Shannonbridge Fishery Report dated 15^th May 2006-05-15

On Sunday May 7^th Adam Tomaszewski from Michigan fished in the rain on the Shannon and used a Rapala lure to catch two pike.

John Phillips and Simon Preece from Wales fished Correen Ford on the River Suck on Monday 8^th May. Using dead bait John caught a pike weighing 14.5 Lbs that gave an excellent fight. Simon caught four pike, best weighed 9 Lbs.

The next day they fished on the River Shannon in hot sunny conditions and Simon caught five fish – four pike of 3Lb, 5Lb, 6Lb, 13.5Lb and a brown trout that weighed 6.33 Lbs that evening after being gutted. Specimen weight is 5Lb. The trout took a five ounce dead roach and gave Simon a shock and a surprise and a specimen. John was content to catch a 15.5Lb pike and a 3Lb bream.

On 11^th May they again fished Correen in hot and humid weather and John caught an 18” pike and some bits. Simon had six pike to 15b using dead bait.

Next day they fished the backwater at Devenish in warm sunshine. John used a feeder and caught 10 bream for 10.5Lbs in the early morning. Then it died. Simon fishing alongside caught eight bream for 8Lbs also in the early morning.

On May 13^th John and Simon fished Devenish on a day that was warm and cloudy and later became cold. John used some trout dead bait and maggot to catch pike weighing 10.5Lbs and 3Lb and a 2Lb bream. Simon used some of Patti Corbett’s brown soda bread, buttered to stay on the hook and caught a large bag of fish with one bream weighing 3.75Lbs.

On 10^th May Jurgen Jichterz from Germany fished from a cruiser on the River Shannon and in sunny weather he used dead bait to catch six pike that measured 101M, 86, 84, 80, 91 and 90cm. All were returned alive.

Aoli Frauendienst from Austria recorded on May 11^th that during his week holiday on a cruiser he fished for pike using blinker and caught 16 pike with the biggest measuring one meter. Four from Kent – Dale Lee, Jim Sims, Ernie Nolan and Pierre Howard fished River Suck, Brosna, Lough Derg and Ballinderry and used pole, feeder, stick float and red maggot that produced satisfying bags of roach that varied between 20 and 50 Lbs. They recommend the use of plenty of groundbait. The weather and fishing were both good.

Stephan Redman from Coventry fished at Correen Ford on 10^th May on a hot sunny day and caught three pike to four pounds on a dead trout. The next day he fished on the Shannon at Portumna and had a 12.5Lbs pike on a dead roach.

George Holden, Derek Hutchings, Paddy Sheehan and Robbie Corrigan were fishing from a cruiser and each of them caught double figure pike using dead bait. George had the best pike which weighed 12.5Lbs.

Norman Davies, Mick Grainger and Bernie Boland from Coventry finished their week fishing holiday on Saturday and enjoyed good weather while fishing on the River Suck, Grand Canal and River Inny. They used red maggot to catch an average of 20Lbs of roach per person per day weighing 10ounces to 2Lb. The best bag was 38Lbs in four hours. Their comment “who said the fishing in Ireland was finished. See you later in the year”.

Alan Brace from Ware in Herts. Fished at Correen Ford on Saturday 13^th May in fine weather and used red maggot on the stick float to catch 70Lbs of roach with some hybrids and perch which he describes as “Good Fishing”.

Some rain on Saturday and heavy rain yesterday reversed the drop in the river and in the last day it has risen by ten inches.