Obsessed river noob needs help.

I grew up beside the sea and have spent years fishing it, this year I took up freshwater fishing. I find freshwater fishing alot more interesting so far.

I have 2 cheap light spinning rod setups. I began with course fishing and have had success with the open feeder.

I am now obsessed with catching myself the elusive trout.

I live in limerick and have been fishing the plassey section of the river using various methods, spinning with a meps, toby, float with worm and recently tried the bubble and fly.

I am from south donegal and have spent the last 4 days fishing Lough Melvin, Assaroe Lake and the River Drowes using the above methods.

I inadvertently hooked what i believe to be a salmon on the Shannon using my meps, unfortunately i failed to land him due to inexperience. :mad:

I am not going to invest in fly fishing gear this year, I will be sticking with my "conventional" setups.

I have too many questions but here's a few people might help with:

1) anyone have any good trout spots they can recommend to me around the above areas?

2) Which method should work best between meps, toby, float and worm or bubble and fly

3) keep catching perch (4 on worm, one on toby) , they take the hook very deep and even though I have a forceps, i'm upset that I killed 3 of them trying to remove the hook, I freed one cleanly and one I left the hook in. Is there a hook that disolves? or maybe thats BS, can perch be eaten? dont like killing fish un-necessarily.

4) considering fishing a rainbow stocked lake in Newmarket on Fergus, Co Clare. http://www.wix.com/fintanmehan/rta
anyone fished here? Is it worth a shot? Even just to boost moral at this stage.

any help advice appreciated lads/ladies

regards..