Fly Fishing Report From An Irish Angler

Co. Wicklow, Ireland.


Sometimes it's not just about the fishing, being there is enough. After weeks of interminable wind Ireland's weather appears to be settling down and a day on the lake seemed like a good plan. Lough Dan looked fantastic in the early June sunshine, but talk about the sublime to the ridiculous. Last week the water was a maelstrom of wind and waves with even an eye witness report of a waterspout tracking its way up the lake, eventually collapsing "as described to me" in an explosion of water falling out of the sky. Today Lough Dan is mirror calm with just occasional zephyrs wafting down from the surrounding hills to ruffle the surface.

Meeting Dan and Gary on the beach we set out and crossed the lake to fish a drift along the boat house shore. On arrival we observed a hatch of sedges with trout rising everywhere. Happy days within five minutes three fish graced the boards, trout typical of the water heavily spotted, dark backed, and yellow bellied. Then whatever breeze was there died, the sun came out beating down from an almost cloudless sky and the trout retreated to shade or deeper water.

From then on the fishing was slow, trying different methods Gary found some success tying a buzzer three foot below a klinkhammer which he casted into shady spots along the shore. It was fun to see the dry fly suddenly disappear as a trout sucked in the nymph pattern below with occasionally a fish rising to the klinkhammer. Improvisation was the key as standard methods were ruled out by the mirror calm surface.

A crowning feature of the lake is a secluded beach created by deposition from the Inchavore River, made up of fine granite and quartz pebbles with mature birch trees providing shade it is a beautiful spot to haul up and have a picnic. Today we met and chatted with Sean Byrne of Lough Dan House B/B, and three of his patrons from Australia, Canada, and the USA respectively. Out walking and enjoying the scenery they headed off eventually following the river up the valley.

With lunch over and having said our goodbyes to Sean and his group we climbed aboard and headed to some more shady spots, the trout played hard ball for the afternoon but hey that's fishing, we were out on the water enjoying each others company in a beautiful unique location, heaven....


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