Rainbow Trout at Ballinlough Lake, Leap, West Cork

Finally all the stormy conditions that we experienced in the last month have fizzled out. Now that the weather has calmed down the prospect of going out fishing once again has become more realistic. A buddy of mine has grown increasingly more enthusiastic about fishing lately and invited me to come and join him at Ballinlough Lake last weekend. Needless to say I jumped at the offer!

I've only fished for rainbows a handful of times and on each occasion I enjoyed it immensely. You often hear stories of how stocked trout are terrible fighters and come to hand like a drowned bag. Well, this is definately not applicable to the trout in Leap!

Tactics for the day were to fish relatively deep and slow. Rob used a slow sinking line and a team of 3 flies to start with. Patterns included a black booby, zonker and shrimp pattern. I opted for my Guideline 4cast sink tip line (5 inches per second) matched with a conehead black wooly bugger. On our second drift my fly was engulfed and we had our first fish of the day in the boat.

Every couple of drifts I managed to pick up a fish but they weren't exactly jumping onto our flies either. This was good though and added to the challenge because the novelty can soon wear off if your quarry are overly forthcoming! My last fish was my best fish and no exaggeration it took me nearly 10 minutes to net after all its jumping and long runs.

Enough was enough at this stage for Rob and I suggested he change his approach. Off came his cast of 3 flies and I gave him one of my conehead wooly buggers, this ones colour being olive. Taking the oars, I set us up to drift over the area where we had our best trout so far. With renewed confidence in his set up, he was putting out a lovely line, letting his fly sink for a few seconds and slowly retrieving it back to the boat. 5 minutes into the drift and BINGO the line went tight and I eventually slipped the net under Rob's well earned trophy trout.

We ended the day with a nice few fish between us, not a bad way to get 2014 rolling! As you can see from the photos the trout in Ballinlough are in great condition and they really are fit and powerful. I would highly recommend this place to anyone looking for a winter fix and as an added bonus it is set in a stunning location. Details for permits are on the photo below.

Finally, for anyone interested in taking up lure fishing for bass, the lads at Absolute Fishing are setting up a course on how to get started, free of charge. The course will cover everything from the gear you will need, tides and safety to learning how to read the water and work your lures effectively for optimum results. For more information on the course click here and if the notice is too short there is no need to worry as they will be doing more in the future.