"What better, a weekend on Mask"

The club's first of two trip's to the west fishing Lough Mask has been penciled in for the weekend Sat/ Sun 23/ 24th April , This is a cracking trip if you are interested but places are limited and are a first come first served basics, Martin Kearney is the man to contact for further details.

Leaderboard.

The state of play so far after 2nd KAC competition

Angler                        20/3/16        17/4/16

Pat Brady                                         

John Reed                         

Cathal McDonald            
Dean Keogh                    
Paul O'Toole                                      
Pat Farrelly                      
Rory Mc Cabe                
Eamon Kelly                  
John Mullins                  
John Doyle                                        1
Martin Kearney              
Dermot Marshal              
Sean O'Flannagain          
Bobby Woods                  
Donal Raferty                  
Liam Cox                        
Sean Goulding                
Peter Blair                                          
Greg Long                                          
Joe Devlin                                          
Brian Devlin                                      
Ray Harris                                          
Stephen Desay                                    
Paddy Conniff                                    
Sean Sheehan                                                                            
Ben Mahony                                        
Michael Moore                                  

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lough owel lake competition

The club's 1st lake competition will be held this Sunday on Lough Owel March 20th start 11am,

Members are asked to arrange own boats, Details on membership cards. Look forward to seeing you then!

Meet your committee for 2016

Sean Goulding/ President

Martin Kearney/ Chairman

Stephen Desay/ Secretary

C/Member/ Paddy Conneff

C/Member Noel Bennett

C/Member Dermot Marshall

C/Member Ben Malony

Vice President/  Michael O'Toole

At our AGM on Wednesday evening our new or maby not so new  committee was selected for the new season, Our president for the 1st time Sean Goulding, Sean is one of our long time members since the mid seventies and served with committee from the eighties as member secretary.

Martin Kearney continues his role as Chairman like Sean a long time member since the seventies and serving on our committee for the last ten years.

Stephen Desay is our Secretary  a member since a young boy the last six years in the same role.

John Sheahan secretary the man with responsibility of keeping our finances in tune, Sean  who has been with the club for the last twenty years keeping tabs on the lolly for the last 4 years.

C/Member Paddy Conneff is  another long timer, Not just a great angler but a tireless worker who is at the centre of all that is good in our club

C/Member Noel Bennett has been with the club since a young boy introduced by his late dad Noel snr he continues the family involvement with the club.

C/Member Dermot Marshall has been a member for the last 15 years serving the committee for the last 3.

C/Member Ben Maloney is the newest addition this his second year besides his angling skill's he has proved his worth with his cooking when looking after our BBG events!

Vice President  Michael O'Toole once again a long time member 30 years,and serving on the committee for just about most of that time, Michael like the other long time members continue to serve us well let's hope they stay with us for a long while yet ,they and preveous committee  members  have made our club what it is today we should be always thank full of that!

Stephan Preiss receives the Pike cup from Sean Goulding.
Greg Long was the winner of the Trout Cup.
Paddy Conneff was the winner of the Benedikt Cup.
Well done to all!

Karen Delanty (IFI) was on hand to deliver her presentation on Trout Genitic Survey and other work done on the river Blackwater!

                                                         

Annual General Meeting

The 76th annual General Meeting of the club will be held in the lecture hall, Terenure College, Dublin, at 8pm, on Wednesday, 17th February 2016. All members are welcome to come along have a yap and share their view's, New members are also welcome membership will be taken on the night.

Hope to see you all then!

What makes a good trout fly?

When either tying or buying trout flies there are a number of things to look for.
The hackles should not be too heavy, if they are your wet flies will not fish properly, or your dry flies will look too solid. The tendency is for commercially tied flies to be too heavily hackled. My wet flies will usually have only 2 turns of hackle at the throat. My palmered hackles would tend to have open turns, just enough to go down the lenght of the hook evenly, but not enough to float the fly. When tying dry flies I try to create my flies with a small amount of hackle usually 4 or 5 turns, and add a pinch of cul-de-canard for the wing to give added bouyancy if needed. For my parachute style flies I will try to keep to 3 turns of hackle around the post. This allows my dry flies to present a slim natural profile to the trout. The sparse hackle on the wet-flies means that they look natural, sink well and have enough movement in the hackle to work properly, hackles represent legs and should be able to move when the flies are pulled.
Wings should be smooth, straight and even, otherwise your flies will spin and twist. They should be the correct lenght also...just to the hook bend.
I personally like a dubbed body to be a little 'ragged', even in profile but having the odd strand sticking out here and there, especially with my nymph patterns. This gives more movement to the fly and creates a livelier effect.
The colour, or patterns of the flies are variable, depending on the species of insect being imitated and in season, but there are a few patterns such as the hares ear, black and peacock spider, tup's indespensible to name a couple of them that represent a wide range of food forms, as I say often, they look like fish-food. These patterns well tied will always find you a few fish even when you don't have the correct patterns to match the hatch.

Greg Long

Having a cuppa with Noel Bennett recently and before the custard creams were opened his many fly boxes were taken from his fishing bag ( and boy has he a lot of flies probably more than Southside Angling) anyway as usual we went through them which one caught what and where, how it was tied and what materials and so on, It got me thinking of my favourite fly and it has to be the Golden Olive on a size 12, A traditional and simple fly,now I cannot say it has caught me many Hugh fish it hasn't but it certainly got me fish when all else failed, Last year Noel and myself were fishing Lough Derg at Mayfly time when we started all was perfect overcast, good wave, hatching mayfly just a matter of catching them but it wasn't so easy we went through the fly box wet's, emergers, dries, nymphs the lot but failed to get a fish until I put up the G/O and presto I had three fish best a 4 1/4 ponder a cracker, Now I know what your asking yourself why not put up the G/O first well it' a bit like Ole Gunnar Solskjaer he done best when he came off the bench to score for Man Utd which he did  many times, Strangely he wasn't as effect when he started a game. Probably not the best example in the world but get the picture. I have many stories when it came to my aid throughout the season I rarely fish without one on my cast. The pic above is my own I use a golden olive hackle instead of the traditional red  not sure if it makes a difference all I can tell you is that it works.Now I am aware my tying is not the best in the world but I did tie up some flies for Martin Kearney before a trip to Mask last year and I explained that they were a bit rough to which he replied the rougher the better that made me feel a little better I was more impressed when he caught fish on them. Any way just taught I would share that with you  and maby you might share your favourite fly with the rest of us and give us something to ponder over till the season comes round and we get back on the water.                                    
Best of luck
John Doyle.