Time marches on....

I am away fishing on Saturday, March 1st. It is the start of the season for the majority of trout fisheries. I will let you know how I got on.

Back from Lough Corrib

I enjoyed my trip to the west. Lough Corrib fished quite well, I managed one trout and a Salmon Kelt, but I also hooked 5 other trout that failed to stay on. In all I rose about 12 fish, but most were either coming short or following the flies in. It seemed to be a problem with others I spoke to. Noel got a nice fish at the other end of the boat and missed one other. All the fish came to either a Golden olive bumble or a claret dabbler and they were up on the shallows. It was cold in a light south east to east wind, and there were no signs of fly life. I tried a drift over buzzer water first, but quickly realised that there was little or no chance of any buzzers hatching and decided to take a drift over a long shallow point, the winds angle allowed me to drift across it at an angle, giving me plenty of time to cover both drop-off edges and the shallow itself in one drift. Within minutes of setting up for the drift, Noel got his fish on a Claret dabbler and I rose four other fish including the Salmon kelt over the point.
We did the drift a further two times, I rose fish on each drift and caught my trout on the second drift across, by the third things had quietened down considerably, due possibly to the wind dropping almost to calm.
I did another drift then moving to 'Mollies rock' further out into the lake but a good drift over shallow water. I rose and hooked a good fish just off the rock, but again after a short run the hook pulled. We then decided to pull up on the shore for another cup of tea, we had stopped for one between the 1st drift and fishing the point, while boiling the kettle we realised time was against us and after tea we headed back towards home, intending to do one more drift closer to home, alas by the time we got there the wind was gone, so we decided to call it a day early. When we reached shore we found many had the same idea...but all in all, we both had fish and had seen quite a few. A good result for opening day.

Fishing and St. Valentine

I have everything organised for tommorrow, flowers,card, dinner reservation.......it is Valentines Day.....
I am treating Christine as she deserves to be treated, she looks after me well..........



.........and I am dissapearing at 5 am the following morning, off to the West and fishing on Lough Corrib. She's not a bad wife at all.... Sometimes one has to make sacrifices, it would be a bit much to head down the day before!. I can only go for the one day also as I have to be in Dublin for an important meeting on Saturday.
Apart from that I still have to organise my fishing gear, most of the trout gear is still put away for the winter, and our trip to Amsterdam has meant that time has caught up on me. I will be busy tommorrow afternoon getting the Van loaded and ready for my trip. I need to get all my gear ready and checked in daylight.

3 days to go....counting down to the new season

Three days away from the first trip of the trout season. We will be off to Lough Corrib for the 15th. I am hoping the mild spell continues, if it does we may get some fly life on the lough. The trip to Corrib on the 15th is always speculative though. It is more about getting out than getting fish. I still have to organise myself for the trip. I have been busy painting and travelling, details on my art-blog here .
I will fill you in on the trip on Sunday or Monday as I will not get a chance earlier. The next week or two are busy with Angling Club AGMs, it's that time of year with all getting ready for the main start of the season for eastern waters on March the first, followed by some on the 17th. It can be confusing, Here in Dublin the reservoir at the head of the Dodder river opens on the 1st of March, the river itself opens on the 17th. This may have something to do with the lakes at the top being fly only. I must get busy tying some flies now though.

We have had poor weather for the last week, wet windy and cold. The forecast is for much of the same for this week too. I had to drive over to the midlands yesterday for a meeting and conditions on the road were poor, gusting gale force winds, sleet, rain & snow, air temperature at midday of 1 degree celcius. I was not looking forward to the trip home, but luckily I was able to leave early and I managed to get most of the way home before dark, and more importantly any frost or ice forming. Although I have not done a great deal of work since my last post, I have delivered two paintings, but I still need to get stuck in to another project that is fairly urgent at the moment. I need to get into town for a few art supplies too. I am going to need the break when I get to Amsterdam, but I am going to spend a full day in the Van Gogh museum..... mind you when I see his work up close and in the flesh it is excellent, clean clear wet on wet oil paint with no muddiness, a light brush touch casually placing paint down.......but it is quite depressing when you compare your own work to it. I'm sure I'll get to see some other art as well though, unless I need a couple of days in the VG.