Lough Mask: Two overseas anglers fishing with Rod Tye had brilliant trout fishing landing 24 over 6 days with wet fly, best 4.25 lb. All their trout were returned again to the water. Two English anglers fishing with Ronan Cusack over 4 days had 41 trout, all returned to the wild. Three anglers fishing with Frank Reilly landed 17 for a day and these, too, were released again to the water. Some mayfly continued to hatch but only in certain areas. Claret patterns and green peter tyings were best. Russel Whiteman from Clonbur had a few good trout to the buzzer while fishing in late evening, his best being 3.5 lb.

Lough Corrib: Last week was a quiet one on the lough with only a small number of anglers fishing out from the Oughterard area, returns amounting to only 34 trout for 48 lb caught by 17 anglers over 30 rod days. One of the best returns was by French angler M. Plassard who had 16 over five days to the dap and wet fly. The Irish Army Defence Forces held its annual trout fishing competition from Knockferry and Annaghdown and the 93 anglers taking part caught around 80 trout, returning about 46 which were undersize and recording 34 at the weigh-in. A 13-inch size limit was adopted for the competition. The competition was extremely well organised and, even though the day was stormy and wet, all competitors enjoyed reasonably good fishing. The overall winner of the Army Defence Forces section was Commandant Noel Loughnane who caught 3 trout for 4.5 lb. Gerry Bartley received the prize for the heaviest fish at 2 lb 2 ozs, and the visitors’ section winner was Eugene McMahon who had 5 trout for 9.5 lb. In the same section, Joe Trill had the heaviest trout at 2.3 lb.

Some recent competition results: The Cornamona Annual Mayfly Competition was won by Ryan Dixon, Oughterard, with 7 trout for 10.17 lb and Miko Keane was second with 3 for 5.47 lb. Ann Marie Herward won the Juvenile Section with 3 trout for 5.27 lb. 75 anglers fished and they accounted for 69 trout for 75.17 lb. The Andrew Egan Cup was fished out of Greenfields and was won by John McCarty, Tuam, who had 2 trout for 3.75 lb.

Four Belgium anglers fishing from Mike Holian’s Angling Centre landed 9 trout between 1.5 lb and 2 lb, and they released another 12 fish. One of the four, Patrick Steenhout, also landed a 7 lb trout to a mayfly. Christy, Bernard and Sarah Williams from Wicklow landed 22 for 27 lb over a week in the area, best 4.5 lb.

Lough Carra: Trout angling on the lough was generally quite slow all week with fewer anglers fishing, possibly due to most of them fishing Lough Mask? Anglers at Peter Roberts’ guesthouse landed 13, practically all of which were put back.

Galway Weir Salmon Fishery: 38 salmon were caught for the week, 31 of which were grilse. Best fish of the week was 10.5 lb and was taken by Adrian Murphy. Stephen Ross fished a single-handed fly rod from the west bank and had lots of problems to land a very good fish of 10 lb, a really wonderful angling feat considering the huge amount of water in the river and six sluice gates open.

Erriff Salmon Fishery: It was a week of mainly low water levels in the river but some salmon were caught, including one of 12 lb by Trevor Stafford at Beat 1. He successfully landed the fish not having a landing net. Enquiries for fishing to: 095 42252.

Bunowen River: Fishing during the month of May never reached expectations even though quite a few salmon were seen in the river and five were caught, the first of 5.5 lb by local angler Seamus Ball. The John McDonagh had a 9.5 lb salmon from Carr’s Pool, followed by an 8 lb fish from Durkan’s Pool by Padraic Hastings. John Bennett, who lives by the riverbank, landed a small grilse of 3 lb. All fish were wild stock. Weather conditions were favourable between June 1 and 4^th but the water levels were a lot too low at times. However, Peter McKinn caught a fine 8.5 lb fish on fly on Sunday morning, and a juvenile angler landed his first-ever salmon, one of 8.5 lb. On June 3^rd Seamus Ball landed an 8 lb tagged fish, this time on a spinner. Last weekend saw 10-12 anglers on the river, some of whom were very lucky, landing some fine salmon between 5 and 12 lb. Carr’s Pool produced several fish and several others were lost to the fly. A Belfast father and son each landed a fish of 7 lb and 9.5 lb. Heavy rain on Monday of this week once again brought up the river levels and hopefully more fish will run the river, especially grilse which seem to be later this season. For permits and licences telephone the Fisheries Board office at Ballyhip, Louisburgh, 098 66404.

Costello Fishery: There was no shortage of rain during the month of May, which pushed the system into flood. Fishing is only getting away in the last week but it’s off to a very good start with 3 salmon caught for 7 rods. Senator John Dardis set the standard when he landed a fantastic 13 lbs 4oz. salmon on Lough Fermoyle. Mr Michael MacDonagh (Galway) responded with a fine 9lb salmon from the banks of Derreen Lough, caught on a Black Shrimp. The same fly also proved very effective for Mr John Connolly (Clare) who landed a beautiful 12 lb fish on river beat 2.

So an impressive start as the salmon run is only just getting under way. We look forward to June when the run will be at its peak and July onwards when the sea trout really come into play. For additional information please contact the fishery manager Terry Gallagher at 353 91 572 196, email: cosfer@iol.ie.

OWNWEE RIVER: A total of 11 salmon have been reported for the season so far!

An encouraging observation over the last few days is that some sea trout are starting to move up late in the evening.

Rain is bringing a good level of water this week and should improve even more the salmon fishing in the days ahead. The grilse run has not yet materialised and if they do not arrive soon there may be a fear for the spawning stocks stability this season. However, this is a feature noted on many fisheries around the west coast this June.

Angling enquiries to Tom Bourke 086 8331586 or tombourkefishing@hotmail.com

Permits available from Gannon’s Garage Belclare 098 25239.

Black River: John Joe Langan, Shrule, caught a specimen trout of 7.32 lb while recently fishing this small river, which was once one of the best limestone and mayfly rivers for trout in the West of Ireland. The Western Regional Fisheries Board, with the help of EU funding, carried out development works along several stretches three years ago, providing better spawning areas and holding pools.

Dave Coster, former UK World Coarse Angling Champion, writes: "Unfortunately the fishing wasn't brilliant this time round, due mainly to the dreadful weather.

However, a group of anglers staying at the Cloonabinna House Hotel, Moycullen, persisted on Ross stands for several days and eventually pulled in some good catches of roach, skimmer bream and hybrids. One angler had an impressive 60 lb net of fish, while others managed up to 30 lb catches.

Fishing on the normally prolific Joinery stretch of Ballyquirke was dire with roach and big bream missing completely.

Lough Down produced a 30 lb pleasure catch of bream and roach to one angler on stand number 4, but rising water levels slowed sport after that.

Heamishmaconry gave me a great bag of small roach, skimmers and hybrids in an afternoon session when I first arrived, but the fishing stands were submerged by high water levels for the rest of my stay.

I went exploring up the top end of Corrib and enjoyed a great couple of hours roach fishing on the River Dooghta by Mac's Bar. The owner there has just built a boat marina and let me fish it. I caught 8oz to 1 lb roach every cast. But the next day the huge roach shoals had moved on!

The Joyce River at Maam Cross also had a load of roach in it for a day but they also disappeared quickly (roach were coming up to spawning time so were slower to take.)

Looking forward to visiting again in August when I hope to bring a party of 16-20 youngsters over for the third year."