Lough Corrib

I'm sorry that there's been such a gap since my last post but I've been trying to catch up since my first visit to Lough Corrib in County Galway, Ireland.

At nearly 42,000 acres Corrib is vast and although tempted to go it alone, we decided to book the services of local guide Larry Macarthy of Corrib Angling ( http://www.corribangling.com/)
Larry's vast Knowledge of the lough proved invaluable - on the first day he took us to the southern end of the lough where he said that there were some big fish - how right he was, he suggested that we start with a team of buzzers (apparently buzzers account for a lot of big fish)and I had a fantastic start to the week with a magnificent brown trout of approximately five and a half pounds on our first drift.

The next two days were windy and wet at times, more condusive to pulling wets and fishing dries, so that's what we did and we got fish - mainly small ones with the odd better fish of approximately a pound to pound and a half.
The second best fish of the week for our party came on day 2 - a two and a half pound fish was caught on a dapped natural mayfly by Tim Rowley - we collected naturals on some of the many islands that we stopped on for lunch.

Although we managed to collect good numbers of naturals on the islands we didn't see good numbers on the water and locals reported that sport was slow because the fish weren't on the Mayfly yet .

On day four the wind was up and down and during a flat period we witnessed a shoal of fish cruising around picking midge from the surface but they never really got within casting range - long casting did produce offers but all were missed.
We witnessed the potential of this great lough when a trout that must have been very close to double figures launched itself clear of the water in front of us.
We stayed on the lough late on day four in the hope that we may get an evening rise, something that the boys said was worth witnessing when large trout can be seen working areas picking off midge and sometimes picked off with a carefully placed dry - unfortunately the temperature dropped and the rise did not occur.

Day five brought windy weather and mainly small fish to pulled wets.

For anyone thinking about a visit I would definitely recommend it, but if it's your first time I would also recommend you book a guide, although it is a beautiful lough, is it also a potentially dangerous lough with large areas of shallows and some very large rocks close to the surface to catch you unawares.