Lough Corrib: The light winds and calm conditions over the weekend hampered wet fly fishing to the point that very few trout were caught, even by a group of 30 midland anglers who hadn’t a fish between them on Saturday when fishing in the Oughterard area. Against this, reports say that when conditions were favourable then angling was reasonable, 40 anglers having 60 trout for 97.5 lb in 72 angling days. An excellent return was 14 trout to wet fly (22.5 lb) by M. Cairncross, and Dave Lambert had 5 for 6 lb for a day, also to wet fly. Des McCarty from Oughterard took 10 for 16 lb in three outings, all to the dapped fly. Over two days with wet fly, Trevor & Ger 0' Mahoney, Bandon, had 4 trout for 8.5 lb, best 5.75 lb to a dabbler fly, and Phil Ryan, Roscrea, had a 4lb trout while trolling, which he very sportingly released again to the lake. Rob Cooksley and Rich Perry, Bristol, fished with wet fly and landed 4 nice trout that averaged 2 lb.

Lough Mask: The lough continued to fish well on certain days only, a few anglers recording some nice catches to wet fly during suitable weather conditions. Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Ross from Northern Ireland landed 9 for 13 lb in two days to wet fly, and Pat McDonnell from Mullingar had 2 for 6.5 lb, best 4.5 lb. J. Dwyer and S O’Gorman from Wexford landed 6 for 9.5 lb over two days with wet fly. 56 anglers had 87 trout for 126 lb over 131 angling days, best 4.5 lb. Sedge and Olive patterns were best.

Lough Carra: Reports from the lough say that there were poor hatches of fly all week and very poor trout fishing, no more than 7 recorded over 15 angling days.

Galway Weir Salmon Fishery: Most of the salmon are in the river for months and are regarded as being "stale" at this stage. However, a few were caught and returned again to the water, including one James Carrig that he released again to the river.

The Galway Weir Fishery

Bunowen River: While the different pools along the three-mile stretch from Louisburgh to the upper reaches of the Bunowen River seem to have lots of salmon but they are very slow to take the anglers’ flies. When the water levels rose somewhat during the week, anglers did manage to catch 5 salmon, mostly all grilse.

The Carrowniskey River is still improving all the time, anglers and Fisheries Staff reporting that quite a few salmon have been seen over the past two weeks. The season ends for both the Carrowniskey and Bunowen rivers on September 30^th.

Coarse Angling: Jason Leavy sends a report on the competition held at Ballyquirke Lake, Moycullen, by the Galway Coarse Angling Club, which was won by Leigh Maitland with 5.700 kilos of roach. In second place was Donal McWeeney with 4.150 kilos and in third place went to Alan Marrable with 4.040 kilos. David Spokes was fourth and Jason Leavy was fifth. Harry Brady won the Junior section with 880 grams of roach; Colm Donohue was second with 270 grams and Medo Sulton was third with 150 grams. Owen Donohue was fourth.

Jason Leavy has done tremendous work training youngsters all aspects of game and coarse angling in the Galway area, running many junior competitions at the various venues throughout the summer. Jason is to be complimented for his commitment to the youngsters and time spent teaching them the art of angling, next year hoping to have them ready to compete in a National Youths’ Angling Competition. Jason says that any youngsters who would like to learn all about angling to get in touch with him at his email address: casperjah@yahoo.co.uk