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July 09
(these reports are displayed as most recent first)
11th / 17th July
The weather has been very kind of
late, just the odd heavy shower with temperatures at a good level.
Water
levels have been on the low side but soon filled up to the summer
levels.
Two lads from England, David and Ellis on their annual trip landed at my cottage with tells of some great fishing around the lakes at killashandra in the County Cavan with the best fish falling to Ellis, a magnificent Tench of 6 lbs 2 ozs from Carr's Lough and further catches from Garfinny Lough during their 5days there.
Now they're here to show us how to catch Tench; 5 more days on the Canal on our patch with the odd evening on the river. They Did!! David had a total of 49 Tench, Ellis had 30 Tench with pictures of some of their catches, The lower section of the canal proved to be the place to fish with plenty of action on the Poles, fishing with Red Maggots and the occasional Sweet Corn they had some of the best fishing ever, to add to this they were surprised to find that there were plenty of small Tench around the 6in mark.
They did an evening session at Abbyshrule and landed 4 good fish and also lost a few at the Black Gate. Reports from Tommy's relayed that there were Bream caught on an all-night session in the mid section 20/ 24 swims, no weights were known.
Chris has been very busy with his IT repairs due to a fierce Thunderstorm and I have been into water pumps, Tractors and lawnmowers and a burst pipe but we managed to get more pictures of wild life in Doonis Bog, there has been a new hatch of Dragonflies with a Hobby doing its best to reduce the population, Sparrowhawks are abundant as are the Kestrels and Ravens.
The fishing Gallery has now been updated. click here to see it.
10th June /10th July.
We have been in the Jaws of the hottest weather we've seen in a long time, this is ok if you like that sort of weather.
Chris and I have been out trying a few shady spots but failed to get excited about any of them. I met 4 English anglers on the Canal at Abbyshrule who were very happy in what they caught; plenty of small fish (Roach and Perch) and was looking forward to some Tench in the evening time.
Red Bridge seems to be the spot for the Lidl Boys with their Spinners and Barbeques leaving all the packaging and rubbish behind hoping no-one will notice. No reports from the Canal on further catches of Trout I suppose the boys have cleaned them out.
A couple of anglers were at White Bridge and the son managed a few Roach and Perch but moved on to The Canal outside of Ballymahon (Branigan's Harbour) after asking where they might catch Tench, this spot is about 1 mile east of the harbour where the road parts from the canal, this is a very quiet spot and have produced good fish (Bernie Murphy and his friend John Wilson) had a good session there recently with 5 Tench.
I met Bernie and John one morning looking for Doonis Lough, after instructions were given on where the Lough was located they disappeared, full of enthusiasm. No results came back as yet.
Horses were the order of the day, Sunday 28th June when Chris, Jimmy and myself were requested to film the Athlone Agricultural Show, 9 o'clock to 7 o'clock pm we were in the thick of it, Horses, Horses and more Horses but we managed to complete a Video and Slideshow and has been well received by the local Horse Club.
More Video and Stills at our local Bog, with Wildlife and Plants to complete another DVD we have been working on for some time now. These Pine Martins were somewhat obliging.
The latest walk has been to the Canal at Abbyshrule, Not a angler in sight yet there were signs of fish Topping and quite a few of Tench blowing at the spot near the Gate over the second bridge, East of the village past the Airfield.
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