Aggh the dreaded caenis, Straid 21st July

Managed to escape for a couple of hours in the evening. Everything looked great, the was a slight breeze and the sky was clouded over. Confidence was high for an incredible night fishing.

Unfortunately their was a big hatch of caenis and the fish were on them solidly. Started off with my old favorite the f fly but these didn't even get a look in. Switched to a rat faced mcdougal and tried to fish in the holes in the weed at the far bank. This proved more successful and I was soon into a great fish that took me down to the backing, my backing hadn't seen daylight for a long time.

After the first fish the trout moved in close and locked onto the caenis. it was incredibly frustrating seeing them so close and have them refuse everything. After a brief conflab with the manager, a shuttlecock fly was used. This proved to be successful and another smaller fish was hooked. By this time the night had fallen in but we still pushed through till we couldn't see the water let alone our flies.

We had been at Straid about a month ago on a boat but as we were bank fishing this time, we were able to see what the new fishery manager has done to the place. The banks are very accessible now, with new paths cut in the long grass and new pegs. Whilst it was alwaays a great fishery, I feel it will get even better over the next year.

Blackwater Canoe Expedition - The big day

After a week of planning we finally made it onto the water. No thanks to some builders at Blackwater Town, the slipway was made inaccessible so we had to chuck the canoes in at a fly tippers paradise a bit further upstream. Once onto the water everything started to go smoothly.

I had measured the trip using a bit of local knowledge and some common sense, this had lead me to underestimate the length as 3 miles. In the end it was more like ten but somehow we managed to cover it in the time predicted.

As Paul hadn't been in a canoe for about twenty years I took it upon myself to coach him in my softly softly manner, luckily I've known Paul for some time, so he didn't cry after being shouted at for the first half an hour. I would have tried to teach him some more strokes and techniques but he had stopped listening to me after five minutes. Ian needed no such encouragement, an avid sea kayaker in his youth he was happily zipping up and down the river in no time. It wasn't long before we tried to harness his enthusiasm by tying him to our canoe and getting him to tow us.

As usual our progress was hampered by our constant need for caffeine and nicotine, this meant plenty of stops to get the trusty stove and camp cow picnic bag out. Also as I had remembered a camera this time every time a photo opportunity presented itself, five minutes had to be spent rummaging in the waterproof bag to get the camera and then a further five minutes extracting ourselves from the foliage which we had drifted into.

Going at the speed of a one legged tortoise enabled us to appreciate the wildlife and we saw a great many different species such as kingfishers, herons, buzzards and a dead cormorant.

The luckiest animal conversation was brought up shortly but only to get Paul up to speed with the standard of chat.

Luckily we all managed to end the day without any major injuries although Paul nearly received some after leaving one of my life jackets at a lunch spot.

All in all we had a great day and i would recommend this canoe trail to everyone. We wouldn't be of the highest level of fitness, in fact we probably wouldn't even be at the lowest level of fitness, but we covered a good distance and were able to walk afterwards and by the time we reached Bonds Bridge we looked like seasoned pros.

Blackwater Canoe Expedition

This is it. The canoe expedition of the century.

At the moment Thursday 17th July is the official date. The plan is:

1. Ian the Intrepit Explorer and Paul the Paddler and I meet at Blackwatertown.

2. Put both vessels into the water at slip way(fingers crossed they both float)

3. Wifey takes car and visits her friends nearby

4. We paddle down the Blackwater river

5. Stop for lunch at Moy

6. Paddle (or drift, the beauty of going downstream) to the Argory

7. Meet Wifey

8. Wifey takes Ian back to car at Blackwatertown

9. Wifey and Ian drive back to the waiting canoes and we all load up

More information of the Blackwater River can be found here

Also because this is pretty dependant on weather you can check here

Also important to note that we will be covering about six miles of river, even if we fall asleep in the canoes this will take us three hours. I'm expecting to do it less than that once all pee stops and tea breaks are taken into consideration

It is also important that Ian doesn't pick any more fights with inanimate lumps of metal. See previous post for reason.

*Update* As usual once you put anything down inwriting the details change. Originaly planned for the 16th the confirmed date is 17th. My Bad

Lough Mourne

Just to tie up a loose end. I did find Lough Mourne on another day, I've been to it twice now. It is a huge lough and i find it very hard to believe that I missed it. It doesn't seem to get a great deal of fishing pressure, but is probably more suited to the spinning rod as there isn't alot of place to fly cast from. According to those in the know, the water level will drop greatly at the start of the summer and make it far more accessible. if this is the case, I will be paying it a visit very soon.
A wee precautionary tale before i go, be careful when wading on the far shore opposite the wall. It gets deceptively deep very quickly. Also if you drive around the dirt track, the whole lake is accessible, the track eventually joins the main road again so don't worry about getting stuck up a country lane.

I'm not being lazy, honest.

Thought it was about time for another post. Since the last post I've been quite busy. I've had a couple of days at the water. I was messing about at the sixmilewater, caught a couple of small brownies on f flies. Went out on a boat at Straid with Andrew and caught some amazing rainbows. The first of which attacked a trout popper, the second a sunken F Fly and the third a daiwl bach. This was the first one, weighed in at around 2 and a half but fought well above it's weight.

And of course Tara and I have finally had our first wee fisherman by the name of Ethan Ellis Torrens. I hope to have a fly rod in his hand before he speaks

I've been supplementing my fishing by listening to the orvis podcasts by Tom Rosenbauer. If you haven't heard these yet you can start downloading them for free by the link below. They really are excellent

Orvis Podcasts

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.

Lower Bann Canoe expedition

The Lower Bann flows from Lough Neagh at Toome and out to the Atlantic at Coleraine. It is about 30miles long. Ian and I had planned to paddle a very small fraction of this. Originally we had planned to explore Lough Beg from New Ferry, but one look at the strong current and the wind here put us of. We had a trial run in lough Neagh about a month before and the conclusion was reached that paddling into strong wind and currents wasn't that pleasant. In the end we put in at Portglenone marina and planned to head upstream for a couple of hours and come back with the current.

After a brief fight with the canoe trolley we were finally in the water and on our way. Our first obstacle was the bridge over the Bann at Portglenone, the current was bottlenecked here and very strong, we began to panic that it might be like this all the way up but once through the bridge the current calmed down.

We paddled on for an hour discussing what was perhaps the luckiest animal, this started as the heron as it can swim, fly and walk. After half an hour we had agreed that a heron doesn't swim and the duck became the new luckiest animal.

Finally we reached a spot that we could disembark and have some lunch. After a couple of poses, some coffee on my wonder-stove, some cocktail sausages and a quick pee, we were off again.

We had brought a small pike rod with us (with only one lure!) so we were having a quick little fish when disaster struck. After struggling to fix the anchor mount, Ian's patience gave out and he head-butted it. I'm not too sure what happened as his back was to me but that's what i think he did.

This of course lead to moments of concern and then onto piss-taking, Ian had been previously telling me how he was going on a date the following night. He really could have done with not picking a fight with a solid lump of metal.

After the blood was cleared up, we decided this was as good as time as any to turn around and head home. This was on part because Ian was injured, we had eaten all the food and our single lure was stuck in a tree.

All in all, a very successful trip.