Ireland on the Fly

We’re into February, spring is in the air and slowly the season is starting to kick into gear.  Stay tuned in the coming weeks as we get updates on the salmon rivers and loughs around Ireland and we’ll be bringing you more tips and information for getting the most out of your fly fishing as the season progresses.

 

For our latest episode we’re continuing our fly fishing book club and this time we speak to Dan O’Donovan, the author of Salmon of the River Lee as well as a monograph on Sidney Spencer.

 

Dan’s book on the Lee is a fascinating social and cultural insight into the communities around Cork’s famous river and we delve into the heyday of the Lee before its damming in 1957 and the effects that has had on the fishing, the people and the subsequent decline in fish numbers as well.

 

 

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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.irelandonthefly.com

With the start of the season on Corrib only around the corner – it opens next week on February 15th - we catch up with Mike Keady, the Corrib expert and Irish international angler, to get his insights into getting the most out of spring fishing on the lough, with a focus on the duck fly hatch which is when the first real numbers of fish are caught on the fly.

 

Mike explains how and where to find the duck fly holes, the ideal conditions needed and how it just sometimes all comes together when the fishing gods conspire.

 

The duck fly hatch is only for a few weeks though so you need to be able to time it right.

 

 

Rate, review and follow the show to keep up to date with all the latest Ireland on the Fly episodes on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.  

 

Plus you can sign up for our newsletter on IrelandontheFly.com and get regular updates on Instagram.com/IrelandontheFly.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.irelandonthefly.com

Although the salmon season has only just got under way, some of you may be looking to make plans for your spring fishing and one fishery that has always caught my eye that I’m hoping to fish is Carrowmore Lake in the far corner of Mayo on the Erris peninsula.

 

Renowned as a spring salmon lough it usually features with some of the earliest salmon caught in Ireland each year but as we find out, Carrowmore is an awful lot more as well.

 

And so for this fishery focus episode we speak to Brian Hope, a member of the local Bangor Erris Angling Club to give us the finer points on making the most out of your fishing on the lough.

 

For more information visit https://bangorerrisangling.com

 

 

Rate, review and follow the show to keep up to date with all the latest Ireland on the Fly episodes on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.  

 

Plus you can sign up for our newsletter on IrelandontheFly.com and get regular updates on Instagram.com/IrelandontheFly.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.irelandonthefly.com

While the salmon season has officially begun, we’re still in the thick of it so to speak with the long nights still hanging over us and many of you are getting busy at the vice in anticipation of your own local waters opening in the coming weeks.

 

So for this week’s episode we catch up with former international angler and renowned fly tyer, Ryan Houston, to find out about his fly fishing career, his fly tying obsession and to also get some fly tying secrets from one of the best on the island.

Ryan also has a growing YouTube channel with hundreds of fly tying videos to learn from at:
https://www.youtube.com/@RyanHoustonflytying

Rate, review and follow the show to keep up to date with all the latest Ireland on the Fly episodes on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.  

 

Plus you can sign up for our newsletter on IrelandontheFly.com and get regular updates on Instagram.com/IrelandontheFly.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.irelandonthefly.com

A recurring theme of some of our podcasts recently has been looking at the disastrous effects fish farming has had on wild salmon and sea trout and we have been examining Scotland in particular as a case study where the politicians have – just like Ireland – pursued a policy of increasing fish farming whilst blithely ignoring the accepted scientific evidence about the dangers to wild salmon and sea trout.

 

And so, for this week’s episode we’re speaking to Wild Fish’s Rachel Mulrenan, who is the Deputy Director, Scotland, for the wild fish conservation group.

 

Rachel gives us some really interesting insights into the rise of intensive fish farming in Scotland and why isolated and disparate local communities on the west coast were the ones initially targeted.

 

We also discuss the closing of one fish farm at Loch Ewe and what that really means and why, despite politicians backing the science around climate change, when it comes to fish farming, they still choose to bury their heads in the sand…..

Rate, review and follow the show to keep up to date with all the latest Ireland on the Fly episodes on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.  

 

Plus you can sign up for our newsletter on IrelandontheFly.com and get regular updates on Instagram.com/IrelandontheFly.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.irelandonthefly.com

For so many of us, fly fishing is also about the people, places and experiences we have, especially whilst discovering new places.

 

And so, for this latest episode of Ireland on the Fly, we speak to Cork fly angler, Ronan Collins, whom Daire first met in Greenland last year.

 

Ronan has fished in many far flung places around the world and is a particularly keen salmon angler with incredible stories from Russia and elsewhere, plus he also introduced Daire to the wonders of yacht-rock, but more on that later in the show…

 

Speaking to Ronan and hearing his stories about fly fishing around Ireland and the world is a reminder that it’s about fly fishing and about so much more.

 

Rate, review and follow the show to keep up to date with all the latest Ireland on the Fly episodes on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.  

 

Plus you can sign up for our newsletter on IrelandontheFly.com and get regular updates on Instagram.com/IrelandontheFly.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.irelandonthefly.com

It’s January 2023 and a Happy New Year to all our listeners and to those of you especially who have been in touch with ideas, suggestions and for the competition as well.

 

We’ll be running a lot more comps with prizes of books, flies and fly boxes throughout the year so stay tuned for that.

 

And the winner of Mark Wormald’s The Catch: Fishing for Ted Hughes was Kevin Tripper so congratulations Kevin.

 

But back to this week’s episode and we hear from Shane Gallagher of the Drowes Fishery to hear how the opening few days of the salmon season went.

 

Rate, review and follow the show to keep up to date with all the latest Ireland on the Fly episodes on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.  

 

Plus you can sign up for our newsletter on IrelandontheFly.com and get regular updates on Instagram.com/IrelandontheFly.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.irelandonthefly.com

Christmas 2022 has been and gone, the presents opened and too much eating and drinking gone on I’m sure and you’re probably counting down the days to the salmon season starting, or getting back out onto the water before the hectic work-life schedule starts all over again.

 

And so, for our last episode of the year we’ve put together a collection of some of our guests’ most memorable fish on the fly stories.  

With everything from small fish to giant fish and fishing with family and friends, they give a snapshot into just why we love to fly fish…..

Rate, review and follow the show to keep up to date with all the latest Ireland on the Fly episodes on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.  

 

Plus you can sign up for our newsletter on IrelandontheFly.com and get regular updates on Instagram.com/IrelandontheFly.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.irelandonthefly.com

As it's the run-up to Christmas, we’ve got another instalment of our book club this week on the show and we’re discussing Ted Hughes and the influence of Ireland and Irish fly fishing on his poetry with Mark Wormald, a Cambridge lecturer and fly angler, who has written a superb book called The Catch: Fishing for Ted Hughes.
 
Mark stands where the poet stood, forty years ago, because fishing was Ted Hughes's way of breathing - and because the poet's writing has made Mark understand that it has always been his way of breathing, too. 

 

Using Hughes's poetry collection River and his fishing diaries as a guide, Mark returns again and again to the rivers and lakes in Britain and Ireland where the poet fished.

 

We also have a signed copy of Mark’s book to give away and to be in with a chance of winning The Catch, tell us the name of one of Ted Hughes’s poems and email the answer to [email protected]. 

 

We’ll contact the winner then over Christmas and have the book posted out to him/her.
 

Rate, review and follow the show to keep up to date with all the latest Ireland on the Fly episodes on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.  

 

Plus you can sign up for our newsletter on IrelandontheFly.com and get regular updates on Instagram.com/IrelandontheFly.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.irelandonthefly.com

If you’re into saltwater fly fishing, by all accounts, 2022 seems to have been the year of the pollock with large numbers and large sizes of the fish being caught right throughout the season.

 

Are we seeing more pollock being caught because more anglers are targeting them on the fly?  And, what’s happened to the bass?

 

To find out more, for this week’s episode, we’re joined by Richie Ryan of Corkbass.com who is a guide specialising in catching pollock on the fly.

 

Richie told us of incredible days with 30-40 pollock being caught, how and when to target them and why, for him, bass is now playing second fiddle to pollock when it comes to saltwater fly fishing.

 

You can contact Richie by visiting Corkbass.com

 

Rate, review and follow the show to keep up to date with all the latest Ireland on the Fly episodes on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.  

 

Plus you can sign up for our newsletter on IrelandontheFly.com and get regular updates on Instagram.com/IrelandontheFly.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.irelandonthefly.com