Ireland on the Fly

Fishing for trout in temperatures over 40 degrees is not ideal but for this week’s guest it was only a matter of days ago that he doing just that. Mike and Tom are joined for this episode by Tipperary angler, Robbie Meagher, who has just returned from the European Fly Fishing Championships in Bosnia. Robbie tells us of fishing in extreme heat where on one session his team captain had to supply him...

With the longest day of the year just passed, this means the grilse run begins in earnest for most salmon anglers. With this in mind, Tom and Garrett turn their attention to summer salmon and they have well known guide and instructor, Damien O’Brien, join them. Damien is based on the River Blackwater and guides on the Blackwater Valley Fishery as well as the River Laune in Kerry. A fully qualified...

When your school trips involve fishing Lough Melvin and the Kylemore system in Connemara, there is a good chance you might get handy at fishing. This was obviously the case with Sammy McGowan and no doubt helped him to burst on to the Irish Team as a 19-year-old on Loch Leven in Scotland. Sammy won top Irish rod on this first cap and went on to earn many more international caps while still in his...

Brendan Garland is a committed salmon angler; a late arrival to the party, he has put more in the twenty years he has been salmon fishing than many of us will put in over a lifetime of angling. After a misspent period of chasing golf balls around courses, Brendan switched to salmon angling after coming across a promotional flyer while playing golf in Mayo in the 2000s and he has never looked back....

With the trout season for 2026 very much underway, it has, so far, been very much a start stop affair. This spring has brought has brought us a lot of high winds and temperatures have struggled to get into double figures for the most part. The bad weather has prevented a lot of Anglers getting out. However, good things come to those who wait and, with an upturn forecast in the weather forecast, th...

After the long winter break and with the 2026 season now truly under way, we kick the year off and look ahead to the salmon fishing season. Joining Tom on this week’s episode is Conor Arnold from the Blackwater. Tom is also joined by Garrett Ruigrok as co presenter and they ask Conor for his thoughts and (more importantly) hopes for 2026, mindful of the disappointing salmon year of 2025. There is...

A Happy Christmas to all our listeners and as it’s that time of the year we thought we’d bring you a bucket list episode that many of us can only dream about – fly fishing for the golden mahseer in remote Bhutan. Jake Anchell joins Tom Doc to tell him about the recent once-in-a-lifetime trip he made with his father, David. Find out about Bhutan, the place of the mahseer in their culture and how yo...

So, the salmon and trout season is over for another year and while there was plenty of negatives with fish kills and pollution incidents, there was also still a lot of great fishing to be had. And for this week’s episode we’re focusing on the brown trout season with Eamonn Ross from Lough Sheelin and Mike Keady from Lough Corrib. Plus Tom also has updates on a recent worrying development of green...

No matter the fishing and conditions, the 2025 fly fishing season will go down in memory as the year of the worst ever fish kill in the history of the State, which is certainly saying something based on this country’s approach to pollution, water quality and environmental protection. We’ve discussed fish kills on this show before, highlighting the fact that when guilty verdicts and fines are hande...

As we head into the final days for most of you for the game fishing season, this week we find out about the Boyne fishery, and the superb brown trout fishing to be had on the Trim Athboy Angling Club waters. Tommy Keogan is a stalwart of the club and he talks to us about how the club manages its eight miles of waters, as well his love of fishing the loughs and why this year was a particularly good...

Kevin McLoughlin is a lifelong angler from Cork who joins us on this week’s Ireland on the Fly to talk about the good old days for salmon when the spring run was something to behold. Kevin talks about moving to Cobh, working in the fishing industry and even spending a year on the newly formed fisheries board in 1979. He has seen it all in Irish fishing since the 1960s and has plenty to tell. Liste...

Throwing Feathers in the Wind is a new book out by Richard Gorodecky, a fly angler who moved full time to Ireland five years ago to be closer to the river fishing that he loves so much. Richard was a long-time visitor to these shores fishing all over the country before settling in south Munster but his obsession with fly fishing has also seen him fish all over the world. Throwing Feathers in the W...

We’re at the tail end of the grilse run now and with the summer conditions we’ve had, coming off the back of a poor spring run, we’ve been desperately looking for some good news on the salmon front. And we found it – or sort of – because this week Johnny Casey and Yamil Turcuman two passionate salmon anglers who we’ve spoken to before – join us to let us know how their season has been – ranging fr...

You may have seen the recent campaign and news stories about the disappearance of sprat from our coastal waters and the government’s unwillingness to do enough to protect our marine habitats – but what has it got to do with you if you're an angler and only interested in freshwater? Well in the current environmental climate, pretty much everything, and whether it’s marine or freshwater conservation...

Is a river alive? What a question….it throws up so many if, buts, maybes, but most importantly, why not? They are our lifeblood, our circulation, our healing waters. But they also need saving now in these troubled times of extraction, industrialisation and pollution. To kick off Season 2, we’re taking the big picture view when it comes to rivers, and we’re asking shouldn’t the rights of nature be...

Wild salmon are in a perilous state. But we can’t and won’t give up. The Last Salmon with Jim Murray is back for another season, launching July 25th, addressing the problems and hearing from all sides of the argument, to find the solutions to help save our wild salmon. It’s not too late, the salmon haven’t give up, and nor can we. The Last Salmon, presented by renowned actor and salmon activist, J...

We should never stop learning – and in fly fishing especially, we’re never done. This week we hear from Packy Trotter a life long fly angler, guide and instructor who epitomises the spirit of teaching and learning in the sport. STANIC and APGAI qualified, Packy then travelled to the Catskills where he took the FFF certified and FFF masters qualifications becoming, at that time, only the second per...

Continuing our fly fishing in hot waters theme on the show, this week we’re joined by Ronan Collins, a well-known and well-travelled fly angler who is just back from a trip to Gabon in west Africa. Ronan tells us why fly fishing in Africa should be on everyone’s bucket list with an incredible array of species to be caught from crevalle to snappers, tarpon, barracuda and sharks. Ronan is also on th...

This week, with the hot temperatures we’ve been having and the noticeable lack of rainfall, we wanted to speak to renowned fisheries scientist, Ken Whelan, who gave a talk at the recent Irish Spring Angling Fair, called ‘Trout in hot water’. Ken details the impact and consequences of rising temperatures on our freshwater fish as well as their food sources and he challenges anglers to start thinkin...

This week, in honour of the midsummer solstice, we’ve recorded a midseason review to find out how the fishing has been so far, the highs and lows, and what we can expect for the second half of the season. It might be the height of summer but it won’t be long before the long days start getting shorter so make the most of your fishing while you can. Listen & Follow on Apple or Spotify : Keep up to d...

This season we’ve heard about the disastrous spring salmon run and there hasn’t been much to report yet for the grilse run – all in all, our worst fears about salmon numbers seem to be coming true – and not just in Ireland. One of the worst culprits of course is aquaculture and the effects that sea lice from salmon farms has on migrating salmon, which the industry – and the Government via the Stat...

This time last week the Ireland fly fishing team was in the Czech Republic getting ready for their shot at the World Fly Fishing Championships and with a very respectable sixth place last year in France, hopes were high for the team that they might even medal – something that has never been done before by an Irish team in the World Championships. Team Captain, Dec Conlon, joins us on the latest sh...

We’re nearly into June and the mayfly is finally petering out. It’s hard to believe that it began at Easter time on Corrib, whilst recently, Sheelin has been described as being ‘polluted with fly’ where fly anglers have been left with pretty much only suntans this year. So this week, to find out more, joining us for our annual mayfly season review is Jackie Mahon, fly tyer and guide on Lough Arrow...

Ballisodare Fishery is a name that’s probably familiar to you from the salmon fish kill last summer that hit the headlines but after the deaths of one thousand plus salmon, why did it happen and how can we ensure it doesn’t happen again? Despite the events of last year, the fishery is determined to showcase what it does have – namely great fly fishing water in Sligo throughout the entire season. G...

With the salmon run beginning in earnest this month, the Blackwater’s Conor Arnold joins us this week to tell us about the unique May salmon that arrives in the river, and whether the spring run’s decline could actually herald an increase in the back-end? Plus, Tom has a mayfly update from Corrib, and we'll be bringing you more mayfly updates from across the country over the next few weeks so stay...