Lough Erne - Belle Isle

[blackwater]

Hi

I am heading down to County Fermanagh tommorow morning to fish Lough Erne. I am fishing a strech at Belle Isle which is famous for its large pike and large bags of bream and roach.

I am not sure ill be hooking into any large pike , but i will be trolling large spoons and bulldawgs of the back of a medium sized fibre glass boat powered by a 4 stroke Engine. I will also be feeder fishing a stretch that my cousin has been prebaiting for the past two days for the bream and roach. At the same time I will have a dead bait setup tight on the bottom for the pike.

I fished the same area of Lough Erne earlier in the year and had four small jack pike to 5lbs but no bream or roach so i hope to improve on it this time.


One of the smaller jack Pike from last year

I will let you know how i get on, I have not set my expectations to high as the amount of Eastern European anglers who kill and eat large numbers of bream and roach along with the amount of commercial fishing for large pike has devasted the stocks of these fish.Thankfully some of the Eastern Europeans are trying to educate there fellow country men in the concept of catch and release and the commercial fishermen are now increasing mesh sizes on their nets.

Cheers,

BW

[pingu]

good luck


dave

[Fishing Forum Admin]

Looking forward to reading how you get on

[blackwater]

Hi everyone

I have not put a report up yet as i havn't had a chance to take the photos off the camera yet but i should hopefully be able to do this in the next few days.

The fishing was not great with only one pike barely over a pound but we did have a few nice hybrids (Roach/Bream) over 1 1/2 lb.

[blackwater]

Saturday 9th August

Headed down to lough Erne around 8.00 and arrived at my cousins holiday home at about 11.00. When we arrived we went out on their boat and trolled some spoons, plugs and a bulldawg (not all at the same time ).



The Boat

This didn't really come to much with no takes and then where we where trolling was getting very weedy and we decided to turn back and anchor where it was less weedy. We ended up in a lovely bay. We where spinning for about 10 mins and we where just about to move when we heard some splashing near the reeds, My brother got there before me and cast within inches of the disturbance and hooked into a small pike of about 1lb. We are not sure if this was the fish that made the disturbance or it was the fish that was being chased.



Brothers Pike

After this we headed back and began to try and catch some of the smaller species. I tackled up with a waggler and a size 16 hook on a 4lb hooklength. i used red maggots as hook bait and loose fed them little and often. The fishing proved not to be great and the bream did not show up. We where catching small perch almost every cast at the begining but this slowed up and the fishing was getting quiet. I decided to cast out some deadbaits to try to and tempt the pike and i put them on the alarms so it allowed me to continue targeting the smaller fish.



Swim to left

I switched to a feeder on the road which i was originally float fishing on and with immediate effect and had a nice roach. I had a rest and let my dad take over and he landed one of the bigger hybrids. My uncle and brother also had a few hybrids as well. I managed a few more fish before the sun went down and then we packed up.





Two small roach bream hybrids

It was an enjoyable day even though the fishing was poorer than what i had hoped for.

BW

[Fishing Forum Admin]

Great read and piccys mate