Fishery News & Reports

ROCK HOUSE

Posted in Sep 2015

It is very hard to believe we have once more come to the end of another fishing season, the fly rod again consigned to the corner of the room, the anticipation last spring of great fish yet to be caught in perfect water yet to arrive, now it has arrived and in sadness we realize it has gone again.

May "fish wise" was the start of our season at Rock House this year, it was wet and windy with occasional breaks in between and some good fishing was had.

Declan Little had the first fish of season on the 3rd, a 7.7 salmon. On the same day Oshin O’Sullivan had a 9 pounder ; the largest fish of the month was a 12 pounder caught by Edward Rippier.

June was not in any way productive although early on it was cool and wet it became quite dry at times with little fishing to be had, although Sean May did land a beautiful 11 pounder in nice water so all was not lost for June!!
 
July was the best month at Rock House, Owenduff beat, the first few days were dry and thundery but it was to be one of the wettest July’s in recent years by the end of the month, the fishing was good over all, no one could justifiably complain about fishing conditions, water was very often spot on.

The Ryan party had some decent fishing by week’s end with much effort 20 seatrout and 4 salmon ; The Huxley party had a satisfactory day on the 17th with 6 seatrout and 1 salmon and Jane Hall having 1 salmon and 3 seatrout, Bob John Brennan released a nice salmon approx. 10 pounds in favourable conditions.

August was also unsettled and provided some good sport on the river although salmon did not appear in great numbers.
Thierry Sauvin from France thoroughly enjoyed his long stay at Rock House Sporting estate, fishing both the Ballyveeney and Owenduff rivers landing and losing quite a few fish ( 6 sea trout and 1 salmon not counting many loses on the mountain lakes he released 10s of beautiful brown trout in the midst of the great mountain valleys that make up the sheer wilderness of Ballycroy National park.)
The largest salmon was Martin Davison 12 pounder on the 4th, on the same day he released a small grilse.

There were rather a lot of very small grilse mid-month leading to some debate among anglers as to whether they be salmon or sea trout.

September was what could be described a scarce month for fishing with little being caught until late month.

The O'Connell party had some success releasing 3 salmon and 1 seatrout on the 23rd, it became a very dry month by season’s end after a very wet summer season with some huge floods in early September causing some considerable damage to miles of river bank although in some cases it improved the run in to some larger pools.

Salmon seemed scarce at times during the season considering the wet and often ideal conditions there were times when the water was eerily still in perfect fishing water, this has been the experience in many rivers this season.

But on a positive note good fishing was had during 2015 and many a good memory had in many a beautiful spot!!

Over all catch on the Rock House beat of the Owenduff was  44 salmon and 62 seatrout.

till 2016 tight lines , looking forward to taking  that fly rod once more from its winter corner....