This week it was time to get back to Lough Lene, my life long friend Fergal Scully decided to join me on this trip. The problem with that is you really never know what will happen when we go fishing together.

Fergal arrived at my door on time at 8am, we loaded his fishing gear into my car and off we went. Fergal and I had not fished together in quite some time and it was nice to catch up with each other on the journey to Lene. From all reports the lake was fishing well, too well in fact, as two weeks ago just about everyone struggled to catch and reports of 20 plus fish to most boats were now being reported.

We picked up the keys for the boat and headed to the lake. Suprisingly the gate was locked. Mr. Thomas Fagan is the local farmer and owns the land that the club use to get down to the lake, Tommy also looks after the boats , keys, stocking you name it and we all owe a lot to Tommy for allowing us use the facilities and his work he has done in developing the lake. A big smile came on his face when he seen us,  "I was hoping someone would come early" he said. Fergal and I were tasked with the job of helping to catch a couple of lambs, not the nice small white ones, but the big strong full of beans ones. After half an hour of chasing and slipping both lambs were caught and we were allowed to go fishing.

The day began dark and the heat over the last couple of days had gone, we both set up floating lines. Hoping that we would get some proper campo/grey boy buzzer fishing during the day and maybe even a hatch of olives. Fergal opted for the bung and buzzers and I set up the washing line with two size 12 buzzers on the droppers and a small drab booby on the tail.

We motored up the lake and as we slowly guided the boat to our starting position we could see trout move out of the way of the boat. We started the first drift and after a few knocks and bumps, two fish came quickly to the booby. As it was early there was no sign of buzzers hatching yet. The next drift and a few more fish came to my net again to the booby and Fergal got one on a buzzer. There were no fish rishing, no buzzer hatching yet there were fish cruising around high in the water, typical of a recent stocking.

Fergal quickly set up a washing line and we both put some new lures I had made the night previously from new material I had just received. Well to say the fish liked them is an understatement and we caught steadily often hooking fish together and we had several double hook ups aswell, the recent stocked fish were between 1.5lb to 2.5lb in weight, so you could land two fish on the same cast if you took your time.

Unfortunately Fergals 10 year old Greys rod bent for its last time as a fit rainbow fought furiously beside the boat causing his rod to break with a tremendous crack at the Butt section. We could just laugh as he fought the fish with the top half of his rod.

I was surprised to see so little boats on the lake, especially as the kids were off for the Easter holidays. We decided to go in for lunch and get Fergals spare rod from my car. On turning winters point I could understand why there were no boats up the lake, they were all in Fagans bay. 

We decided to join them after luch, Freddy Steele was catching well on olives and others were catching well pulling lures. I set up a dry fly cast with an olive on the dropper and a bits on the point. I broke in the first two due to their aggressive take and a new tippet I was using (which is now in the bin). But after changing my cast, fish came continuously to the boat, other people were also catching steadily. Fergal was catching well until his floating line parted while casting. He changed to an intermediate line and caught even better, the boat traffic seemed to spook the fish a little more than usual and Fergal was reaping the rewards by fish a little deeper.

About 5.30pm we decided to call it a day. The difference two weeks makes on Lene is astounding. It was great to see that most boats were keeping an odd fish but putting most of the fish back. There were many boats out that day with young anglers in them practicing for the upcoming I.T.F.F.A. Youth Qualifier. I wish them all the best on Saturday the 22nd of April.

Next week hopefully the Buzzers will be hatching, even if they are not I will going in search of the larger residents of lough Lene, till then tight lines and dont forget to comment