Spent a couple of days with Johnny Reddin in Ballyshannon, famous for its wonderful sea trout fishing on the Erne estuary. We fished in some of the stormiest weather I was ever out in. Local IFI fishery officers Michael Patton and Lindsey Clarke were our hosts, while filming some promotional films about sea trout. First we tried sand-eels, free-lined from the boat. The lads really know the area well, and it was not long before we had some action. Johnny was first in, with a fish of about 1 lb. He was only back out and was into a 2nd fish, which threw the hooks at the boat.
We then went to a local beach and fly fished with sand-eel patterns.The crystal clear water is teeming with fry and sand-eels and the sea trout can chase you right up to your feet. We also persisted with the fly when back in the boat. In the end we landed 4 sea trout and lost quite a few others too. The best fish were touching 2.5lb.. Michael was astonished we didn’t hit a bigger fish as these regularly turn up to over 4lb.
Day 2 was a washout, with even bigger winds. We fished a few hours from the boat and managed to hook a couple of decent fish, but landed none. Ballyshannon is a wonderful venue to fish, there is so much variety in the fishing available. A special estuary licence is needed along with the state one. In the end we got some great footage and I will certainly be back again. rj [slideshow gallery_id=”2″]