What a difference a week makes. Although the weather seemed the same, the extra bit of heat in the spring sun seemed to get everything going. Loading the boat i could see that there were a few duck fly stuck in the cobwebs. But along with Ducklfly there were more than a few smaller buzzers alongside them. Looking in the trees and into other boats there was a remarkable increase in fly activity compared to the week before. But most of the insects that i could see were of the small buzzer type. But that was all i needed to see. I only set up one rod washing line style, a nice size 12 buoyant booby on the tail and three droppers with a size 16 black buzzer on the top dropper, a size 14 hares ear next and a red hollo diawl back size 14 again third down. This set up is fished on a full floating line with a flurocarbon cast tapered from 6 lb ft down to 4lb. My first 6 feet of flurocarbon is 6lb, then i attach 12 ft of 4lb fluro with flies placed equally at 3ft apart.. The heavier 6lb helps to turn over your cast. If there were small buzzers about, the trout in Lough Lene will be up high in the water column and feeding on them, so fishing a floater and lighly dressed flys would help keep my menu in the right zone for the trout.
As i pulled away from the shore , the wind did not seem as cold, but its still March and as soon as i got out onto the lake, i had to put my rain jacket on, mainly for use as a wind breaker. It was still cold and it just did not look as good for top of the water fishing as it did on the shore line.
Usually i spend an hour or two looking for fly at this time of year at the start of the day, as you will get concentrations of fish in these areas and i feel its pointless fishing water that has no fly activity, unless you want to pull lures. To be honest i have pulled lures a lot in the past but i get much more fun catching fish on drys or nymphs these days. It is more of a challenge .
Today i looked for sheltered areas of the lake where the biting wind would not be as bad, over the years you get to know the areas where the flys hatch and if i found a calm water there, the fly would be there aswell as the fish.
The wind was gusty and i tried a few points with only two takes to the hares ear. The fish i caught were hooked tight to the shore and after i stomach pumped them prior to release,the contents prooved they were on louse and corixa.
Moving again i found a slightly calmer area, a few casts after setting up the drogue i got a tentative take that resulted in nothing. The following cast the line tightened and i let the fish take line under slight pressure. If i hold on to these takes i would be smashed instatly using such fine fluro, if ui used havied fluro i would not get the same presentation and therefore not get as many takes.
This time the fish took a diawl bach, again the fish was released, but this time the trout had 3 tiny buzzer pupae, a few adult buzzers and snails were also present. I changed the tail fly to a bigger booby to keep the flys high and this worked a treat, i landed half a dozen fish in the next 30 minutes, the fish falling to all 3 droppers on the cast.
About 1pm more tiny black flys hatched and they could be seen in the wind lanes, i put the bung on. The bung is a method loved by some and hated by more. Noddy fishing ????, but hey every technique that catches a lot more fish than other technique gets stick. I will go into the ins and outs of this technique in a future Blog.
A twelve to fourteen foot cast( depending on depth of water) with a bung tied 3 foot from your floating line is your starting pont, three flies are tied onto droppers at equal intervals along the cast. I went for a size 14 hares ear on the tail and two size 16 buzzers above it. Casting no more than 10 yard in front of the boat. I let the flies sink naturally and hold at their depth , only taking in the slack as i drifted towards the bung. Early season i leave the bung out there as long as i can, ensuring the flies reach their maximum depth. On my third cast the bung buried , which resulted in a 5lb + overwintered fish that took the point fly. This fish was feeding hard on louse and corixa.
Over the next 2 hours i changed from the bung to the washing line, catching more fish on the washing line method than the bung. I even played around with dries for a while which resulted in another overwintered fish in the 5lb+ bracket, but no other takes. Unfortunately the area got busy and i decided to call it a day soon after. I had a great day landing some nice stocked fish along with some really nice overwintered trout , one fish in particular pushing 6.5-7lb. (mental note to self, bring the scales next time).
Hopefully i will get out next week and see if i get some excellent dry fly fishing which Lough Lene is famous for.
RIB- GOLD MEDIUM WIRE
BODY- HARES EAR BODY FUR
TAIL- HARES EAR GURAD FIBRES OR DEER HAIR
CHEEKS- OPTIONAL- GOLD-RED-YELLOW ORANGE HOLLO
DIAWL BACH
HOOK- 16-10 KAMASAN B175
THREAD - BLACK
RIB- RED HOLLO
TAIL AND BEARD- BLACK HACKLE
BODY- BLACK PEACOCK HERL
CHEEKS - JUNGLE COCK - RED /ORANGE/SILVER- HOLLO
BUZZER 1
HOOK- 16-10 KAMASAN B175
THREAD- BLACK
RIB- SILVER OR PEARL
BODY- BLACK THREAD
CHEEKS- RED HOLLO CHEEKS
BREATHERS - OPTIONAL- POLY YARN
BUZZER 2
HOOK- 16-10 KAMASAN B175
BODY- STRIPPED NATURAL PEACOCK QUILL
CHEEKS- SUNBURST OR ORANGE GOOSE BIOTS
BREATGHERS- OPTIONAL - POLY YARN
ALL buzzers are coated with DEER CREEK FINE FLEX RESIN
Fabien Tronche
10.04.2019 05:50
Good write up of what was a really good day.
Peter Gleeson
04.04.2019 09:17
Thanks Denis for taking the time to share your vast knowledge with us. Superb article
Mick
03.04.2019 21:48
Nice fish Denis, like the blog,đź‘Ť
Denis Mark
03.04.2019 21:27
Very good
Philipmurray
03.04.2019 18:27
Thank you for your great day brilliantly wrote
Robert Lawlor
03.04.2019 16:53
Great posting Denis loved the read all flyes are in my box ready for the next trip up to lean tight lines Rob
Freddie Boyd
03.04.2019 14:50
Thanks for the info Dennis , going to Lene this weekend. Cheers Freddie Boyd
Chris Meadows
03.04.2019 12:58
superb Blog, loved reading it!!!!
Martin Allen
03.04.2019 07:12
Great wee write up
David May
02.04.2019 22:50
Great read Dinny,FairPlay!đź‘Ť
Dinger
02.04.2019 06:59
Great read well done
Latest comments
19.05 | 05:47
Hi Denis
Good meeting last night, and enjoyed reading your blog. Felt I was on the lake with you. Great work
02.05 | 20:42
Hi Dennis loved the article straight to the point .just wondered will the trout feed on the small buzzers all year ?
06.04 | 11:57
Cant wait to read this
01.03 | 03:03
glad u enjoy, ty, will be back when the fishing returns
AND SO IT BEGINS.
After fishing from the bank all winter long, I was looking forward to getting back in the boat. Normally I would wait for the first hatch of the year and travel down to the west of Ireland or not go at all until the Duckfly appears in the midlands. But after not fishing for 3 weeks I was starting to loose the plot. So with limited time I opted for Lough Owel and maybe chance to see the first hatch of the year, which is a small buzzer about half the size of the Duckfly which hatches just before the Duckfly itself. The weather looked good enough in the days before my trip, but as always the weather turned. A South wind but 19 to 24km which isn’t really what I was hoping for.
Arriving early at Lough Owel I was greeted with a bare pin ripple on the lee shoreline and a balmy 10c, but as I fitted the boat out I could feel the breeze building. Two 10ft ever reliable 7 weight RS Wychwood Competition rods were both adorned with floating lines, a straight buzzer set up on one and a bung on the other.
As I travelled down the lake it was lovely to hear the hum of my 15hp Johnson, I checked every bay and reed bed but more in hope, for any sign of buzzer. The wind was picking up all the time and after an hour or so I resigned myself to defeat and out came the di3. Fishing at this time of year in my opinion is normally shallow for hoglouse and snail feeders, whilst drifting in 10 to 20 ft of water you would be after fry feeders on the drop off with di5s and di7s depending on the wind.
The greater the wind the heavier the sinking line. At this stage I had travelled as far as the cornfield and I drifted off the shelf in nice conditions pulling dabblers and fry patterns. A three fly 16ft cast of 8lb strong leader, 6ft to first fly and then 5ft between with flys .
Just coming off the shelf I got my first fish, a lovely marked but thin overwintered Triploid Brown of about 2lb. Working up the shoreline to the neck I got two more on Black Dabblers and a big white Hummungous.
Stomach pumping the fish is a must when fishing in my opinion, you don’t need to go mad emptying the fishes stomach, a brief pump will tell you what the fish are on. In this case snail and hoglouse were high on the menu.
HE WHO DARES WINS....
I worked along the lee shorelines as it was getting very blustery picking up a fish here and there. I changed flys a few times, but it seemed whatever I put on the top dropper the fish took. The top dropper is the first fly the fish sees as you pull it by him, typical early season fishing. All fish were in the 1.5lb to 2.5lb bracket. Its been years since I fished Owel on a regular basis, so this year I have decided to fish it a lot more and re-learn the lake. With this in mind, I kept moving, instead of repeating drifts.
About lunch time I decided to head to deep water and see if I could contact some of the larger trout Lough Owel has know become known for.
I put up the di-5, but after one drift I felt I was not staying in contact with the line or getting deep enough due to the wind. So the dreaded di-7 was taken out of the box and the cobwebs blown off it. It took me 5 or so minutes to get the feel for the line as I hadn’t fished it from a boat in what seemed like an age.
But sure enough 10 minutes later after a count to 35, followed by a long slow retrieve the first marker went through the rod rings and I hung the flys, I thought I got slight knock, I waited and waited, nothing, continuing my long slow retrieve I barely got three more long pulls before the rod hooped over and the tip of the rod buried into the lake as line peeled off the floor then off the reel. Playing a fish alone out in the middle of the lake on a blustery day will certainly get your heart thumping. Anything and everything can go wrong , so that’s why I keep a tidy boat( stop laughing) when fishing alone. Regaining half the line onto the reel, I began to drag the fish from the depths. At times it just hung beneath the boat and there was nothing I could do. The wind was pushing the boat along too quickly.
Eventually the fish came to the surface and at over 4lb I was gobsmacked and puzzled at its strength. Lying on its side one second, then it vanished, the penny dropped, I had two on. Now it got messy, eventually I guided the first one into the net, unhooked it, then netted the fish on the tail fly with the first fish in the net. The tail fish was about 3.5lb and the fish on the top dropper was over 4lb, they certainly stretch the di7. Both released back to their watery homes, after a little rest in my net.
I fished all the way back to the moorings, catching an odd fish and I had another double hook up of newly introduced fish but it was pleasant. Just as I packed up the redundant Bung Rod, a fish rose in front of me. As a wise man once said “never pass up a willing fish”. Out with the di- 3 and 3 casts later the line went tight, fish number 13 was landed. Enough was enough and in I went.
Lough Owel was kind to me on a not so kind day. It was great to be back out on the lake and I hope to be back out again next week, hopefully there will be Duckfly !!!. But knowing my luck , the wind will be howling and the rain will be coming down sideways.
But as Anglers we Live in Hope.