Irish Angling Update 18th May

Shannon Region

Brian McManus reports:
info@shannon-fishery-board.ie

Charter skipper Luke Aston reports on recent deep sea in the Shannon Estuary MAY  16th, 2007...

His boat “Clare Dragoon” at anchor some days  due to changeable weather.

The fishing here is getting more  varied and the changeable weather has lead to the odd day in the estuary. Over  the last 2 weeks the fishing has picked up closer to the land and we spent one  full day fishing along the north side of Loop head sheltering from a strong  south east wind. This produced some fine wrasse fishing, with a few Ballan  Wrasse just under the specimen weight of 4.75 lbs. They were taken on some rag  worm.

On the days we were further off,  the fishing was also very productive with plenty of fish about. It is nice to  see some Cod and Ling coming to the boat along with the normal run of Pollock.  The average size of the Pollock is a little on the light size with an average  of 4 lbs to 5 lbs, but hopefully this will improve like last year as the  feeding season gets underway! And there seems to be lots of feed on the ground  at the moment. Mackerel are plentiful and there are lots of sand eels about.

We also had to spend a few days  in the estuary as some strong south westerlies stopped any chance of getting  into the open sea. Fishing at anchor produced some fine Thornback Ray and the  normal run of doggies, but it must be said that the fishing was slow. I did try  for a tope but no luck yet. However having the sheltered water in the estuary  is one of the plusses of the fishing here. What do they say “a slow days  fishing is better than a good days work” and we hopefully have the Tope fishing  getting into full swing over the next month.

Western Region

E Mail: kcrowley@wrfb.ie

James Linnane from Lisdoonvarna Fanore SAC reports  from the Ingle Memorial competition held at Ballyreen, North Clare on Sunday  the 13th.

21 Anglers competed in a stiff North East wind and  choppy seas and landed 33 fish. Species included Conger eel, Pollack, Lesser  Spotted Dogfish and Wrasse. Heaviest fish of the day was a Conger Eel weighing  8 kg caught by Tom Faley from Limerick.

First was Michael Curtin from Kinvara with 150  points, closely followed in second by Tom Faley from Limerick, on 137 points. Third place went to Michael Foudy from Ruan,  with 89 points, and fourth was Joe Birney from Clarecastle, with 45 points.

The Best Juvenile Angler was Sean Copley from  Clarecastle, with 34 points. 2nd was Joseph Birney, also Clarecastle on 22  points, and 3rd was Liam Potter from Clarecastle with 10 points.

Also there are reports of good boat angling from  Galway Bay this week, with good ray and tope fishing.