Declan Cook reports on the fly-fishing on Loughs Conn and Cullin: “It has been a fantastic fortnight on both Loughs Conn & Cullin as the Mayfly continues to bring fish up. Following an impressive performance in early May, which saw some great results on both lakes in the long established early season competitions, the trout angling action continued to improve with some fine fish reported and anglers praising the numbers of quality fish to be seen. There has also been some excellent evening fishing to spent gnat around Castle Island and in Tolan’s Bay. The weather has been bright and sunny for most of the period but despite these less than ideal conditions, angling returns have been excellent during the day and great in the evening as well.
Lough Cullin produced some great dry fly action with Frankie Brannigan from Castleblaney, Co. Monaghan reporting three trout averaging 1.5 lbs from Simons Bay, all on a green fanwing mayfly. Numerous smaller fish were also caught and released. Also on Cullin, Steven Cassidy from Cavan had five trout to about 6 lbs. on an orange rib mayfly along the Dance-Hall Shore.
Back on Conn, Dominic McGowan and Shane Ganly had some excellent angling in the 3rd week of May accounting for some fine fish averaging 1.5 to 2 lbs. Shane also had a beauty of about 4.5 lbs. Ferghal Reape had thirteen sizable trout over the last week of May including a lovely 4.5 lbs. beauty on a Grey Wulff. Ferghal also had numerous smaller ones, which were returned.
Richard Donnelly had some nice fish to 1.5 lbs. in Bog Bay all on spent gnat. Trevor Greene from Co. Down also had some good sport to spent, also in Bog Bay.
Freddie Canavan and Michael Cawley from Crossmolina had good fishing with Royal and Grey Wulff patterns accounting for five fish over 1.5 lbs. in the Massbrook area. Eamonn Kelly from Dublin had four good fish to 2 lbs. on dry fanwing mayflies, mainly in the Castlehill area and Colm Mc Andrew Lahardane had three fish averaging 1.5 lbs. from Victoria Bay.
On the Eastern side of the lake, Kay McBride from Dublin had a lovely 2.5 lbs. trout at the mouth of the Deel and Declan Rutledge from Australia had three trout for 5 lbs. on a Green Peter. Gordon Peppard from London had 4 trout in the Cloghans area, all to a dry golden olive patterns.
Mark and Martin Wilson fishing out of Cloonamoyne Fishery with Ian Wise caught 28 trout for their week mostly on dry Mayflies. They had thirteen “keepers” and three fish up to 2 lbs. and many over the pound mark. They also caught a nice seatrout on a spent in Tolan’s Bay and returned all their fish bar one. Nick Price and John Dickson from Edinburgh had seven trout for three days with John catching his first Irish brown trout.
Tom Dunn and Henry Walsh from Wicklow had six trout for about 9 lbs. on fanwing mayflies in the Massbrook area, all were released. Robert O’Dea and James Daly from Cork City had ten good trout averaging 1.5 lbs. Dry Mosley Mayflies seemed to be the most successful pattern for them and all fish were caught in the Victoria Bay area. John and Andrew Woods from Galway had four trout to 6 lbs. at Coleman’s Shallows. They also had about ten trout to 13 inches, all were released. John Joyce also from Galway had three nice trout on a Royal Wulff around Poteen Island”.
Go fishing…
The vast majority of trout caught on Lough Conn are taken on wet flies when trout are moving near the surface during the seasonal fly hatches, even in the valley periods, between hatches, it is nearly always possible to attract the attention of a trout to a team of well presented wet flies.
Useful information:
– Local boat hire for Lough conn and Cullin
– Lough Conn & Lough Cullin Game Angling Guide (2.38 MB)
Source: www.fishinginireland.info.