Island Hopping on Lough Erne

Island Hopping on Lough Erne

After all the rain the water levels on Lough Erne, Co Fermanagh were beginning to drop and the lough was becoming more recognisable. Six of the Islanders decided it was time to wet a line of this wonderful expanse of water to catch a couple of its magnificent strong fighting wild brown trout. The water levels may have been dropping, but the temperature was not rising as quick. The temperatures were struggling to reach double figures and with brisk southerly winds we knew there was going to be nip in the air!

We launched our boats from Castle Archdale and began to set up for a cold day. Conditions looked relatively good with overcast skies. Generally, this time of year the fish are foraging around the rocks for shrimp, hoglouse and the likes, so most of us opted for sinking lines such as a DI3 with a team of four flies tied on a cast made up for Seaguar Grand Max 9.5lb.  Everyone had dabblers on the cast from Claret Pearly to Olive and even the pearly peter got a swim which can be great attractor around the shallows.

As I was paired up with Mark, we headed out onto the water when we noticed that something wasn’t right. Mark’s engine appeared to be running on two cylinders intermittent and we only had half throttle. We found Stan and Garry fishing a shoreline nearby, who already had a fish in the boat on the claret dabbler! Stan being the man that he is, produced his toolbox and spare parts and kindly replaced the defective plug out on the water! Where would you get service like that?! So, after that hiccup we had full power and heading over the waves to start fishing.

There were some nice-looking drifts along the rocky shore lines as we motored to our first hotspot, we were confident that fish would be caught somewhere, it’s just a matter of being in the right place at the right time! We pulled in with the bow of the boat only feet away from the underwater rocks and started to retrieve our team of wets between the waves and boulders, waiting for the drive of a big brown. It wasn’t long before we had some action and the first fish was in the boat. A nice brown around 2lb that took on the point about 2ft down. It was a great solid fight with the fish keeping his head down trying to shake to hook. This is what fishing is all about. This fish also took the claret dabbler. After that good start we moved to a few other well-known drifts, where we only had offers but no hook ups. If you can move fish on every other drift that’s not a bad return on the likes of a large wild Irish Lough.

Having had a couple of fish to the boat, it was almost lunchtime and it’s always customary to meet up on an island to catch up with the rest of the Islanders for the banter and craic! After and an hour or so and some warm soup or burgers it was time to get out on the water again to see if we could improve on our morning session. The other guys had a similar morning with plenty of action on the same flies and methods.

Long slow steady pulls to get the flies down seem to my preferred approach as a hooked into my next fish on the olive dabbler. The fish took whilst bring the team of flies up towards the hang, when I received a powerful pull back. After a couple of aerobic jumps, it was in the net and safely returned for someone else to enjoy.

We hopped between shoreline to point then point to shoreline as we headed towards where we had launched picking up the odd fish here and there. It was beginning to feel cooler and Mark was certainly feeling colder as I watched the waves spray over him as we motored between drifts!

When we all arrived back to base it was apparent that we all had an exceptional day on the water considering the cold conditions. All the brown trout were caught deep amongst the rocks on various colours of dabblers fished on DI3 lines. It was a great day a float with plenty of action and craic. Looking forward to our next adventure. Tight lines and stay safe

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