Fly Fishing

Satyr_The_Great · 03-05-2008 8:30am #1

Hey,,, I have always heard about a place called Garryhill/Fenagh near Bagenalstown in Co Carlow. I knew it was good but a few days ago i was there for the first time with a cousin and my friend.
Bloodyhell it was mental. €15 for the day and then €2 for every fish you keep after that,,, bloody great value. I have little interest in eating fish now so 95% of the fish i catch go back
Spent most of the day fly fishing,,and lets just say we went through atleast 10 flies each,,the trout made bits of the flies we were using.
I know it was very easy catch them but the sport was unreal,,best way to catch fish is on a fly rod. Its a great place to bring kids or for people learning to fly fish so they can get a bit of confidence with their casting, and the fact that they are garanteed to catch something gives them the extra boost they need.
I've been fly fishing for 3 years and i still enjoyed the day there. Caught over 130 on the fly rod alone. Well worth a go anyways,, even if ya dont liek fishing. I've got a mate who doesnt liek fishing at all and now he wants me to take him to this place, so that says something about how good it is.
The guy that runs it is really friendly too,,no hassle or pressure from him what so ever. He just takes your €15 and lets you go on. Its away from the main roads too, and you have no mainroad traffic or boyracers passing up and down so you have no distractions. The only real distraction is the friend beside you catching before you do.

irish setter · 04-05-2008 12:09pm

each to their own i suppose buy i personally wouldn't consider that sport. give me a small 6 ft wide stream overgrown with weeds and in a small pocket a 2 lb brown sucking flies down. cast has to be right first time and then the job of playing him out of the weeds with your 7 ft rod size 4 line and 3 lb breaking strain. now thats sport

Glydeside white · 07-05-2008 1:09am

it looks really hard, iv caught fish in my local river with a spinner before, but iv never tried fly fishing, does anyone know how long it takes to learn how to fly fish?

coolwings · 07-05-2008 9:00am

Assuming you have someone showing you:
Couple of hours - half day to learn the basics of casting a flyline.
About 2-3 days to get the hang of the rest, fly selection, striking, etc

bernard0368 · 07-05-2008 2:55pm

+1 Irish setter. No stocky bashing for me

flanum · 07-05-2008 6:28pm

the stocky bashing ponds tend to leave more space on our weedy streams!

Satyr_The_Great · 07-05-2008 8:30pm

coolwings wrote: »

Assuming you have someone showing you:
Couple of hours - half day to learn the basics of casting a flyline.
About 2-3 days to get the hang of the rest, fly selection, striking, etc

True to an extent, but u never stop learnign when u fly fish.. i knwo guys who have been doing it over 30 years and theyr stil learning. I know some of the irish champions and they still learn new stuff. It is easy enough to learn the basics,, but then as ya get in to the different ways of casting,, different lines,, weights and so on it does get slightly hrder.

coolwings · 07-05-2008 10:04pm

Satyr_The_Great wrote: »

... u never stop learning when u fly fish...

Very true.

I suppose this should also be mentioned here:
One thing that beginners have a difficulty with is understanding just how effective flyfishing is as a method of catching trout.
They also usually have no idea (until later) on just how enjoyable flyfishing is as a way of fishing.

bernard0368 · 08-05-2008 12:31pm

You never do stop learning, or realise how addictive it becomes, sick days, lies and anything to get you on the river during the season

kuedm · 09-05-2008 3:52pm

Can you provide directions to Garryhill/Fenagh near Bagenalstown in Co Carlow?

I have kids I want to get interested in fishing so I can take them out.

Right now they get bored easily so to take them to a place where they can get "addicted"

would be great.

Cheers

pullandbang · 09-05-2008 3:59pm

coolwings wrote: »

About 2-3 days to get the hang of the rest, fly selection, striking, etc

The eternal optimist:):)

I'm 20 years at it now and still haven't got the hang of it:eek:

Auldloon · 09-05-2008 4:20pm

Fly fishing is year by year becoming more of an obsession for me:D
Must be nearly 20 years since i started and im learning every year and sometimes every day.
Spent weekend before last on isle of mull (scotland) fishing loch style from a drifting boat or wading and casting dries to rising fish and loved it all. Had heaps of stunning wild brownies to a decent average size.
Wed night went to a local stockie place, fished for four hours di7 line and lures all for a few pulls and 1 rainbow landed.
Tomorrow gonna sneak off work for a few hours to see if there is anything rising/hatching on my local river the don

Icing on the cake is home to clare next thur, tube the local lochs friday then Corrib sat and sunday.
Loving every minute of it stockies, wild fish, rivers, lochs loughs the lot:)
Tight lines...

experimenter · 27-09-2010 1:17pm

I had a good day in Garryhill, Co Carlow, I lost count after about 24 rainbows, average 3/4 pound.

Fishing a DI5 sinking line and Fritz, at about 10ft below surface, long leader and fast retrieve. Takes were hard and fast, but great sport.

I kept two for the Fiancée, as she's partial to fresh trout.
It was a cracker of a day on Saturday,light breeze and sunny at times. I was there about 4 hours.

TimMac · 27-09-2010 7:47pm

Any idea if this place in carlow open in october or is it only open during the salmon season?
is spinning allowed?

experimenter · 28-09-2010 9:03am

I think it's open all year round.

Not sure about spinning, that would be a little too easy.

TimMac · 29-09-2010 11:13am

Its not for me its for my godson i bought him a little spinning rod to teach him to fish, it would be nice if he caught something

experimenter wrote: »

I think it's open all year round.

Not sure about spinning, that would be a little too easy.

Fly Fishing

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