LENE: Lough Lene had been producing some cracking brown and rainbow trout recently before the Covid-19 rules came into force. This North Westmeath Fishery has had more bank anglers than those in boats a couple of weeks ago and I noticed the toilet facilities near the Cut were being painted by Westmeath County Council recently. On the angling scene, Vice –Chairman Frank McKeon had one of the best brown trout of the season so far and rattled the scales at 4lbs 4oz. This super trout was caught on the troll. On the fly scene, my pal Thomas McMullan also had some wonderful sport catching rainbows up on 4lbs in weight.
LOUGH OWEL: Lough Owel was also producing some cracking trout prior to the current lock down, with anglers venturing out from Tullaghan catching trout on the fly and trolling lures along the Portloman Shore. I bumped into Rob Connor once again at Portloman and Rob had some lovely trout on the fly. Rob is an Offaly angler hailing from Clara and works in Glanbia near Shandonagh on the Ballymahon Road.
DAVIS BACK AT THE PERCH: We get a lot of feedback on social media from our features on perch fishing on Lough Ennell. The recent duck fly hatch has perch feeding hard on Nymphs and if you know where the perch are located on Ennell, you will have fantastic sport on light gear. Recently Gordon Davis, a regular visitor from Bray, was back on Ennell in search of Perch. Gordon knows the lakes of Ireland quite well as he is an International Sailing Judge. On the day we fished Ennell I located the Perch in 40ft of water and they were hard to catch. Huge numbers were feeding on Duck- Fly nymphs and were locked on these small insects. They would not look at my small jig head lures, which normally work a treat, but eventually I rooted in my tackle box and found a few very small lures. I have been looking at a few new perch lures and baits recently and when the Covid-19 angling restrictions are lifted, I will be back out on Ennell to test them out.
SUZUKI 20HP HOOD: Social media is a huge tool in the Angling World and its amazing the number of anglers who check out my weekly and daily angling reports and news items. Last week on my travels I picked up a hood from a 20Hp Suzuki which had hopped off an engine traveling towards Mullingar through the Ballymore area. Once again, facebook came to the rescue and reunited the Angler from Athlone with his engine hood. It was an amazing search and www.facebook.com/midlandangling reached out to 8,050 people.
