Irish Fly Fisher

There has been plenty of sunshine so far this August and it makes for some challenging fishing on the Liffey. The water is running low and clear and at this time of the season the trout are not inclined to rise freely to the fly. I have had several outings to the river over the past week. Most of my outings were in the evenings from seven o clock or so.

Liffey in the sunshine

The water temperature is now at eighteen degrees Celcius. This along with the bright sunshine and low water may have an effect on how the fish are behaving at the moment. There may also be other factors involved i.e. the abundance of food on their menu or they are too well schooled at this time of the year. This makes each catch all the more rewarding for me.

Brown Silverhorn

If you have been out fishing recently you may have noticed groups of small sedges flying up and down the river in the sunshine. They usually all fly in one direction and then they fly back in the other direction keeping low over the water near to the bank or under the over hanging trees. These are called Brown Silverhorns. Although the trout rarely become preoccupied with feeding on them some fish seem to have a liking for them. I have over the years observed trout become very acrobatic when these flies are about, leaping clear out of the water in order to catch the sedges. Most of the fish that i observed seem to prefer to go for these flies when they are flitting about under the trees.

Liffey Wild Trout

Fishing for these acrobatic trout is a little bit tricky. Firstly i watch out for the groups of sedges under the trees checking to see if they have caught the attention of any trout. Once i see a fish go after the sedges i try a cast upstream and low under the trees. If after three casts the fish won’t take i move on to the next fish who is sedge chasing. Be prepared to lose some flies to the trees. You will however catch some fish angling like this and they are usually nice sized fish. The fly i have most of my success with is a foam sedge tied on a size sixteen hook.

Blue Winged Olive Spinner

Later on in the evenings as dusk was falling Blue Winged Olive Spinners started to appear over the water. This is a good time to tie on a spinner pattern. The fly i prefer to use when the BWOs are about is based on a Ginger Quill pattern with some variation of my own addded. I had some good wild brownies with this pattern over the years. I managed to catch on average four nice fish on each of the outings. As usual i returned all the fish to the water a little more educated. The evenings are now getting shorter and soon i will only be getting out on the weekends, not something that i look forward to. 

Liffey in flood

I did try having an outing on Saturday afternoon but this ended rather abruptly. I headed across the river and walked upstream to get to some nice stretches that are a bit out of the way and therefore are not regularly fished. There is a high bank on one side with over hanging bushes and briars. I thought that it would be a good place to fish with the foam sedge. I was only fishing for about ten minutes when i heard the siren at Golden Falls dam go off to warn of water release. I had to get to the other side of the river or face into a long walk back to the car. Where i was fishing was not too far from the dam so it was a big scramble to get down stream far enough to get across and out of the river. That put an end to my plans for that outing. The river level rises very quickly when the dam is opened and can be dangerous for those that are unaware of the risks.

Tags: athripsodes albifrons, ballymore eustace, blue winged olive, brown silverhorn, bwo, ginger quill, golden falls, kilcullen, spinners, wild brown trout