This is a busy time of the year for me. My sea trout season opens April 17 and I find myself cleaning rods, reels and boats. There is an air of expectation and excitement as I now spend many hours at the bench experimenting on a variety of Snakes with new materials and… a new secret …
When I first read the above headline I asked myself, “Who is Auguste Escoffier?” The answer is in the following article by angler, food critic, author and Masterchef judge, Charles Campion. As you enter Ballina in County Mayo the road sign proudly proclaims you are entering the salmon capital of Ireland. The small town of …
Well it’s being awhile and another season has come and gone. A good season at that too… probably the best for some twenty years. Good runs of healthy sea trout produced fine catches of quality fish. However, the unpredictable weather produced high water levels on and off through the season which meant I had to …
Yesterday I received an email from John De Vroode. John and a group of his friends fished with me for many years in the 80’s and early 90’s. They became ‘expert’ fishing sea trout and stopped fishing salmon completely such was their success. They stayed in our home at the Riverboat and were like members …
I have had a couple of days good fishing on the Moy estuary recently. I fished with my old friend Martin van Seemus and his friends Michael and William. All the lads are from Holland and Martin was 16 when he first fished with me. Every fish landed was fresh run, bars of silver! Michael however, …
The wind dropped yesterday for the first time in some weeks so I was able to fish with my good friend from Holland, Martin (Sammy) Van Seemus who was accompanied by his two Dutch companions William and Michael. Almost immediately they were into fish at our first drop. The fish were small so we journeyed …
Let me tell you about Pearse… I became aware of Pearse at a young age and eventually got to know him when he started to frequent my pub back in ’73. He was a right good character and everyone in town knew him. He rubbed shoulders with the rich, the famous and the not so …
First thing this morning I got a call to say Pegasus had broken her mooring and was drifting up the river… just what I needed with a NE wind howling outside. However, I got her back within the hour and thanks to all those who called and assisted… actually, I got about ten calls! Getting …
Yes, today is a cold one with a weather warning in place so I postponed today’s fishing with my buddy Joe. However, the good news is we can expect it dry towards the week-end with very little wind when I will be fishing with some of my old regulars. Grandad loved to tell me about …
My Grandad was the best shot… Late one winter’s night he heard some geese flying over the house. He grabbed his gun from over the fire place, fired two shots up the chimney and in the morning he found two dead geese in the front garden! My Grandad never told lies… Judd