The new millenium trout season opened on Lough Corrib on February 15. It was immediately evident that the extremely mild and wet winter had kept water temperatures above average. As a consequence trout fishing, but particularly fly fishing (normally quite slow at this time), was little short of spectacular. Early season bait fishermen recorded excellent returns whilst fly fishermen enjoyed probably the most successful start to a season that any of us can remember.

Fly fishing was particularly successful in the shallow, rocky areas where fish were found to be feeding heavily on shrimp and fry. Successful duck fly fishing normally begins around March 20. However this season, given the relatively warm water temperatures, duck fly appeared ten days earlier than usual. It would normally be considered good fishing on Lough Corrib if one recorded 5-6 fish per rod per day. I have had several reports of more than double these figures. Stocks of fish appear to be higher than I have seen for many years. This was also evident during a prolific spawning season in November 1999. As I write (March 18, 2000), duck fly hatches are well under way and we can look forward to three weeks of excellent top of the water fishing.

I have little news of salmon fishing except to record that Thomas Ryan of Cong, recorded a magnificent 17.5lb fresh run fish at Ashford yesterday, St. Patrick's Day. This is the first salmon I've heard of caught on the Corrib system this season.

We still have limited accommodation available at Grasshopper Cottage during the Mayfly season, up until May 12.

Tight lines for the season,

Roy Peirce

May 1 2000

The early season fishing was much too good to last. No sooner had I written the last report (March 18) when weather conditions and temperatures conspired to slow things down.

Whilst the very early duckfly hatches produced excellent sport the later hatches were less extensive than expected. In my opinion, the actual amount of fly that hatched was considerably less than previous years. As a consequence, combined with the cooling down of the weather, the quantity of dry fly (egg laying females) was disappointing. The effects of the very mild winter continued in so far as the actual hatches finished a week earlier than normal.

As the weather entered a cold snap at this time, the olives were slow to follow on. We were concerned about the quantity of olives we would get this year as they were virtually absent last year. Fortunately, our fears were not well founded and we are experiencing some excellent hatches of fly. Weather conditions are all important when fishing Lough Corrib and, to date, have conspired to give us only short glimpses of how good fishing olive hatches can be. Fishing dry olives has given moderate success whilst those fishing sub-surface have found the going difficult. At time of writing, we are experiencing bright, flat calms - I suppose it would be no fun if it was too easy!

The first Mayfly have made their appearance with a moderate hatch on April 28. However, one could not say that the "Mayfly is up" quite yet.

The Olives

There was much concern, following the poor hatches last season, as to what the olive hatches would be like this year. We need not have worried as early May saw tremendous hatches of olives, not only in areas traditionally associated with olives but also in areas where we are not accustomed to seeing many. Due to weather conditions, dry fly fishing may not have been as good as I've seen it in previous years, however, this was more than compensated for by some tremendous olive wet fly and nymph fishing.

Most disappointing this year was the buzzer fishing. Normally, late evening and nighttime buzzer fishing at this time of year (early May) can be superb with larger than average trout (3-6lbs.) being taken. However, the quantities of Campto Buzzer were very small and none existent in many places.

Magnificent Mayfly

What a superb season this has been for Mayfly fishing! Starting on cue, in the first week of May, there was the most prolific hatch of Mayfly I have witnessed in over 40 years of fishing this northern end of Lough Corrib. Not only were the hatches prolific but also prolonged, providing excellent sport through to June 20, a good fortnight longer than usual. Excellent fishing conditions at this time contributed to the best Mayfly season I have every seen. However, the adjoining loughs, Mask and Carra, did not seem to fare so well with Lough Carra having a particularly disappointing year. Because of the prolific Mayfly hatches, and appropriate conditions to hold the fly on the water, a feature of the Mayfly fishing was catching fish over relatively deep water (30-40ft.), areas traditionally not fished during Mayfly time. Many of these fish, when spooned, were found to contain not only mayflies but also daphnia.

Daphnia

From the end of June onwards, indeed to the end of the season (Sept 30), the daphnia feeding fish provided some of the most consistent wet fly fishing experienced on any of the Irish loughs. At Grasshopper Cottage we have recognised, certainly for the last five years or more, the value of daphnia feeding fish in providing excellent fly fishing over relatively deep water. However, this year it appears that everybody else has got in on the act resulting in one of the busiest angling seasons on the lake. The average size of trout feeding on daphnia is considerably smaller than those feeding on duckfly or mayfly. However, what they lack in size they more than compensate for in numbers. A myriad of different fly patterns appeared to be successful under varying conditions. In general, I have found that golden and orange flies, or flies containing fluorescent greens and reds, are most successful.

Grilse

Perhaps the most disappointing feature of the year has been the grilse fishing (one sea winter salmon). Despite reports of reasonably good runs of fish through Galway into the lake, for whatever reason, this did not translate into good catches. Fly fishermen were particularly disappointed, as these fish did not respond to top of the water fishing. Personally, located as I am on the lakeshore, I have not seen the number of leaping salmon throughout the season that I would normally expect to see. I believe that the run of fish was poor.

When all is said and done, this has been a reasonably successful year at Grasshopper Cottage. We were delighted to see an ever-increasing level of catch and release from our anglers, both local and visitors. The apparently excellent stock of fish, seen throughout the latter weeks of the season, augurs well for the future.

Wishing you all the best for the 2001 season

Roy Peirce

11-10-2000