Northern Ireland trout

[BrookTroutLover]

Any members have experience fly fishing for trout in Northern Ireland. I am going to be over for a few days on business in early April, and would love to slip in a few casts.

Scott

 

[eunanhendron]

Grew up there. Best thing is to go to a still water fishery. Pay the small fee, usually equivalent to about 20-40 bucks, depending on time and if you rent a boat.

What part are you going to?

I can recommend some fisheries, but you'll need a gps or at least a printed map to find them.

 

[BrookTroutLover]

Thanks for the advice. I'll be in the Belfast- Omaugh- Lisburn circuit.

Scott

 

[eunanhendron]

Near belfast there is Straid Fishery. I fished there extensively when i lived there. Nice size trout, all stocked rainbows. Fly fishing only, but i believe the now have a small bait lake.
http://www.straidfishery.com/

Near Lisburn there are a number of good fisheries.
http://www.brookhallfishing.net/

Dungannon park lake is between Lisburn and Omagh.
http://www.dungannon.gov.uk/index.cfm/area/page/pagekey/549

You'll find others here, http://www.wheretofish.co.uk/category/game-fisheries-stillwater/location/northern-ireland/, but those ive mentioned are probably the pick of the bunch.

Good luck

Eunan

 

[BrookTroutLover]

Is there such a thing as stringing up a rod and tramping along a stream fishing for wild trout? Or is this Pennsylvanian spoiled?

Scott

 

[eunanhendron]

I'm sure there is, but most of those waters are privately owned, so permission is required. I've not done anything like that over there for about 20 years, so i've little information on that.
What you could do is join the fly fishing forum uk site and post some questions. I know there are a ton of guys from NI who will be able to help you out. May even take you fishing when you're there....
here the site.
http://www.flyforums.co.uk/index.php

The other drawback to that is you will need to buy a permit to fish the water, and license from the government agency to have a rod.

Its a complete shambles in UK with fishing and hunting.

If you go to a stillwater fishery the requirements are more lax. They wont likely ask for a license and since they are privately owned for the most part (Dungannon Park Lake excepted) you'll only have to pay the daily fee.

Fishing for the stocked bows is good sport. Many of them are over wintered so they get pretty big. Biggest i caught at Straid was a 6lb 12oz rainbow. He was a resident for a few years judging by the tail on him when i got to the net.

Sorry i cant be of more help than that.

 

[BrookTroutLover]

Much appreciated! I'll explore all options.

 

[geebee]

Its a complete shambles in UK with fishing and hunting.

.

respectfully, i'd disagree strongly with that Eunan - there are hundreds of wild streams in cornwall, devon, wales, derbyshire, yorkshire, cumbria, cumberland, scotland and N Ireland where all you need is a 20 buck EA licence and at the most pay five bucks to fish if anything.

some of the best brown trout fishing in the world is the wharfe, eden, wye and dove.

many local EA's offer voucher systems where you pay thirty bucks and get online tokens to print out and put in honesty boxes at the river, you can fish for 10 days on 10 rivers :

http://www.wildtroutfishing.co.uk/

also in the wilds of wales, N Ireland, scotland and Cumbria you can hike as far as you can - i've hiked 15 miles to wild ponds and brooks, camped overnight and not seen a single sole.

read any book by Jon Beer and you'll realise that once you get outside the home counties there's a lifetime of cheap or free fishing for trout, salmon, sea trout and grayling.

no ticket required :

i found a link for the OP, which has a lot of information :

http://www.nidirect.gov.uk/angling

including Atlantic Salmon fishing for 30 bucks a day on the Bush river - of the Bushmills Irish Whiskey fame

best of luck

 

[BrookTroutLover]

Wow! Even better

 

[TimRobinsin]

I remember pulling into the Town of Bushmills on our honeymoon. We arrived at the train station in Antrim and picked out the only cab that could fit all our stuff which was an Audi A6. Our driver lived just 5 minutes from Bushmills. We drove through a rolling countryside of every shade of green. We passed over the River Bush on the old limestone bridge leading into town and down below was a man with a spey rod.

It was picture perfect. The man stood in the deep green water and was wearing a tweed sport coat and tweed hat. He gently mended his line as the slack floated downstream, straightened and began to swing his offering.

A familiar feeling crept into my gut. Even though I was thousands of miles away I was home. I turned away from the window and looked into the glowing eyes of my beautiful new bride and smiled. She smiled back and reached across the seat for my hand and said "NO". So there I was in a beautiful foreign country with my beautiful new wife. Thank God there was a distillery up the road or it would have been a short honeymoon.

We'll be back, once you've been there that country haunts you. Plus no snakes, w00t w00t!!!

 

[pcray1231]

haha, I recognize geebee's picture, and took one standing from the same place, I believe. I don't recall the name of the lake, but in the Mourne Mountains. Taken from a little dam. amirite?

We were there for 10 days, slept somewhere new each night, just finding a B&B wherever we ended up each day. Basically traced the coast from Dublin around to Connemara, then straight back across the interior to Dublin. Didn't quite make it to Galway.

I only fished once on the trip. Hired a guide. Lough Conn. Got skunked. So I'm not much help on the fishing end.

 

[dryflyguy]

I also vacationed in ireland with the wife recentlyy. We were on a guided tour, and I never tried to fish. But there are many lovely streams there, and I observed trout rising in several of the ones we happened to stop by.
I've been thinking how neat it would be to go there on a flyfishing trip with a fishing buddy or two. Although it would be quite expensive for sure!

 

[geebee]

Plus no snakes, w00t w00t!!!

as my grandmother used to say - the only snakes in Ireland are two legged ones....


Dry Fly Guy, the big cost like yellowstone, BC, Alaska etc is the flights.

probably about $700 an angler. once you get there you can share a 4x4 for about $600 between you, and a house/cottage for about $450 a week self catering (read fish n chips after the evening rise...) for four.

or about $55 a night B&B.

thats near a major salmon river or the big lakes - for small streams in tipperary or somewhere like that, most pubs have rooms above and some have 'some fishing...ask Tom at the hardware store..."

and tbh i'd avoid the big lakes, as one they are huge (no sonar in Ireland) and two, they are very very weather dependent. you have to get the week just right or the big browns just don't co-operate.

imho small streams freestyling is the way to go.

though for Salmon, i have compared it and its cheaper to fish the Moy or the Blackwater than the Gaspe or Marimachi , starting from NYC.



int: int:

 

[dryflyguy]

Gee Bee -

Our first stop on the tour, was the obligatory visit to blarney castle.
There is stream that flows on the property there that we had to cross over by foot. And I observed quite a few trout rising to caddis flies. Do you know what that stream is - and if it's open to the public?

Later on in the tour, we drove through connemara - and I saw some fish rising in the numerous lakes we passed there.
We also stopped at a place called kylemoor abbey, And there were some trout rising in the stream and lake that runs in front of it. Fishing was available there for 80 euro per day - plus the national license.

 

[geebee]

Yes, that's a lovely clear stream at blarney, wide and shallow with lots of small trout.

We did follow it through the gardens round by the witches cave and it did deepen upstream but I never saw a sign saying no fishing or ' fishing preserved' so I guess the castle owns it.

I don't know kylemoor abbey but that's horrifically expensive - you can get a day on the Test or Itchen for that in England.

 

[dryflyguy]

kylemoore abbey is a castle/monastary in the connemara area. Big tourist stop, and why the steep price to fish it I'm sure.
Glad to hear there are more reasonable fishing options in ireland though.
May consider it someday.
Although driving on the other side of the road would likely take some getting used to - especially in the larger cities

 

[pcray1231]

The driving was MUCH worse out in the country and in the small towns. Trust me on that. The opposite side of the road thing wasn't hard to get used to. Nor the traffic circles. Just ridiculously narrow roads, and often a rock wall or similar where a berm should be! Every time a car came the other way it was a white knuckle experience. I couldn't get used to that.

Kylemoore Abbey was pretty. The view from the top of Diamond Hill was better, and includes an airplane like view of Kylemoore.