Jason asked me to write something about my experiences of fly fishing in Ireland, but in 1,500 words all I can do is sketch out what I’ve learned in the 18 years that I’ve been living here and provide an overview of how my fishing year usually works out. My base is in the City of Derry – a.k.a. ‘Londonderry’, or ‘Derry/Londonderry’ - sometimes known as ‘Stroke City’. I fish mainly in Northern Ireland or Co Donegal, just over the border in the Republic, but often stray further afield into Mayo, Connemara and as far as Kerry in the South West where my old mate Roger Baker runs Cloghvoola Fishing Lodge by Lough Currane – the best sea trout water in Ireland.
Most of my fly fishing here has been for wild brown trout, but I also fly fish for salmon, sea trout, pike and saltwater species. I rarely fish stocked waters, though I was at a nice one recently - Moorbrook Lodge near Castlerock in Co Londonderry– to meet up with some friends in anticipation of the opening of our local wild trout waters in March. We all caught a few rainbows up to about 6lbs, mainly on bloodworm and chironimid imitations. There is another small ticket water near Moorbrook – Stone Falls – which has stocked trout to over 20 pounds as well as a growing head of ‘wild’ rainbows thanks to the stocked fish having spawned successfully in the lake!
I usually start my wild trout fishing in Co. Donegal in the Republic of Ireland, as I’m a member of a couple of local clubs which have over 20 lovely loughs of various sizes, with good heads of wild brownies. The average size is typically 8-12 ounces but there’s always the chance of a bigger fish, especially on a couple of loughs (though I’m not telling you which ones). But the size of fish doesn’t matter to me when I’m catching – and mainly releasing – perfect wild trout. It’s great just to be out in the open air and fly fishing again. If I’m boat fishing, I usually fish a team of three wet flies in the early season, but I tend to use nymphs if I’m walking the shore. The trout are usually either down deep in March if it’s still very cold, or working those shallow margins which have started to warm up and where there is some food – usually just shrimps and hoglouse.
Our first significant fly hatches don’t start until some time in April, depending on how advanced the spring is that year, and are mainly chironimids – called ‘buzzers’ in England and ‘duck-fly’ across Ireland. In late April and early may there is also the annual fall of hawthorn fly; this can bring some of the best trout to the surface, but only if the wind is blowing them onto the water rather than away from it, which often happens. My biggest recent fish on one of these loughs, though, came as a surprise. I was fishing with a friend In August 2008, covering a rocky shallow margin with a team of traditional wet flies. A saw a bit of movement to my left so I cast upwind and just as I began to move my flies there was a huge bulge of water with a smash take that left me connected to a near 3-pound beauty . It had taken a size 14 Sooty Olive pattern on the point, imitating a small emerging olive, but when we got it into the boat it coughed up a load of 1-inch sticklebacks, so it wasn’t feeding on fly at all. That’s often the case with bigger fish from these loughs, but I’ve never been very successful using larger flies which I’ve tied up specifically to imitate sticklebacks.Some of our best fishing is in May and early June when the annual mayfly hatch brings good trout to the surface. There are many great mayfly loughs in the Republic, especially Corrib, Mask, Sheelin and Conn, but I’m usually based beside Lower Lough Erne, in County Fermanagh. I keep my 19-foot ‘Fisher Supreme’ in a marina near Boa Island and fish extensively across the lough. The flies usually start hatching in the western part of the lough in early to mid May and the hatch works gradually eastwards so that it is likely to be happening just about anywhere by about the 25th. Lough Erne contains a good head of wild trout, helped by a hatchery that intercepts wild fish on their way up the spawning streams. Thus any additional stocking nowadays is with native fish rather than general hatchery stock. Some huge fish are caught occasionally well over 10 pounds, mainly by people trolling lures, but most fish taken on fly are between 1 and 3 pounds. You’d always be very happy to get three or more in a day, even during good mayfly hatches, and many a good angler has finished the day without a fish coming to the boat.
Those mayflies that avoid being eaten by fish or birds hide in the tops of bushes and trees until nearly dark then ‘dance’ before mating on the wing. Once they’ve mated, the females fly to the water and lay their eggs, and then they die. The trout know all about this so they are in no hurry to grab the spent flies, though they do want to eat them before anything else does. The actual spinner fall is often very late – after 9 PM – but they bring up some very good fish indeed. Being in the far North West, of course, it doesn’t get fully dark until 11 PM in late May, so we often don’t get back to marina before then. I would start ‘prospecting’ with two spinners – called ‘spent gnat’ in Ireland – before we see fish actually rising to the spinners. But it often makes sense only to use one fly at a time when you do manage to find a fish rising regularly because you don’t want to spook it. These fish can almost drive you mad as the best falls of spinners are on calm evenings so the fish often move around erratically rather than following a clear ‘beat’. But the best fish of the day often comes late in the evening, as in the picture from May 2006, taken by my friend Roger Pelly, who comes over every year to have a few days mayfly fishing with me on Lough Erne.The months of June and July tend to be dominated by the runs of grilse – salmon that have spent one winter at sea – and sea trout. Most of our rivers are freestone – that is, water levels are heavily influenced by rainfall, and they tend go up quickly and come down quickly. The runs of migratory fish are hugely influenced by the timing of floods and often you only have a window of a day or two to make the most of a run of salmon (though sea trout are a bit less dependent on floods). This used to be very frustrating for me as the runs seemed always to happen when the day job was making especially pressing demands on me. One of the beauties of retirement is that there is no day job so I’ve started doing more salmon and sea trout fishing and am almost becoming competent with the long double-handed fly rods needed to fish properly in some of the larger salmon rivers.
There is a wealth of game fishing across the whole of Ireland and we are especially fortunate in having some great opportunities here in the north and west. My old friends Andy and Roberta Cairns moved back home to Derry from Australia a couple of years ago with their son Craig. Within a few months Craig already had caught his first couple of salmon from the local River Faughan on spinners and worms. And then last year he had his first fly-caught salmon. And what a story: he caught it within 20 feet of the spot where his farther, Andy, had had his first salmon on a fly nearly 30 years before, and the fish took a fly that Craig had inherited from his grand-father’s fly box!
I’m just about ready for the new tout season starting in Donegal in mid March, and then on to Lough Erne by May. I’m also planning to do a bit more saltwater fly fishing this year as I’ve just got a second boat which is smaller and faster and easier to trail than my trout lough boat, and I know of a few spots with reliable summer fishing for pollock and mackerel. But I’ll have to be ready to take advantage of any runs of salmon and sea trout in June and July, not to mention the big mullet and possibilities of bass!
As it happens, I’m a qualified game fishing guide and I’m offering a day’s fishing on Lough Erne in the Wild Trout Trust annual auction (lot 82). You can find this and other opportunities to fish in Ireland, as well as supporting a great cause, on the WTT website. So maybe I’ll be seeing you here in a couple of months time.Chris Paris
Chris Paris - Useful ContactsMoorbrook Lodge
Stone Falls
Fishing in the Republic of Ireland
Cloghvoola Fishing Lodge
Wild Trout Trust auction
Fishing in Northern Ireland