Happy 2010 to everyone, let's hope its a happy and healthy one for you all with possibly a few big fish thrown in for good measure.                         There is a phrase in Ireland "Eaten bread is soon forgotten" and this may not be a bad thing if put in context with last years season. The fishing was generally hard we had some terrible periods and yet some exceptional catches here is a brief summary of how things went.

February/March 09

Some brave souls were out on opening day Feb 15th and for the first few weeks many fish were caught on the shallows,I prefer to wait to see some top of the water action which started about mid March.We had very good Duck fly hatches but many people were hampered with bad weather,the top area of the lake provided shelter around its many small islands and clients caught plenty of trout with small dry's and duck fly nymphs of the islands fishing of the shore.No noticeable big fish in this area but many beauties to 2lb.The lower lake fished quite well during the early season also, anywhere we could get shelter.

April 09

April would normally be one of the most productive months but not last year.We depend on good campto buzzer fishing which was very sporadic last season .If news got out that any fish were being caught in an area of the lake it became uncomfortable, too many boats stuck in small corners of the lake pounding fish to me is not what angling is about.The bottom area of the Corrib was on days like a circus with bad manners and poor angling etiquette.The Olives came and went in the blink of an eye and on the few days we were lucky enough to see some rising fish we caught some respectable bags.April as it always seems too, gave us a number of good fish either on deep buzzers or during some of our evening dry fly sessions.We were into double figures for fish of 4lb to 5lb for the month but this was the only time of the season this happened,there was definitely a big void of large Trout caught over the season in comparison to other years.

May 09

At last a month that had something positive to report.The May fly hatch was one of the best we have had in quite a number of years, it was not as has been reported in many articles as brilliant or the best in 10 years but in specific areas of the lough the fishing was consistent ,with some very good catches.The cornamona area was first to get going where we had some good bags of fish in the first week of May.Then we concentrated on the middle area of the lough around greenfields for the remainder of the month and had many days where we had 10 or 15 fish to the boat. All methods worked well we had equal amounts of fish on wet and dry fly with reports that the traditional dappers were catching well. It's sad to report that some anglers that we only see out on the water in May still think it's necessary to kill everything they catch. It might be that they don't realise that during all the other months of the season the spectacle of seeing free rising trout is becoming a thing of the past. A trout is a beautiful thing to hunt,catch and on occasion to eat but one or two fish is enough for any man don't over do it a digital camera is a great fishing accesary. 

June/July

These two months are fast becoming my favourite, with a little effort the fishing can be unbelievable.For those of you that can get out of bed at 4am you will witness an amazing spectacle on our loughs. In June/July the fish are busy on caenis,I had some amazing days with big numbers of quality size fish. One week in June boating for Jeremy Herman he landed 62 trout over 5 mornings his best day being 26 trout with an average weight of 2lb. To catch these trout you need precise casting often in flat calm conditions targeting fish that are high in the water that will detect the slightest movement,"But Practice Makes Perfect".I have not mentioned Lough Mask much in my reports and June is a month that we should be sedge fishing on that great Lough but this year the fishing was extremely slow and only improved in September.

August/September

August is always slow so we targeted some big pike on the fly , the lower lake had good numbers of big fish and we caught allot of doubles. Some of our smaller loughs produced good fishing but only those hard to access as our eastern European friends are extremely effective hunters.Trout angling resumed in September and we had some good bags in the Cornamona area,most of these fish were caught on wet fly patterns.Lough Mask showed some promise the last two weeks of September with big numbers of trout caught,hopefully this is a good omen for next season.

Overall it was a hard season, patience and hard work produced some great day's,but it will not go down as one to remember. Some anglers say the loughs follow a cycle,some blame global warming,others question water quality.For me it's a combination of things,we are now much better at what we do using lighter leeder,better lines,buzzers,mobile phones to tell us where the fish are,faster boats, the list goes on and all the above are not in the trouts favour.Catch and release also educates fish so they are next time harder to catch and not to forget angling pressure from all of us.              But regardless we all look forward to the 2010 season and hope this will be the one to beat them all, the one of the big bag or the year we manage to catch our leviathan from the deeps.

Tight Lines,

Larry.