Well this was my first visit back to Lough Ree in 5 years and I was looking forward to it immensely. Unlike previous years I actually had some decent fishing equipment this time and also managed to borrow my friend’s echo sounder which I felt would prove to be invaluable given the size of the Lough. As this was a family holiday my fishing times were primarily restricted to the afternoons and early evenings although I did manage one early morning start as well. Surprisingly I was joined for the most part by my Sister and Girlfriend who actually seemed to quite enjoy themselves! It certainly helped that they were catching many more fish than me!

Most of the fishing was done trolling behind the boat attempting to stay to a relatively even depth. The echo sounder really came into its own here allowing us to follow the depth contours around the many islands and the mainland as well as helping to build up a picture of the bathymetry of the Lough. We caught fish most days although nothing too spectacular: usually a number of small perch and the odd reasonable Pike (largest was probably around 7lb) although certainly not large in comparison to the monsters that undoubtedly lie in the Loughs mysterious depths. I was hoping to connect with some of the Loughs increasing trout population but sadly despite seeing a number of fish jumping clear out of the water we didn’t connect with any.

Interestingly most of our fish came in quite deep water, around 15-20ft and thinking about it I would imagine that trolling the really deep water with deep diving lures would prove successful, possibly better for the larger fish. Surprisingly when I tried to cast from the boat when drifting I didn't manage to catch anything which was a shame as I prefer lure fishing like this. I feel sure that dead baiting would be far superior to trolling so that is definitely something I will be trying on the next visit. Still, it was a lovely relaxing week and I'm looking forward to returning and hopefully putting the knowledge learnt from this trip to good use!