Most fisheries opened on March 1st and the opening week returned some good trout on our midland fisheries in the opening days in some nice spring weather. However this was short lived with the arrival of storm force winds accompanied by driving rain going into the second week. Gales, rain, hail, electrical storms were the order mid month which resulted from a very unstable weather system over Ireland. These atrocious conditions curtailed many sporting activities and events with angling proving no exception, particularly so on our midland lakes which forced cancellation of competitions.  Rivers were in high dirty flood and un-fishable over a couple of weeks. The month closed on a more benign note with a return to spring-like conditions again. Fishing too picked up in response with Lough Owel reported as coming alive at times.

 Photo: Dermot Swift  with a 2.5lb Wild Brown Trout caught on Lough Inchiquin Co Clare on St Patrick's Day, photo courtesy of the captor

April was by and large a difficult month for trout anglers with lots of wind, squally showers of hail and extended spells of rain towards the latter half of the month. "Good fishing on Good Friday" was the headline of our report for our midland lakes over Easter. Angling Correspondent Michael Flanagan reported brisk fishing. Lough Glore angling club hosted the Meadow Hall  construction sponsored Trout competition on Easter Sunday 11th April. Many anglers had their 4 trout bag limit.  Ennell produced a few cracking wild fish at this time also. One of the highlights of the month was a specimen wild brown caught  of 12.25lbs caught on Lough Graney Co Clare by Shaun O’Callaghan secretary of  Lough Graney Anglers. News came in toward the end of the month that the Mayfly season had commenced on Lough Derg with activity reported off Youghal Bay.

 Photo: Shaun O'Callaghan Secretary Lough Graney & District Angling Club with this specimen trout 12.25lbs caught on Lough Graney in April 2004

The Mayfly season got underway on Lough Derg early on in May but unfortunately stormy weather over the latter days of April and into early days of May upset angling. Conditions did improve somewhat and so too did the mayfly fishing with superb action reported on Lough Derg when conditions were favourable, Luska Bay on the eastern shores and Mountshannon and Killaloe on the western shores all reported plenty of angling activity and good returns.  The midland lakes in Mullingar and Sheelin started to hot up with buzzers on the trout menu and quality fish were caught by mid month.  An unbelievable rise of fish was reported in the height of the Mayfly season on Lough Ree with local Athlone anglers getting exceptional fishing for a few days, the best for years. Some great fish came off Lough Ennell and whopping trout were caught on spent gnat on Lough Sheelin as the weather warmed up later in the month.