Last Days on the Nore, Kilkenny

This year the Nore proved to be a challenging venue due to the heavy rain fall and its large catchment area. Even though I did get some good fishing on the nymphs earlier on in the season, April and May was very good fishing producing some cracking brown trout and a nice Salmon on the streamers and my five weight fly rod. The Nore is a vast river and there is many places to fish for trout, the salmon anglers do tend to hold preference on some beats but the majority of the river is open to all anglers and permits are easily obtained for a range of prices; one of my favorite marks would be Durrow in Co Laois and day tickets are available in the local news agents for 20 euro per day or a yearly one for 40 euro.

The river was a bit high on Friday and the water temperatures have dropped slightly, knowing that the streamers would be the best method to extract some fish but in my hast to get to the river I left my five weight streamer line at home. So I tackled up the three weight nymphing rod, I began in a nice flow of water and it took a few changes to find the right nymph and more importantly the right weight of nymph. Once I got the weight right I hit a few sporting fish and foul hook a good fish that took some playing before i could get him to the net. I fished on and picked up some fish in the calmer margins of the run, on a large peeping caddis and a pheasant tail with a bright green thorax. The fish seemed to be lying in out of the heavy currents and this proved to be the case for the rest of the day.

I moved up through the river and fished several nice runs picking up a few fish here and there, nothing to exciting but a productive enough day was had, the majority of the fish all came to the fore mention flies and a light Hares ears jig hook nymph that is a great fly in dark waters and is a real go to fly when the fishing is tough.
This particular stretch on the river is generally fished by Salmon anglers and the evidence of a lot of fishing could be seen on the banks of the river perhaps this has taking its toll on the trout stocks. However this water is usually stuffed with big trout and is a pleasure to fish,  when the river is fishing well it is right up there with the likes of the Suir and its other sister rivers, also the beats are only a short drive from the house and town center. The local club is very active and keep the banks well trimmed and fishing without permits will result in fines. 
The flies were both on Hends jig hooks and had a 3.2mm sliver tungsten beads, which i found more productive than gold beads this season. A few turns of lead in the under-body, and for the pheasant tail I used  Hends spectra dubbing on the thorax and burnt orange wire for the rib. The hares ear is just made of two different colors of the dubbing brushed out through a sliver rib and partridge tail. I recommend that any angler passing by the Marble City next year should stop off and sample some of its fine fishing.