Ireland on the Fly

Continuing our mayfly episodes, on this week’s Ireland on the Fly we hear how the season is going so far on Lough Sheelin and we’re joined by Eamonn Ross from the Lough Sheelin Trout Protection Association to talk tactics, nymphs v dries and the incredible spectacle that is the spent gnat on the lake.     Rate, review and follow the show to keep up to date with all the latest Ireland on the Fly ep...

If you’re a loughs angler, there’s probably only one thing on your mind for the next few weeks – the mayfly fishing - be it on Derg, Corrib, Mask, Sheelin or elsewhere.   Later this month we’ll hear how Sheelin is doing and we will also be reviewing the mayfly season on all the major Irish waters, but for this week we’re focusing on Lough Corrib and to tell us how it’s been faring so far with tips...

For our latest bucket list episode we catch up with Galway man, Ronan Creane, whose love of fly fishing and big brown trout led him to New Zealand where he hasn’t left and is now firmly established as a full time guide during the season.   So just what is the life of a guide really like on some of the finest brown trout waters in the world and does he miss the Irish fishing at all?   Ronan discuss...

For this week's Ireland on the Fly we’re joined by Darius Simkus, who only started fly fishing after he moved to Ireland from Lithuania and within a few years he was fishing for Ireland, winning national titles and is the 2023 captain of the ITFFA Irish rivers team.   Darius tells us why competition fishing is so important to him, how he learned so much through self-belief and learning on the wate...

While we may be still a few weeks off the summer runs of salmon and sea trout, in advance of that, we thought it would be worth finding out more about catching sea trout on the fly in both daytime and night time conditions from one of the leading experts, Steffan Jones.   Steffan is based in Wales but has fished for – and caught – big numbers of sea trout all over the world and he has some great i...

This week we wanted to find out about the Salmon Summit that was held recently in Iceland.   It’s an annual get-together of NGOs, scientists, policy-makers, researchers and scientists run by the North Atlantic Salmon Fund to discuss the current state of salmon stocks and possible solutions to help the future of the fish.   So, what did they discuss and what of note came out of the summit?  We spea...

It’s a very special guest for this week’s episode of Ireland on the Fly.  He was an inspiration for us  as well as thousands of other fly anglers around the world, and with every new release, his musings, essays and reflections on a life lived through fly fishing have kept us entertained down through the years.   For the latest Ireland on the Fly Book Club episode it’s an honour to be speaking to...

We’re turning our attention to fly tying for this week’s episode and our guest is a bit of a legend in Irish fly tying circles it has to be said and yet his flies might never have graced our waters and caught so many fish if it wasn’t for a sliding doors moment in the life of Frankie McPhillips when he was looking for work…..   Frankie describes a different time in the 1970s and 1980s when good, q...

With all this rain the last while I’m sure many of you are still itching to get out fishing and for this week’s episode we’ve got some great insights and advice on where to fish for those early season salmon along the Atlantic seaboard from Markus Muller.   When the rains do finally subside and the waters come back into contention Markus pinpoints some of the most likely places where you have a hi...

It’s St. Patrick’s week and for so many fly anglers this really is the start of the brown trout season in Ireland, especially on the rivers, including the River Suir, which has been called the finest brown trout river in Europe.   So for this week’s episode we wanted to find out how and where it fishes best and we speak to George McGrath of Gundog & Fly YouTube fame, who has also spent a lifet...

Continuing our focus on spring salmon fishing, this week’s Ireland on the Fly podcast turns its attention to the Upper Caragh Fishery in county Kerry and we speak to Mike O’Shea the fishery manager to find out about the salmon run on the system from springers right through to the summer grilse and back-end of the season.   Mike also discusses the introduction of the hatchery, how that has been a s...

For this week’s episode we speak to Sean McManmon, a hugely experienced fly angler, and someone known as Mr Salmon in some circles in Ireland.   After decades working in the K Club he has guided US Presidents, rock stars, supermodels and golfing greats such as Tiger Woods and Mark O’Meara.   From tales of giving the Secret Service the slip to catching 19 salmon in a day, Sean has a lifetime of mem...

It's a first for us this week on Ireland on the Fly as we find out about catching mullet on the fly in early season.   It’s a fish known as the Irish bonefish and not one that has been targeted a great deal but maybe that’s about to change.   After all, if you’re like our guest, West Cork guide and angler, David Norman, you could be landing five mullet on the fly in a single session in February on...

We’re into February, spring is in the air and slowly the season is starting to kick into gear.  Stay tuned in the coming weeks as we get updates on the salmon rivers and loughs around Ireland and we’ll be bringing you more tips and information for getting the most out of your fly fishing as the season progresses.   For our latest episode we’re continuing our fly fishing book club and this time we...

With the start of the season on Corrib only around the corner – it opens next week on February 15th - we catch up with Mike Keady, the Corrib expert and Irish international angler, to get his insights into getting the most out of spring fishing on the lough, with a focus on the duck fly hatch which is when the first real numbers of fish are caught on the fly.   Mike explains how and where to find...

Although the salmon season has only just got under way, some of you may be looking to make plans for your spring fishing and one fishery that has always caught my eye that I’m hoping to fish is Carrowmore Lake in the far corner of Mayo on the Erris peninsula.   Renowned as a spring salmon lough it usually features with some of the earliest salmon caught in Ireland each year but as we find out, Car...

While the salmon season has officially begun, we’re still in the thick of it so to speak with the long nights still hanging over us and many of you are getting busy at the vice in anticipation of your own local waters opening in the coming weeks.   So for this week’s episode we catch up with former international angler and renowned fly tyer, Ryan Houston, to find out about his fly fishing career,...

A recurring theme of some of our podcasts recently has been looking at the disastrous effects fish farming has had on wild salmon and sea trout and we have been examining Scotland in particular as a case study where the politicians have – just like Ireland – pursued a policy of increasing fish farming whilst blithely ignoring the accepted scientific evidence about the dangers to wild salmon and se...

For so many of us, fly fishing is also about the people, places and experiences we have, especially whilst discovering new places.   And so, for this latest episode of Ireland on the Fly, we speak to Cork fly angler, Ronan Collins, whom Daire first met in Greenland last year.   Ronan has fished in many far flung places around the world and is a particularly keen salmon angler with incredible stori...

It’s January 2023 and a Happy New Year to all our listeners and to those of you especially who have been in touch with ideas, suggestions and for the competition as well.   We’ll be running a lot more comps with prizes of books, flies and fly boxes throughout the year so stay tuned for that.   And the winner of Mark Wormald’s The Catch: Fishing for Ted Hughes was Kevin Tripper so congratulations K...

Christmas 2022 has been and gone, the presents opened and too much eating and drinking gone on I’m sure and you’re probably counting down the days to the salmon season starting, or getting back out onto the water before the hectic work-life schedule starts all over again.   And so, for our last episode of the year we’ve put together a collection of some of our guests’ most memorable fish on the fl...

As it's the run-up to Christmas, we’ve got another instalment of our book club this week on the show and we’re discussing Ted Hughes and the influence of Ireland and Irish fly fishing on his poetry with Mark Wormald, a Cambridge lecturer and fly angler, who has written a superb book called The Catch: Fishing for Ted Hughes.   Mark stands where the poet stood, forty years ago, because fishing was T...

If you’re into saltwater fly fishing, by all accounts, 2022 seems to have been the year of the pollock with large numbers and large sizes of the fish being caught right throughout the season.   Are we seeing more pollock being caught because more anglers are targeting them on the fly?  And, what’s happened to the bass?   To find out more, for this week’s episode, we’re joined by Richie Ryan of Cor...

Another fish to target over winter is pike, with pike on the fly becoming increasingly popular in Ireland.   For this week’s episode we wanted to find out more about the set-up, the flies, the tactics and why fly fishing for pike isn’t just for Christmas either and we spoke to Markus Muller, an advisor to IFI and pike fly fishing aficionado, as well as Bodo Funke, the well-known pike guide based i...

You might be wondering why we’re talking about salmon for this latest episode in December, but as we get closer to the start of the season on January 1st, the IFI are busy finalising the data from the salmon tags for the 2022 season to make the final decision on what rivers will be open next year.   So, we decided to speak to Kevin Crowley from the IFI to find out more about the data they have, to...