Drifting while casting a team of wet flies with a long flyrod is a popular way of flyfishing for trout in the UK and Ireland. On some Irish lakes one can use the same technique to flyfish for Atlantic salmon.
Completely surrounded by wild nature and mountains, Lough Beltra is one of the most beautiful lakes of Ireland. The body of water is situated some five miles northeast of Newport and about eight miles northwest of Castlebar in county Mayo. The lake itself is around two miles long and one mile wide, especially on a day with a fresh wind you will need an outboard engine to be able to make new drifts all through the day and to return to one of the parking places where you have left your car. During the months of March, April and May the lake receives a run of spring salmon, from June onwards this is followed by smaller numbers of grilse and seatrout. This lake therefore gives you the opportunity to fish lough style for wild Atlantic salmon! In earlier times, Lough Beltra had a reputation for holding big salmon and those times seem to return slowly but surely in the last few years. On any day there is a good chance of hooking a twenty pound Atlantic salmon on the fly.
Lough Beltra has a maximum depth of around thirty metres and across large parts of the lake the lake bed drops down quite sharply close to the shore line. This is probably one of the reasons why a lot of the salmon are caught very close to the shore line. “If you can not touch the bottom with your rod tip, you are fishing too deep”, is a sound, general advice on this water. When the wind comes from the west, you can make long drifts along the road on the eastern shore whereby you do not have to move the boat further away from the shore all that often. When there is a lot of wind, than start on that part of the lake where the wind blows offshore; you will have a better control over your flies here than at places where high waves crash on the stones along the shore.
Fluorocarbon
Mark Corps, with whom I shared a boat on Lough Beltra, advised me to put together two ten foot fly rods for a line class #7, one with a floating, the other with an intermediate fly line. Mark Corps is an experienced flyfishing instructor and can often be found on this lake. When there is a lot of wind, like in our case, it is not a bad idea to choose a fly rod for a line class #8, with this you will also have more influence on a hooked salmon.
My leaders, with a length of four and six metres, were made up of 28/00 fluorocarbon, with two droppers one to one and a half metre apart from each other. Because of the windy circumstances for most of the day, I mostly used the shorter leaders. The six metre leaders have the advantage that you do cover more water and that the point of the fly line is also further away from the flies.
The intermediate fly line sinks a few inches up to a foot or two under water and this means that the waves have less influence on the movement of the flies and that you will have a more direct contact with your flies. During the first few hours I used a floating line, but after lunch I switched to the rod with the intermediate fly line as this gave me more confidence. I saw two brothers land their second salmon on the fly from another boat, later a third fish threw the hook; this gave me confidence that there would be something in store for us too.
Salmon flies
Most of the artificial flies that are used on Lough Beltra, have rather dark colour combinations, shrimp patterns for example like a Red Shrimp, but also the Silver Badger, Silver Doctor, Thunder & Lightning, Lemon & Grey and the Hairy Mary, tied on a double or treble size 6, 8, 10 of 12 are ‘go to’ flies here. When fishing here in the summer time for seatrout, you can choose a Bibio, Green Peter, Butcher, Connemara Black, Black Pennell or Watson’s Fancy.
In order to spread my chances for success, I had knotted, apart from two dark patterns, a Silver Wilkinson as a top dropper on my leader. After a cast forward, those long rods are great for making roll casts, the flies were fished back quickly with long strips. At a point when the tip of the fly line was still some six metres from the boat, the rod was raised in an effort to bring the top dropper to the surface so it could create a bit of a wake there. Bring up the tip of the rod, let the line go past your shoulder, a new roll cast and one was fishing again already. In this way you can fish large areas of water quickly and effectively. Apart from some small brown trout there were also perch that showed an interest in our flies; but that was not what we came for…
Close to shore
Mark had put the boat in position for a new drift and I placed some casts towards shore on my right hand side. I made two strips and than there was a big swirl at the place where I had placed my flies in the water. I quickly raised my rod and was lucky to hook the salmon. Quickly I reeled in the loose line that was lying in front of me and than the fight could begin. The long flyrod made a beautiful curve, the flyline cut through the water surface like a knife. That someone down there did not agree with this treatment was made clear through the swirls that were made here and there.
The fish made some short runs that the drag of the reel had no problem in dealing with, the fish used its weight to stay well down under the boat. After some minutes that seemed to last a considerable time, I was able to bring her to the surface and laying on her side the fish slid into the net that Mark was taking care of. A beautiful silvery fish, probably about seven pounds in weight, in one word “great”. As it turned out the fish had taken the Silver Wilkinson, a good thing I had chosen not to use dark patterns only. Some pictures were made quickly and than I returned the salmon to her environment on Lough Beltra. I held her upright in the water for a while and than she disappeared without any problem into the depths of the tea coloured lake.
Water proof
After four in the afternoon the wind finally went down a bit, we caught some more, now larger brown trout as well as a number of perch, but the salmon did not show themselves any more. Around half past seven we returned to the car park, with a nice experience in our luggage. Next time I will take something soft to sit on or maybe be even a real boat chair, sitting all day on a piece of wood is not really comfortable for the lower end of your back. Also make sure to pack everything in water proof bags and suitcases, especially your camera gear. When travelling against the wind and the waves you can be sure that some water gets into the boat as well.
Other ‘must do’ things are to wear a life jacket at all times, to make sure that you have the correct salmon fishing licenses and that a ‘tag’ is put onto a salmon that you want to keep shortly after you netted it. A good sized landing net is not really any luxury either, there is always the chance here to hook into a fifteen or twenty pound salmon. For two flyfishers the costs of renting a boat with an engine plus the services of a guide amounted to about 105 euro per person per day (a few years ago when I made the article) when you arrange it through the Newport House in Newport. Glenisland Anglers’ Co-operative rents out boats and sells licenses on the east side of the lake, this may be a bit cheaper. Lough Beltra is a catch & release water until the 11th of May, salmon must be returned at all times. The season opens here on the 20th of March and lasts until the 30th of September. Also remember to return to Ireland in time the logbook and the unused tags that you received when buying your salmon license (a return envelop comes with the license).
Newport River
The Newport River runs out of Lough Beltra, at Newport it runs into the sea. The salmon in the lake reach this water through the river. The owner of the Newport House has in recent years bought out the professional fishermen that fished for salmon in the delta. The catch results on both the Newport River and Lough Beltra have seen vast improvements since that time. The river runs quite evenly and is therefore more difficult to ‘read’ than many other salmon rivers, the structure of the pools is just simply harder to recognise. During the end of May I was able to fish the river for about five hours, on the day it was raining all afternoon and there was a hard wind blowing straight upstream. Using a flyline with interchangeable tips, I changed my sinking tip for an intermediate version after hooking up on the bottom a few times. The leader was about ten foot in length with a tippet of 28/00 fluorocarbon.
Because of the dark weather conditions I changed my salmon fly after an hour of fishing for a black tubefly with a yellow and black body and a wing of soft, black hair. This tubefly plus another one with a pearl mylar body and the same black wing, accounted for two silvery salmon with a weight of around ten pounds each; super! The salmon produced several swirls on the surface and made short runs across the river, but the progressive thirteen fout double handed fly rod handled these without any problems. The small treble was in the point of the mouth in both cases and could easily be removed. After a few pictures both fishes were returned again to the water.
Further information:
Newport House
Newport, Co. Mayo, Ireland
Tel. +353 (0)98 – 41222
Website: www.newporthouse.ie
Glenisland Anglers’ Co-operative
Kilgarve, Glenisland
Co. Mayo, Ireland
Tel. +353 (0)94 – 902 1302.
Website: www.loughbeltra.com
Inland Fisheries Ireland
Swords Business Campus
Swords, Co. Dublin
Ireland
Website: www.fisheriesireland.ie
Websites: www.salmonlicences.ie
