DECEMBER RAINBOWS ON THE FLY AT BALLINLOUGH LAKE, LEAP

                                                The best line for Ballinlough lake is a Wet cel 3 sinking fly line, the retrieve is a few short sharp pulls followed by a short pause and normally the trout will hit the fly on the pause. The main trick is to keep varying your retrieves during the day until you find one that the trout prefer. Sometimes the trout will pick at the fly all the way in to the boat and not take, the best way to deal with this is to either switch to a slow figure of eight retrieve and when you feel a weight on the line, strike or speed up the retrieve and again pause and normally they hit hard with the faster retrieve. The flies that work well are the Cormorant, Hot Orange Blob, Sleech Fly and any Black wooley bugger gold heads. The areas that are successful can be seen in the videos so that's where you should start fishing. Remember the four key rules, Observation , Location, Position and Depth. Once you SEE the fish you have their LOCATION and then you POSITION yourself just at the limit of your casting ability by anchoring, then you get the DEPTH that the trout are feeding at and slowly move in a foot at a time by just gently raising the anchor just off the bottom to get into the zone. The main trick is silence, you would be surprised by the amount of noise some anglers make in a boat, dropping oars, anchors, bags etc., and then they wonder why the fish have moved or gone off the take. The best time for takes have been between 12 midday and 3 pm  due to the fact that is the warmest time of the day especially in the colder months. Contact www.fisheriesireland.ie