Post Pictures Of Your Catch. (Mod note in OP 14/05/2015)

A nice little roach landed on the fly at Lough Gowna last weekend. We'd been out trolling for a few hours and caught nothing, so we pulled into shore to set up camp for the night. The we sat out on the back of the boat while it was landed, casting out spinners and lures etc just on the off chance. There was the odd trout rising so I thought I'd break out the fly rod and give some dries a go. The rises were very sporadic and hard to target so I ended up just casting out and letting it drift as long as possible. After a few minutes I spotted the smallest imaginable disturbance and a fly next to mine dissapeared. It was so subtle, and it was that kind of dusk where the light plays tricks on your eyes, that I really wasn't sure anything happened at all. I was just asking the lads if they saw it, when I saw it again, this time at my fly. I was thinking "hmm, this could actually be a fish, I should probably strike it just in case", when I realised that I'd already instinctively struck and had a fish on A quick struggle later and he was in my (well wetted) hand. There was a brief thought of keeping him for dead bait, but back in he went, a little surprised but otherwise unharmed

Not the most impressive fish ever by any means, but it was the only fish of the trip, and I never even considered catching roach on the fly so it was a lovely surprise, and I was so delighted at how quick I struck into him, that I thought it was worth a mention.


edit: I'm not sure if they were zebra mussels (going to email fisheries board to find out), but every second cast with a spinner or plug was coming back in covered in some type of mussel/mollusc, the whole base of the lake must be carpeted with them, so if you happen to be out on Gowna please take care to clean and disinfect any gear (especially boats)