American style mountain streams in Ireland?

bigjohn17

Are there any of these kind of streams in Ireland? Shallow, fast running, surrounded by forest and full of trout.

The other fella

Id love to know if there is too. I get way to jealous of the Americans when i see videos of the streams they fish in Montana and areas like it on Youtube.

ardinn

If anyone knows - they will never tell you!!

pheasant tail

I think we often forget what we have here sometimes, grass is always greener etc

rpmcmurphy

bigjohn17 wrote: »

Are there any of these kind of streams in Ireland? Shallow, fast running, surrounded by forest and full of trout.

The avonmore in wicklow flows through some woodland and comes close to your description. I've spent time there but never got round to fishing it. I believe rathdrum anglers sell day tickets or annual membership.

blackpearl

rpmcmurphy wrote: »

The avonmore in wicklow flows through some woodland and comes close to your description. I've spent time there but never got round to fishing it. I believe rathdrum anglers sell day tickets or annual membership.

the avonmore is full of small trout,their are 2 rivers in the midlands very simlar to the one in the picture plenty of trout 1lb to 2lb and a few 4 to 5pounders to be got late at night on sedge but as the old saying goes [if i told you i would have to kill you].

coolwings

@bigjohn17:
We have rainfed rivers but the US mountain rivers are meltwater fed.

So our rivers become smaller as temperatures rise in summer drying out the higher altitudes, whereas their rivers get bigger as the temperatures rise, and melt the snow at higher altitudes.

If you want a full level river during summer, in Ireland, you need to look for spate streams. If you are happy with normal level water you can look to water table fed rivers which have a quite constant water level and flow rate. Spring fed rivers in the UK are called chalk streams, and in the US are called "spring creeks". There are not that many in Ireland but if you look for them you'll find them.

But this is Ireland. There are hundreds of spate rivers and streams. We get lots of rain. And the west coast receives far more rain than the east coast. So watch for depressions to pass through bringing rainfall. Fish after rain when a fresh is on, and go as far west as you circumstances and need to fish requires.

Now we have another type of river here that you may have not taken account of just yet. These are lake fed rivers. We have some very big lakes, and their exit streams take a lengthy time to for water levels to fall to summer levels. These rivers tend to coarse species domination, but not all of them. These are our version of the US tailwaters, but more natural because there is water level fluctuation below the Irish loughs, whereas a tailwater downstream of a reservoir tends to have a regulation fixed water flow and the occasional summer lough water level increase helps to clean out the system below it.

Hopefully this helps.

bigjohn17

pheasant tail wrote: »

I think we often forget what we have here sometimes, grass is always greener etc

What do you mean by this? Genuine question.

twin_beacon

bigjohn17 wrote: »

What do you mean by this? Genuine question.

We have some fantastic trout angling here. Not many streams like the one in the pic, but that guy in the pic could be dreaming of a ferox from corrib (or one of the other massive lakes)

thefisherbuy

Just have to find out, the water in America are totally different compared to ours. I know some streams that are nice to fish but as soon as summer hit's the weed gets very hard to fish so You can fish from early in the season.. You just have to explore around your local area.

pheasant tail

bigjohn17 wrote: »

What do you mean by this? Genuine question.

Just something which I'm realising in recent years. A lad showed me a picture of a salmon he caught on a river in Kerry a few weeks back, and honestly the fish, background, scenery, river etc, if that had been from Norway for example, like your picture above, I'd be jealous of them and wanting to go over and pay to fish for what they have over there, similar to your picture above.

I'm from Cavan and you only have to take a drive around the lakes during the summer to see the attraction it has for visiting anglers, Belgium, Dutch and French over fishing for pike, all the UK anglers over to fish the course festivals, they'll tell you what they think of it and why they come here which we don't really appreciate. It's already been mentioned here that over 30 different nationalities fish Sheelin each year. Look at the course fishing in the UK, their all ponds stuffed with fish, applying for day tickets, booking pegs, no keep net rules, driving your car to your peg with a café a stones throw from ya etc. That's not angling too me. I read an article in a UK magazine a couple of years back, about how lads when prebaiting the night before often leave a small torch lit on their peg so nobody will come over to take their place, that sounds mad to be that that could even be a thing. I could go a whole winter season pike fishing without meeting one other person. Look at our big western lakes and midland lakes for pike and trout.

I met some Dutch lads a while back who where over pike fishing the Shannon an they where shocked when I told them that I am heading over to the Netherlands pike fishing this November, they couldn't believe that I would be leaving here for that, so I guess we are all guilty off it.

But that's just my opinion. I've living in Kerry at the moment and have lived in a couple of different counties along the west coast in the last few years and its only reaffirmed the above for me, look at the numbers coming to fish for salmon here, and even Bass which was totally surprising to me. Not sure where your from OP, but if your anywhere outside Dublin, there's a good chance there's some good waters near you.