Coarse Fishing in Athlone this Weekend

smashiner

Hi lads,
I am heading to Athlone this weekend with two of my friends and we are planning to wet a line on the Shannon near the Town or a few miles up or downstream. We are staying on the West side of the River and we are going to target Bream and Roach (C+R) and I was wondering what locations (short drive maybe and fairly accessible) would you recommend and what methods/baits?

I was thinking Feeder fishing, size 16/18 Hooks, Maggots/Corn or maybe even a bit of pole fishing. What lb line would you guys recommend, I have 4lb on the main line, is this too heavy, do I need to drop to say 2lb's?

One of the lads is a keen Pike Angler too, so any tips (dead baiting / float Fishing /Spinning etc) would be appreciated.

Cheers.

stooge

Theres not too many good areas for shore fishing. The best for bream is upstream around Barrymore (out the Roscommon road before the turn off to Hodson bay hotel about 15mins from town). Downstream, Clonmacnoise is a good fishing spot (take the road for Ballinahown, about 2mins from town). Bream are rare enough, but roach are in good supply. Youre best bet is to hire a boat though if I'm being honest.

smashiner

Thanks Stooge,
I will take your advice on board and head away from the town if you think it is for the best.
I will probably stick with the Shore Fishing for now, I like the whole 'laid back' approach to Coarse Fishing, watching the magical orange tip of your float bobbing for a second and then disappearing out of sight and hopefully a decent Roach or Bream on the other end.

I might break out a Pike rod with a bite indicator on it too just to have a second iron in the fire!

Any other advice would be welcome.

Cheers.

Pj!

There's a 2 day pike competition based in Athlone this weekend that you might bump into. Plenty of river for everybody though.

demanufactured

Pj! wrote: »

There's a 2 day pike competition based in Athlone this weekend that you might bump into. Plenty of river for everybody though.

Whos running that??

Pj!

demanufactured wrote: »

Whos running that??

Dublin Pike Anglers

smashiner

Thanks for the tips lads, I will let you know how we get on next week!

smashiner

On the road, got bait sorted in the Dublin Angling Centre (opposite Superquinn in Walkinstown) they were very reasonable price wise and gave me few good tips too for the weekend , feeder fishing they reckon will be best etc.
Fingers crossed we do well!

smashiner

Hi Lads,
Well the weekend went very well overall! We fished at Clonmacnoise and caught a few decent roach and a few Perch too, then a small Pike (see pic about 3 or 4 lbs) started to attack one of the keepnets so tempted him with a dead bait and returned him to fight another day.
We were fishing in a very nice Farmers field and he explained that there were 'Corncrake' birds in his fields (very rare/endangered in Ireland, only a handful left), and by total chance we actually saw a small family of them (4 or 5) walking down the farmers road/track when we were leaving that evening (one of the lads got a few pics too)!!
We fished Barrymore the following day and it was very quiet in the day time, but my mate persevered and hit 8 or 9 really big Bream in the evening after heavy ground baiting!
Great weekend, Athlone is a great spot for the evening too (Cheers Lads and thanks for the advice!!)

smashiner

Hi Lads,
Find attached a few pics of the rare Corncrake Birds that we saw. I know that this is a Fishing forum but these Birds are so rare, I thought that it would be the right thing to put up the pics.

Have caught the fishing bug again, we had so much crack on the weekend away and we plan to go out again soon, probably hitting a lake in Cavan / Monaghan next!

8k2q1gfcz9s5d4

I hate to disappoint you, but that looks like a hen pheasant. They are bigger than a Corncrake, and also live in the same kind of grassy areas.


http://www.allandoopheasantry.com/ijima_copper_hen_in_grass.jpg

smashiner

Ah well,
We thought that we had stumbled across the elusive Corncrake as it seemed like a small family of them. Please find attached other 'Blurred Pics' x 2 (Blair Witch Style) of the birds that we saw.

Does that mean we could have ate these ones?? (Kidding )

breghall

Nathaniel Salmon Paperboy wrote: »

I hate to disappoint you, but that looks like a hen pheasant. They are bigger than a Corncrake, and also live in the same kind of grassy areas.


http://www.allandoopheasantry.com/ijima_copper_hen_in_grass.jpg

I beg to differ, I think it is a corncrake, the neck and head in the first picture doesn't look like a hen pheasant. Also i know that there is a bredding program going on up in that part of the country too.

smashiner

Hi Guys,
I had a look at a few pictures on the Interweb of a Hen Pheasant and I am pretty sure that this wasn't the birds that we saw, and a few of the ones we saw were smaller than the others, that why we assumed they were a little family of Corncrakes.
Again we are not experts in this field (get it?), any other views on the topic?

Also, can any of you identify this other mystery animal that we saw on the Shannon Callows (it's a real hotspot for rare sightings it seems).:)

8k2q1gfcz9s5d4

smashiner wrote: »

Hi Guys,
I had a look at a few pictures on the Interweb of a Hen Pheasant and I am pretty sure that this wasn't the birds that we saw, and a few of the ones we saw were smaller than the others, that why we assumed they were a little family of Corncrakes.
Again we are not experts in this field (get it?), any other views on the topic?

Also, can any of you identify this other mystery animal that we saw on the Shannon Callows (it's a real hotspot for rare sightings it seems).:)

id say it was a hen Pheasant , with her chicks from this year.
im 100% sure its a hen Pheasant in the pics, the body shape and overall size is consistent with a Pheasant. A corncrake is much smaller http://www.rspb.org.uk/community/resized-image.ashx/__size/550x0/__key/telligent-evolution-components-attachments/13-12197-00-00-00-19-91-80/ringing-conrcrake.jpg
another pic of a corncrake
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FSwsOwr-12I/T8aBCAd2xtI/AAAAAAAAA7M/VF7yHg1IOtk/s320/Corncrake_John+Anderson+May+12.JPG

A hen Pheasant and a corncrake have very similar markings, but their body shape is very different.

Also, the fact you were able to get so close to it. Out of curiosity, did it fly away or run away? A Pheasant will nearly always run away if possible, it will only fly away when it really needs to.

havnt seen the other mystery animal yet, wouldnt want to bump into it on a dark night!

smashiner

Hi,
The birds did not seem to scare too easily as you can tell from the Pics we were able to move slowly towards them and get a few shots of them.

They then simply walked/moved back in to the long grass/ hay a few feet away and we could hear them moving about for a good few minutes until we decided to leave them alone in case they were getting distressed.

stooge

Hi Smashiner,

Glad to hear you had a nice time in Athlone. Its is a lovely spot alright with some good pubs and restuarants. Good to hear that the areas I recommended resulted in some catches! Must get out and do a bit myself now!

smashiner

Thanks Stooge,
Your advice was spot on, Barrymore I would say would be a great spot if you hit it at the right time as the Bream there were huge! We had a good session in Clonmacnoise too with decent roach and a few perch too (plus my monster 3lb Pike too) .
Athlone was a great spot too, we hit Sean's Bar in the evening and a super band playing Thin Lizzy, Rolling Stones etc were on, the 8 of us had a right auld blast, would definitely go back!
Many thanks for the tips

demanufactured

smashiner wrote: »

Thanks Stooge,
Your advice was spot on, Barrymore I would say would be a great spot if you hit it at the right time as the Bream there were huge! We had a good session in Clonmacnoise too with decent roach and a few perch too (plus my monster 3lb Pike too) .
Athlone was a great spot too, we hit Sean's Bar in the evening and a super band playing Thin Lizzy, Rolling Stones etc were on, the 8 of us had a right auld blast, would definitely go back!
Many thanks for the tips

Wad the band called The Smokes?

smashiner

Hi,
I didn't catch the name of the band. Lead guitarist (excellent) had a Led Zepplin Tee Shirt on him, Fair hair and a pony tail, a young lad on Drums, a lad in his 40's (I tink) on Bass and the Lead Singer had greyish/blackish hair.
All were super and played a wide variety of tunes from Lizzy,Pearl Jam, Stones, Oasis and even a blast from the King himself Elvis! I was deaf for 2 days afterwards but wouldn't change a thing about them, really added to the weekend away with the lads :cool:

demanufactured

Sounds like them

the duke of eire

hey all,i was with shiner when we seen the birds.i know what a pheasant is and what its not..
i was the first to see these birds and when i seen them i knew exactly what they wernt... pheasants.
they stood nearly straight up and were much much smaller than a pheasant.the biggest of them was like a pheasant chick in size and the smaller ones were half the size...
i couldnt believe what i was seeing and i dont get like that when i see a pheasant .
they were in the middle of the little path and they hardly ran away at all.the farmer was cutting the fields all around and thats obv how they ended up where they where.. it was sad because i could see for myself why they are nearly extinct.there was no mad hurry to get away so if the farmer had a bigger and faster tractor the ones we seen would also have been extinct.we chatted with the farmer and he was cutting hay so late because of the corncrakes on his land..
so doubters,if it doest walk like a pheasant,run like a pheasant,stand like a pheasant and its not the same size as a pheasant then the chances are its not a pheasant .... the corncrake should be made the national bird as we dont have any yet and maby that might go a little of the way to saving the precious few we have left...