Report dated April 21st, 2010.

LOUGH DERG ....

Bream on a fly rod!

There were many anglers out on Lough Derg on Sunday last to compete in the Giblin Cup trout wetfly competition.

The fishing was extremely poor with only seven fish being produced for the weigh-in by the 100 anglers who took part in the event. The winner was Scariff native Paul O’ Meara with a fish of 2lbs 9ozs. Second was Russell Weston of Plymouth (2lbs 4ozs) and third was Paul Clohessy, Limerick (2lbs 3ozs).

Several anglers from the North Tipperary side of the lake took part but none managed to land a fish over the legal limit of 14 inches. For most it was a fishless day, marking a bad start to what is officially seen as the first of the fly fishing on the Lough Derg.

I tried a few hours trout fishing myself on Sunday, with some surprising results. Myself and my fishing buddy Liam Young set out from Dromineer each fishing a team of three nymphs on sink tip lines.

Casting close to “The Iron Door” my rod suddenly bent and I thought I had a fine trout. But no, it was a bream of three pounds, which, in fact, fought just as gallantly as a trout before being landed, photographed and put back. A few hours later Liam had a similar sized bream on a tiny nymph in the same location. We discovered that you don’t always have to hook a trout to have great fun on a fly rod and we plan to hunt down some more bream with the same tactics during the summer months when the peak of the trout season is over.

But the most interesting episode of our angling on Sunday was when we spotted this huge bird flying high over the trees at the mouth of Dromineer Bay. We both believe what we saw was an eagle and other anglers I spoke to who saw the creature also claim that the bird was an eagle. It had a wing span of about five to six feet and its feathers were brown and beige. Certainly the herons we saw on the lake were mere sparrows in comparison to this great bird. Another angler told me it was a giant Buzzard, a bird of prey that has been living in the lakeside district for a number of years.

MAYFLY SEASON

It looks like the appearance of the Mayfly on the lake is going to be a bit late this year, given the freezing winter that we have experienced. We saw just one solitary Mayfly on the lake off Illaunmore on Sunday, so it would seem the peak of the hatch will be several weeks away.

The first of the Mayfly Competitions hosted by Garrykennedy Fishing Club starts this Sunday with the Kevin Reynolds trophy up for grabs. Meanwhile, Ballina-Killaloe Angling Club team up with Mountshannon Anglers for an inter-club competition on Sunday. The weigh-in will be in Mountshannon Hotel at 8pm.

Just a reminder to anglers, too, about the hazards to birdlife by discarding tangled fishing line on the shores of the lake. One angler reported last week that a swan had become tangled up in the line on the shores of Youghal Bay and had to be rescued.

BIODIVERSITY PROJECT LOUGH DERG ...

A briefing on the progress being made by scientists on the Lough Derg Native Fish Bio-Diversity Project will be presented in Garrykennedy Fishing Club clubhouse on Wednesday, April 28 at 7.30pm.

This will be an ideal opportunity for anglers to find out about the different types of trout that are living in Lough Derg. The project’s lead scientist Fran Igoe will cover issues such as the feeding habits of trout and potential threats to their future.

The project, which has been going on for the past number of years, has already established that there are a number of distinctly different genetic species of trout in the lake. It aims to establish the rivers where these different species of trout spawn. By doing so it will enable more effective management of the trout fishery in Lough Derg in future.

The study is also looking at lamprey eels in the lake in a bid to establish if there is a landlocked freshwater species of these eel in Lough Derg.


*Send all you fishy stories to Peter Gleeson at
pgleeson@nenaghguardian.ie or contact him on 087-6564662.