River Moy
Angling catches were down slightly on last week for the River Moy with a reported catch of 94 salmon for the week, bringing the total for the year so far to 485. The settled dry weather over the last number of weeks, and the constant Easterly or South Easterly breeze resulted in less then ideal angling conditions; despite this, some good fishing was still to be had.
The Moy Fishery saw some nice fish being caught. Father and son, Klaus Wolf and Lars Friebertshauser, from Germany, found the Weir Pool lucky, taking a 6lbs salmon on worm and a 10.67 lbs fish on fly respectively. The Cathedral Beat produced two fine fish for Northern Irish angler Samuel Dawson of 8.13 and 9.3 lbs., on fly, while local angler, George Mc Loughlin, also landed also landed a 9 lbs salmon while fly-fishing.
Further up the river, angling was good. Armstrongs’ Fishery proved productive for Northern Ireland Angler, Henry Brown, while spinning and German angler, Michel Braun, while worming, with both anglers landing salmon of 9 lbs. From Gannons’ Fishery, Robert Or, UK, had a 9 lbs salmon on prawn. The Foxford Fishery proved extremely productive for UK angler Michael Raper who banked 5 salmon, the best of which was a lovely fish of 12 lbs.
Cloongee Fishery was host to an eclectic mix of visiting fishermen over the week with Swiss angler Turi Hilbert taking a salmon of 9.5 lbs on worm, Austrian angler, Thomas Stieninger, tanking a 12 lbs fish on a spinner, UK angler, Jez Leech, landing a 9 lb fish on worm and Belgium angler, Didier Collis, banking a 4 lbs fish while fly fishing. East Mayo Anglers waters produced two fish for Belgium angler, Marcel Jacquemin, of 7 and 7.5 lbs.
Carrowmore Lake
The lake fished well over the week despite the testing angling conditions. Bright and sunny weather with moderate to light easterly winds proving a challenge for anglers. A notable Brown trout of 3 lbs was boated by Franz Kaiser of Bangor Erris. Declan Dooley from Dublin had a fine catch of 3 salmon weighing 6,8 & 9 lbs. Rory Murray from Dublin had 2 salmon of 6 and 8 lbs. South African angler Uzoz Swart landed a 5 lbs salmon, while German angler, Winfred Clanesback, boated two salmon for the week of 8 and 5 lbs.
Lough Beltra
Five salmon were caught and good signs of salmon moving were reported on the lake over the week. Westport angler, Seamus O’ Malley, took two fish, a fine salmon of 11 lbs and a 6.5lbs fish. Joe Gibbons from Westport had a 9.5 lbs fish and local, Martin Hughes, had a 5 lbs salmon. German angler, Manfred Bunzel, landed an 8 lbs salmon while angling.
Ballin Lough
Angling was good on Ballin Lough for the week. 23 anglers accounted for 69 fish over the week. Michael Swartz of Ballina angling with friends boated 16 trout and returned 13 of these, the best fish a 4 lbs rainbow. Northern Irish anglers Malachy Matthews and Paul Mergan caught 12 trout and released 5.
The best fly patterns for the week were: Green Peter, Hares Ear, Black Buzzer, Fiery Nymph and Claret Dabbler.
Loughs Conn & Cullin
Reasonable angling catches were recorded for the lakes for the week. Bright sun and easterly breezes meant that the may fly hatches were smaller then expected for the week. Despite this, approximately 122 anglers landed 128 trout for 170 rod days. May fly patterns, dry and wet, were the order of the day for angling during the week. A Muddler May and a Green Wolf proved to be affective on Cullin
Gerry Murphy of Browns Bay organised the Mullingar Lake Land Anglers annual outing for the Sammy Smyth Cup. Twenty-five anglers fished with a 13" size limit strictly adhered to. The event was won by Darrin Cox with 4 fish (best 2.8lbs.) while Jimmy Cathal was second with 3 fish.
UK angler, Jonathon Barlow, and a party of 5 had some good angling over a 5 day period taking up to 5 fish each per day and returning all fish caught. R. Stuart Lyon from Scotland had a trout of 2 lbs and Martin Heath also of Scotland had 6 trout on wet mayfly patterns. Gerard Nissen from Belgium had 3 fish.
On Cullin Garry O’ Sullivan and Desmond Corkran had some good angling with up to five trout each caught a day, while Garry’s son Eoin caught his first trout. Colum and Ciaran Fitzpatrick had two trout each.
Ballisodare River
Angling remained good during the week on the Ballisodare River, with 26 fish landed and 19 of these being returned safely to the water. Dermot Glennon released two fish and Seanie Maye also released two fish, all in the 4-5 lbs range. The majority of fish being taken during the week were over 5 lbs with a number of fish in the 8 to 10 lbs size range.
Lough Arrow
Good hatches of mayfly were present during the week with angling late in to the evening proving successful. A total of 35 trout were reported for the week with some good fish to 5 lbs being taken. Dry and Spent Mayfly patterns were the main artificial fly’s used with dapped Mays also proving productive. A good number of small fish were reported caught and returned alive.
Gerry Martin boated a lovely fish of 5 lbs, the trout fell to a buzzer fished late in the evening. Ken Murry had 9 fish from 1.5 – 3 lbs dapping and fishing the Spent Gnat. Jonathon Frazer took 4 fish from 2 – 2.5 lbs on the Spent Gnat.
The Arrow Fish Preservation Association held a competition on the lake. It was won by Damian Mullen with 2 fish weighing 1.7 and 1.5 lbs. Michael Gunning was second with 1 fish at 2.3 lbs. while Ken Murray was third with a fish of 2.2lbs.