If you're lazy...

If you're lazy and a little bit cack-handed like myself I thought i'd recommend The Fly Factory. I've ordered from them a couple of times now and each time I'm amazed at the prices they can offer. To top it off each order i've received has come in a plastic box with the flies arranged neatly on rows of foam. This is excellent for the hackled and the more delicate flies but also looks durn pretty.

They've recently started a loyalty scheme and offer some discounts to repeat customers and have a great postage time. The only drawbacks I've found so far is that with the amount of different flies on offer it can be hard to find specific types but the search function is very useful if you know exactly what you're looking for.

So until i figure out how to tie me own, I'm going to stick with these guys.

Fly fishing substitution

Okay I know i've posted this before, but after spending a great deal of time trying to substitute real life fishing with youtube videos. I still rate this as my favorite.



I hope to get out soon, I'm going a bit cabin crazy without regular fishing expoits.

Roll on 2009

As it was the last day of my DCAL license I figured I had to at least spent a couple of hours on the only public water still open nearby - Woodburn Reservoir.

I haven't been out for ages so I was quite excited at the prospect of spending a couple of hours by the water. One silver lining of being a father is that I'm getting slightly more used to getting up earlier. This led me to being beside the water at the ungodly hour of 10am. Blurgh, i didn't know you could fish this early. One of the downsides of being there that early was that it was c-c-c-cold. I wrapped up pretty good, I'd tonnes of warm Christmas presents but one thing that let me down was the fact that my hands were freezing. I'd gloves with me but wearing them I had absolutely no line control, so off they came.

From the outset i knew the day was going to be difficult but judging from the number of fish stealing bastards cormorants, there did seem to be fish in the water. These proved to be a mile from the bank though. I mainly stuck to sinking lines and lures, but if I'm honest all this did was highlight a couple of casting deficiencies as i struggled to cast to the horizon. For a while it looks like fish had moved in to the shallow end of the reservoir and in calm water too. I had a crack at them with a bloodworm under a pimp but alas the activity turned out to be a family of duckings practicing their diving.

Unfortunately this ended up another fishless day, which meant i still haven't had an opportunity to try out an ingenious invention by Steve Dobson the Dobson Clip which holds your rod securely allowing both hands to be used to unhook the fish.

After noticing the varnish chipping off near my rod rings this has further prompted me to get a new rod for 2009. At the moment I'm dreaming about a Hardy Demon setup, but as this is a little out of my price range I'll have to settle for something else.

Therefore from today I've put together my Fishing New Year's resolutions

1. Get a new Rod (something pretty, that makes me cast like an expert)
2. Get some casting lessons, I'm dreading this, I've a sneaky suspicion I'm unteachable
3. Post to Blog more frequently
4. Stop Blanking

I'm not too sure how I'll manage the last one, but the first two are quite obtainable. Stevie Munn is rumoured to be an excellent casting instructor who also happens to be a online tackle dealer, I'm hoping that besides trying to break me out of my self-taught bad habits he can bring along a couple of rods for me to try out.

All in all, I'm quite looking forward to the new fishing year.

Tight Lines to you all for 2009

Bad days

30Sept,01Oct Marshalstown and Woodburn Reservoirs

When i started blogging, one of the aims was to record all the times i had fished. Recently this has changed to writing about only the days I did well on. This has had the side-effect of letting me think i am a better angler than i actually am. Thought I'd better even the balance. The last two days I've been presented with a bit of free time so I used it wisely and went fishing.

Admittedly the weather has been pish, but i still thought I'd do OK, damn over-confidence. Yesterday my getaway was obstructed by my five year old nephew who had decided that he was coming with me. I knew this wasn't going to be a great days fishing but his optimism was contagious, he wanted to see me catch a fish, the thought that i might blank hadn't even occurred to him. So off we went.

I opted for Marshallstown reservoir as it has some good platforms so as to not let the child fall in or get covered in mud. My expert adequate control of the flyline was enough to entertain him for about ten minutes. There-after his enquiries of "when are you going to catch a fish?" got him through another ten minutes. After which he tried to take matters into his own hands by throwing rocks into the water to drive the fish closer to me. Bless his cotton socks, he's ever so thoughtful.

Although no fish were caught, we all returned with the same amount of eyes we left with and no-one had been in the water for a swim.

Today I though I'd make up for the lack of fish and really put some effort in. I even managed to get to the water before noon. I begun at the wild fishery at the top of the three reservoirs at South Woodburn, there is rumoured to be wild trout in here so I thought I'd check it out. I've fished here before a couple of times but had only ever caught fingerlings in a spot we call the nursery. I would have started my day here apart from the fact that there was no water in it.

I took the opportunity to walk around the reservoir as the circumference is less with less water in it. I'm quite a lazy bugger. The wind had unfortunately decided to follow me about and no matter where I stood it blew into my face at about 20 knots. All in all, it turned out to be quite a nice walk despite not seeing any evidence of the mythical wild brownies and for once i actually arrived home before the time demanded suggested by wifey.

Enniskillen, Hurray for Holidays

Just back from my Hols, went to the beautiful county of Fermanagh. The Wifey, Ethan and I had to recover from a particularly stressful week away with my family in Donegal and I'm so glad we chose Enniskillen.

I had managed to whip myself up into a fishing frenzy by reading about the fishing opportunities nearby, so with the news of crappy weather I wasn't steeling myself for a disappointing week. Luckily it wasn't that bad with just a couple of bad days.

We were quite fortunate in our location, we were renting a superb farmhouse near the Navar Lakes so after a bit of research I new this was going to be the first call. One the first day we called up to Glencreawan after convincing Wifey that there was a spectacular view point nearby (there was, it was incredible) and sneakily I brought a light set up with me. As fish rose all around us I knew this was going to be an interesting week. Wifey had other ideas and didn't relish the prospect of hanging around whilst i fished so after a brief bit of fluff chucking and a photo opp we were off.



My Buddy Andrew was nearby for the next day so we set off to explore the lakes properly, He had suggested we try Meenameen but with my typical snobbishness for all methods lake, i over-rode him and we ended up at Glencreawan. Things were looking up as Andrew was immediately into a fish on his first cast at the weeds near the slipway, but after that things got tough we spent the next couple of hours soaked through and miserable but still we fished on. To compound my misery I managed to drop my only lighter into the water and had to spent an uncomfortably long time trying to get it to work properly. Our perseverance paid off in the end though we finally got into a couple towards the end of the day.

Enniskillen is the home of the legendary Fly dresser Frankie McPhillips so I knew i had to at least call in. Of course when i got there I had to stock up on some new flies, i picked up some great looking dry daddies and a new landing net. I'd been finding the foldable one a bit crap when wading as unfolding it one handed when playing a fish can be hard work so I wanted a big scoop net that should stick to the back of my vest.


Later on in the week I ventured back to the Navar lakes as the weather had calmed down abit. I found the fishing at Glencreawan had turned impossible as the wind was still blowing a gale only this time over my line hand. So after a couple of fly-to-eye near misses I decided to re-locate to Meenameen. This lake, whilst of roughly the same size is sheltered by the forest and looked a great deal calmer. It also looked to have fish at the surface on the far bank. Oh Joy. After a brief struggle through a swamp I ended up on a floating platform of weeds slowly sinking into the vegetation. Although it was hard to cast from behind the fronds this position definitely paid off, within half an hour I had caught two cracking browns and was loving every minute of it. At this point my phone goes off and the wifey reminds my i have fatherly responsibilities waiting for me at home. After i promise to be home as soon as possible i decide to have one last chuck into a feeder stream that i had just seen movement in. After a cast that could only be described as gently lowering a fly onto the water, the previously flat calm water erupted. I was into a huge fish. After quite a while struggling to get the fish in past a tonne of snags I eventually landed it. Most of the time whilst playing it, i cursed my choice of a short handled net and longed for my extendible one.

This was probably the biggest fish i have landed yet. The net measures 45cm across and he was longer than it! By my calculations this puts the fish at about 42 pounds (give or take a pound). Fishy went back after a quick breather but by now i was running late so I packed up to go. I spent another day back at the same location and had another very productive session and cannot wait until I'm back.

The only other water I tried was Lough Keenaghan and the weather once again was not ideal and whilst it looked like a great lake I chose to talk fish with a couple of anglers and then sneak off to fill up with cheap diesel from over the nearby border

Murloc Angling and Rural Pursuits

Whilst running an errant in Aghalee I thought I would check out Murloc fishery. The fishery is situated within spitting distance of my old house so I was very curious about the setup. It is a newly constructed pond of about five acres and it only opened at the start of July.

As I hadn't a rod with me I was just going to have a nosy and bug the owner/manager if I could find him. I immediately bumped into Fred the boss man who was out enjoying a pipe and his randy dog Fly. Whilst chatting away to Fred and trying to avoid the amorous advances of his dog(who incidentally is an excellent fisher, check the photos in the lodge) I was able to experience the quality of the fishing. The beautiful clear lake was alive with activity, there were many anglers fighting with sturdy looking fish and even more rising on the lake. The fish stocked have a minimum size of 2lb and there are a number of doubles. All in all I was extremely impressed with the setup. The lodge looked very comfortable and the staff were really friendly and helpful.

Hopefully i can make up some excuse to be out in that neck of the woods again soon, but next time I'll definitely have some kit with me.

Murloc Fishery is situated halfway down the Old Church Lane which is just off the Soldierstown Road in Aghalee. You can contact the fishery on 07843632197

Middle south woodburn, 7th May

looks like another term is nearly finished at Uni. Yay.

In a brief break from assignments and revising Andrew and I set off to try our luck at woodburn.

We started of at the Upper south, which is apparently a wild fishery and had some great craic fishing for tiny trout. I eventually caught a little scrapper on an F fly.

After spending too much time fishing for tiddlers we headed to the middle damn. Andrew racing ahead in anticipation of the prospect of catching something a bit bigger. By the time I caught up to him he was into a fair size of fish, which had fallen to his second cast of a snatcher.

It weighed in at about 2lbs but given a month or two probably would have been twice this as it was fairly skinny.

After this fish the reservoir choose not to be very productive. Possibly due to the extremely low water levels and bright sky. We still choose to fish on and pretty much gave every fly we owned a quick dunk in the water.

12th April, Killylane, Take two

I'll try and do this properly now.

Was joining up with Andrew and his cousin David at Killylane reservoir, originally it was to be Ballykeel, but we' heard it had been stocked recently. By the time i got there it was obvious that there was fish in the water, alot of activity at the surface. I'd started out with hat worked last time, cats whisker, but there was no takes. After a bit my fisherman senses started to tingle. The fish were a the surface, what could this mean?

A change of tactics was needed, on went a buzzer and indicator settup, this of course induced no takes. Strange that, with some much fish at the surface. After a fair bit of changing from this to that, it eventually dawned on me. They were taking flylife off the surface.

on went the F-fly and out came a fish. The f-fly is one of two dry flies i carry, the other is a elk hair thingy. I don't like to use floatant. Andrew switched soon after and he was quickly ino a fish too, this was unfortunalty lost at the net, so he 90% caught his first fish of the season.

A brief sensation of loss was felt whenever my personall favorite fly(i was thinking about nameing him) hopped of my fly patch and was lost forever in two inches of murky water. DAMN YOU GRAVITY, DAMN YOU.

4th April North Woodburn

Set out with three objectives

1. Not to fish with buzzers and pimps

2. Use flies that i tied the night before

3. Catch a fish

Turned up late as usual, and after speaking with Derek the fisherman/councillor/tree surgeon/hillwalker/white-van-man/naturist learned that the reservoir wasn't fishing too well. Also got my update on the wildlife at the reservoir. He's a very knowledgeable man about many of the things that interest me.


So with the advice gleaned i set off down the far bank, it wasn't long before Derek was into a fish and afterwards he cleaned his area of weeds. I'd tied on a green cats whiskers that I'd tied myself (and was inwardly very chuffed with) and fished under a floating line. Worked my way along the entire bank and received no attention at all. At the end, I was wearily de-rigging the set up, to change to my usual buzzer, when i remember I had also tied an orange Cat whiskers and I decided to give it a whirl. On the second or third cast, Bang, the line tightened and i was into a fish. After a quite a long struggle to get my landing net open i eventually landed the 1lb rainbow. I'd originally planned to return the fish today, but I'd hooked the poor we chap quite far done his throat, so he was quickly dispatched.

It's not a great photo. but you can almost make out the scars on it's side. Then on the next cast a lively little rainbow took the fly again. this one was better hooked and went back straight away. After the brief period of excitement I decided it was probably best to head, I'd promised Wifey i wouldn't be all day.

After proudly showing fish to Derek, I learned that the scars were made by a cormorant trying to eat it. Was also introduced to a friend of his who gave me a couple of casting tips, I didn't catch his name, but cheers. He also was able to cast my line out probably twice as far as it has ever been casted before. I'm sure the running line got quite a shock at seeing daylight. unfortunately this means i can't blame my equipment for the shoddy casting.

All in all i had a great day, met all my objectives and had some lovely smoked trout for tea.

27th March, Middle South Woodburn

Took the fly rods for a walk around the reservoir today, joined by David and Andrew, we though the rods looked thirsty so we gave them and extended drink in the water. Both Andrew and David seem to have thought that we were actually fishing and maintain that they felt fish nibbling at their flies.

At some point i may have tied on a couple of buzzers suspended under yarn. I'm finding the yarn casts alot better than with pimps.

Although we spent a couple of hours at water very little fish activity was seen. Possibly the cold or the brightness.

Next time lads, next time, i promise.

Woodburn South Middle, 25th March

Started out with high hopes for today, After a quick ring around to recruit some fishermen, I always leave this until last moment, my brother was recruited. This of course meant i had to wait for a couple of hours to let him get sorted, Grrr. Arrived at reservoir at about two, two hours later than planned, Grrrrr. Not a bad day, the wind was down from the gale forces previously experienced and the rain was light.





I had stepped up the rod to my 7wt and was pleased with the increased distance. Using the 5wt for so long seems to have taught me a bit of finesse. There was a slight activity at the surface and i opted with buzzers, Nick opted for the dry. This he then casted into the only tree within 500yrds.

Unfortunately the day had to be cut short as obligations arose. Grrrrrr. At least i got lines wet, i had envisaged a fishing drought for the foreseeable future as uni and impending family-hood commitments arose.

14th March Bantry Lough, co tyrone

Am i destined to never catch another fish, it looks like it at mo.

andrewgmurphy and i set out for lough money after finding ourselves at lose end. Unfortunately i had made the promise of good fishing. this probably put the scud on the day. The first half of the afternoon the weather and other signs were promising, unfortunately this didn't result in any takes. the second half of the afternoon, the wind picked up, this also didn't result in any takes.

We fished hard, but to no avail. mainly concentrated on buzzers, as there was a lot of empty buzzer shucks at the surface. Fish swirls were also present. It may have been an unsuccessful day, but it was good to get back to a place that i have a fondness for.

Next time andrew, i promise we'll catch fish.

10th March Middle South Woodburn

AT LAST!!

Finally i manage to land a fish, and it was worth the wait. I fished the Middle South Woodburn, and persevered almost every type of weather but finally my Pb brown trout (1 3/4lbs) fell to a black buzzer fished a couple of feet below surface. I was using my 5wt so the fight was a bit hairy for a bit. Gave up and went home soon after fish was caught, the proudest man in Co Antrim. I was afraid what weather might come next. While heading home i was treated to a rainbow, that i was sure was sent to congratulate me.

5th march, killylane

Ye Gods, what does it take to catch a fish

ONce again the wind followed me around the reservoir, no fish were catch and only seen towards the end. a great deal of small flies in the surface film at the windblown side, nothing eating them though. Pretty much had a go at everything, but mainly concentrated on bloodworm and a black buzezer, although suffers alot of tangles when used together. Does seem like a credible brown trout fishery though, the people there spoke highly of it and it is largly unknown. When the weather calms down i will investigate this more seriously. It is largly surrounded by peat, i don't know if this will effect the aquatic life makeup at all.

Ponts of interest: i meet the straid fishery manager today at killylane, he recommended dungonnell in the summer.

Also just noticed that killylane is ment to be disabled accessable. I didn't think this was the case at all.

3rd march Marshalstown and killylane

Started getting far too cold in marshalstown, water very high and very windy. no action at water. packed upp and went to killylane. i remembered that someone said that brown trout feed earlier and in colder weather so figured this would be a fair bet. i wasn't expecting it to start snowing. Only had an hour there, most of which was sppent nosying around. did startle fish twice near the edge, i think i'm going to investigate further.

19 feb woodburn

I was contemplating leaving yet another blank day of this blog. and thereby not looking so bad.

here goes. quite windy, stuck with a weighted buzzer for most of the day, fishing from lunchtime to evening. went back to goldheaded bloodworm in desperation, all fished on wind beaten side.

results; fishless and cold

woodford 13th feb

woodford fly fishery. carrickerfergus. v. calm bright, no clouds.

absoludly no action on end of line. rats ass. tried quite alot of every thing. bloodworm, buzzers, elk hair dry, cdc f fly. using 5wt and floating line

alot of fish movemnt on surface, some acrobatics. fish rumoured to be carrring eggs, could have been trying to shed them. some very big fish (doubles?) showing themselves carrining around the surface. could also have been weedkiller. aparently that sends them crazy for a while too?

conclusions. bring 7wt out and go with lures for a bit, definatley sinking lines

Sat 09 feb evening Upper Woodburn, flyfishing, blowy and overcast

Started off with goldhead bloodworm under a pimp, fished close into the bank(wind on casting arm poor range), no joy.

switched onto cdc shuttlecock with wind at back and fishing into still water. no joy.

At the end as evening was drawing to a close tryed on the outlet pipe( not too sure of technial name or if i was allowed to walk out there) fish coming to surface. tryed goldhead peasant tail. no joy. but fish had become visble at surface for first time.

conclusion: must learn to cast into wind.

things to try: return to pier/outlet thing at dusk and try big black dries

Other Oberservations: Saw a dead otter, possibly poisined as no visible damage
took friend up, first day out flyfishing, must remember to catch fish when with witnesses