different story! We started in Ardnasillagh Bay. Kristian and I had a great start quickly boating 4 pike in the 6-9lb region and we lost a couple. The second half of the day saw us going down the lake to some big fish hot spots. Kristian and myself got distracted by loads of very large trout rising. I simply cannot fish for pike when trout are on the top. Kristian had a superb brown of 4.5lb and another of 1.5lb on my size 14 dry claret sedge which I tie for NZ. I moved a few but boated nothing. John, Steve and Stuart stuck to pike. John had 2 great fish, One 14lbs and another 20lbs 15oz. I have no pics of these fish but hopefully I’ll have them soon. I’ll put them in the next blog. It was great to have Stuart and Steve down to fish our local water. I learned a lot from them about tying pike flies and picked up a few tips on tying pike traces. Thanks fellas! I hope ye learned a bit from us too.<\/p>\n
One thing that sometimes pisses me off about Irish fly fishing is how effort and persistence is so hesitant to pay off. When it does pay off it makes it all the sweeter however. After a successful day guiding Norman Kyle (head ghillee on a stretch of the River Tyne in England) I went to fish the river myself. I repeated some water Norman had fished to no avail and then decided to walk across the mountain (bog) to another river beat known as Pine Island. This area has not produced much in recent years but I had a good feeling. When I got there the walkway out to the small island was flooded as I knew it would be, so I wet waded out to it. I stud there soaked to the balls and thought to myself ” I deserve a fish for this” but experience has told me many times that “deserve” does not hold water over here. This time it did! I landed a powerful 6lb grilse on a Sunray Shadow and rose 2 more. As wet as I was, I happily walked back to the van.<\/p>\n
Shane Flaherty (Fuzz) and Myself fished Kylemore Lough yesterday. Conditions were Ideal apart from the lake being too high. We fished hard and had 3 seatrout to 1.5lbs, a nice brown and rose a salmon. 10 grilse were landed on the river the previous day.<\/p>\n
Today I took my cousin Paddy Creane, 11, out on Inagh for his first day fly fishing. He fished hard and well in very difficult conditions. The rain dumped on us continually and the wind blew. I asked Paddy, “are you cold”, “A little” he said,” but I’m not going in.. I’m wet too!, I love this, but its not as easy as I expected. It’s a challenge”. He got a brown and a sea trout and put his name in the Inagh trout register for the first time of many. Watch this space!<\/p>\n
We have had a load of rain in the last few days and the Ballynahinch\/Inagh system should fish very well in the coming week. The same is true for the entire Kylemore fishery. If your thinking about coming over now is the time! Contact details in my previous blogs.<\/p>\n
Tight lines!<\/p>\n
Ronan..<\/p>\n\n\t\t