Weekly overview of Game, Coarse and Sea Fishing Reports from around Ireland

More rain has fallen and for coarse, salmon and trout anglers the fresh water and rise in levels has been welcome. Unfortunately much of the east coast has yet to benefit from any real rainfall and rivers from Louth to Wexford continue to run low. Sea anglers have enjoyed a good week of fishing with some fine catches made from shore and boat.

Angling and Fishing Highlights

• Castletown, Boyne and Fane need some rain for salmon fishing to improve.
• Some big salmon coming into the Suir but rain needed.
• Salmon to 16lb on the Blackwater as conditions improve for fly fishing.
• Salmon to 14lb from Laune Salmon Anglers waters.
• Galway Fishery grilse run slows down but plenty of fish in residence.
• Erriff continues to fish well for salmon.
• Salmon fishing really picked up last week at Kylemore.
• Good numbers of salmon caught on the Owenea.
• Lots of trout from the Boyne, but evening rise short lived with cooler nights.
• Trout anglers desert Lough Sheelin for Fleadh Cheoil.
• Brown trout to over 7lb from Lough Lene.
• Loughs Acalla and O' Flynn providing excellent fishing.
• Trout fly fishing very good on Corrib last week.
• East coast coarse angling round up.
• Coarse fishing at Lanesborough should improve with raised water levels.
• Bags of coarse fish to 130lb on the feeder around the Longford area.
• Running with the Hounds - east coast smooth hounds.
• Superb Summer fishing for Cork Harbour Boats.
• Deep sea fishing good off Clare coast with plenty of variety.
• Broadhaven Bay sea angling festival results.
• Porbeagles on pollack out Red Bay.

Salmon Fishing Report

Water levels on most east coast rivers have remained very low during the last week and that rain is badly needed. Despite this, a number of salmon were taken during the last week on the Castletown and on the Boyne. The Suir also needs rain but some good fish are still making their way up the river on the tide. Fishing on the Blackwater is improving with the freshwater it has had and fish to 16lb have been landed at Fort William. Though the Laune remained low some good salmon to 14lb were taken on fly. Local advice is to fish far and fine, but beware of the double figure fish. A few fisheries have reported that the grilse run is slowing down and the Galway Fishery is no different, luckily there are plenty of resident fish to occupy anglers while they wait for a fresh run of salmon. Recent rain gave good fishing conditions for most of the week, and the Connemara fisheries reaped the reward, with excellent salmon fishing on most rivers. The Moy produced a further 491 salmon for the week, with all methods producing results at various fisheries although angling effort is significantly lower. The Drowes and Lough Melvin were quiet last week but at the Owenea there were good numbers of salmon caught with most of these taken over the first four days of the week.

Robert Babington with a beautiful 13lb+ Boyne Salmon prior to its release back to the River.For the full story visit Catch of the Week.

Trout Fishing Report

Trout fly fishing on east coast rivers is continuing to offer good sport but the low water levels and high water temperatures can make for difficult conditions. Added to this the evening rise has been cut short recently by the cooler nights. Lough Sheelin was quiet last week as most local anglers were enjoying the music at the Fleadh Ceoil. Nonetheless some good fish were still caught with dabblers and green peters accounting for some of the better fish reported. Lough Corrib fished well last week, with plenty of trout coming to the fly when conditions were right. A lot of these fish were over 2 lb. too, so the quality of fish is very high at the moment.

Coarse Angling Report

At Lanesborough, 2 coarse anglers reported bags from 25 - 30 lbs. With the increase in the water table, angling should be livelier over the next 10 days for all types of fishing. Fishing around the Longford area has been very good recently. The feeder proved to be the best approach with catches to 130lb accounted for. Anglers in the Carrickmacross area are reporting pleasant roach fishing on maggot with fish in the 6-12oz range making up tidy bags. Some perch to 1lb were also caught.

Sea Fishing Report

Sea anglers enjoyed a good week with some great deep sea fishing reported. Shore anglers also enjoyed themselves and Ashley Hayden fishing at a favourite mark in the south east had some lovely smooth hounds on lug and peeler crab. Cork Harbour continues to fish well and the charter boats there have had some really top class cod fishing with plenty of double figure fish taken. Specimen conger, big pollack and ling and even an anglerfish on a jelly worm were taken on recent outings. Some charter skippers are enjoying one of the best shark fishing seasons they have had for a number of years. This year's Cobh SAC International Deep Sea Angling Festival starts on Monday 5th September with a superb prize fund worth €7,500 of which €2,000 is in cash. Competition anglers will be interested to hear that there are 5 places still open. The Clare coast and Shannon Estuary are also fishing very well and some great blue shark to 220cm have been landed in the last week. Anglers have also enjoyed some lovely ray fishing. Ray have also featured in Killala Bay with 15 taken on a recent trip aboard the Leah. Anglers fishing on the Predator out of Red Bay were treated to more porbeagle action during the week when a double hook up made for an interesting time. The sharks took live pollack just under the boat.

There is some heavy rain forecast over the next couple of days and then over the weather weekend is supposed improve. Enjoy the fishing.

Tight lines – especially in Ireland,
Paul Bourke, Inland Fisheries Ireland Angling Information Officer has kindly provided this report to Fishing.ie, the Fishing Forum and Social Network for angling and fishing in Ireland