Merry Christmas

We would like to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year!
We are looking back on a good year with many happy fishing memories and we look forward to hopefully an equally good or even better year next year!
We look forward to seeing you next year when we will start the new year with our much improved new services and facilities.

Again Merry Christmas & Happy New Year and Tight Lines for 2012,

Bodo Funke

October Update No 2

A highly enjoyable week on the water with Dutch anglers Frank van Vliet and Peter van Hoorn has come to an end. Some nice fish were boated including the two meter pike shown in our lats update and this cracking brown trout that took a liking to Franks lure. Of course the beauty was released again unharmed. It was more a case of quality instead of quantity as far as the fishing was concerned, as a lot of the pike caught were in the 80cm+ region.

Peter and Frank who also runs Dutch Predator angling website roofvisnet also showed off their skill and experience in Drop shot fishing and caught quite a few perch during the week. Perch which are highly underrated in Ireland can be great fun on light tackle and bring an interesting mix to a fishing trip here. Our new Mirrocraft boat and equipment is perfect for this style of fishing (vertical and Drop-shot) and we have all the gear and tackle you need to try it.

October update - New boats and big pike!

It has been hectic here at Angling Services Ireland over the past few weeks.
The new Mirrocraft boat has finally arrived and it took another week or so to fit engine, motor, electronics, etc. All had to be done in a hurry, because we wanted it ready for the arrival of Dutch Predator aces Frank van Fliet and Peter van Hoorn.
Frank and Peter arrived on Saturday and spend their first day fishing with us yesterday, when Frank landed a great pike of over one meter and well in the twenties. It measured 102cm.
Peter also took a nice fish.
Meanwhile last week we had Waterford anglers Stephen Butler and Joey O'Brien over for a days guided pike fishing. They had hoped to hook up any pike and would have been happy with a medium size pike. But when the pike suddenly becam active joey hooked up with something bigger and he promptly landed a nice pike measuring 102cm (~18lbs). Delighted with that he let the lure out again and was soon playing something that was even bigger. A few minutes later he had another cracking pike in the boat this time measuring 108cm (~25lbs).
More soon...

End of Summer update - Start of pike season

The Pike fishing over the past few weeks here had already looked promising and sort of gave hope to an early start to good post summer piking.

This was confirmed yesterday when the German guest Volker Kliche hooked and landed the first pike over a meter after the Summer break (What summer?), during a days guided fishing with us.

Coincidentaly this was also Volkers first pike over the magic one meter mark. The pike was in great condition and measured 106cms/ 10kg. It was the biggest of seven pike he managed to land yesterday.

Unless we get an unexpected heat wave now, the pike fishing for the coming weeks and months looks promising.

Meanwhile the perch fishing is also pretty good right now, with some nice ones coming to Drop-shot and vertical jigging techniques.

New Guide boat nearly finished!

We were pleased to see that our new Guide-boat is now nearly finished and will soon be on it's way to us. Thanks to the good people at Mirrocraft, who sent us this sneak preview picture.
The boat should be here and fully fitted out before October all going well! So we will have it when the pike fishing kicks off again.
This state of the art fishing boat will finally provide ample space for our guided fishing trips for up to three clients and all equipment. It will be fully equipped with trolling motors, electronics, swivel seats, etc.
More news and info about our new and improved equipment and services are to follow soon...

August update

The fishing this August has been unusually good so far. Must have to do with the fact that we didn't really get any proper summer weather.

We had some nice trout both on fly and trolling over the past few weeks. Perch are absolutely everywhere right now and one can have great fun catching them on light tackle, and we even had quite a few pike over the weekend up to low double figures. Won't be long now til we start pike fishing proper again in September.

New boats, new waters!

It has long been our intention to get hold of some smaller and lighter boats to access some of those venues, where lakeboats can't be launched. Indeed many of our clients have asked in the past about fishing in some of those places...

We are pleased to announce that we have now added two Linder Alu-boats to our fleet for this purpose, which will open up new possibilities and new waters for our clients from now on.

We already know the potential of a number of smaller waters, and there is an abundance of venues that we will be test-fishing over the coming months...

By the way these boats are perfectly safe and very stable too, so they can be used on larger waters too.

Float tube pike!

An evenings fly-fishing for pike from float-tubes proved successful for fellow Boyle angler Paul Wynne when he hooked and landed himself a really nice pike on a small lake near Boyle. This was Pauls first time in a "Tube" and I think it wasn't the last! Well Done!

More pike!

The weather here is still pretty unsettled and not so much like summer at all, although this means that water temperatures in many lakes is still only around 15 degrees C and some good pike fishing is still to be had!
An evenings fly fishing for pike from float tubes with fellow Boyle angler and fly-fishing enthusiast Paul Wynne yielded some nice pike to low double figures with Paul getting the biggest of ~13lbs. thus providing spectacular sport.
This weekend gone we were guiding repeat client Graham Leonard and his friend Ray. The two Kildare anglers caught a number of fish to ~8.5lbs. and Guide Bodo Funke even sneaked out a good double as well.
A lot of fish hit the trolled lures on the day but somehow only ~a third of takes could be converted into fish in the boat (Total of 8 pike).
Photo shows ASI owner and professional Guide Bodo Funke with his fish of the day.

June update

Last weeks fishing here started of pretty good with pike to 1 meter for American angler Patrick and his group.

Tuesday was the first fishing day for German visitor Ulrich Benz and his wife Tanja. We boated 13 hard fighting pike on the day with a 90cm one being the biggest.

The cold spell after that sort of hampered the fishing a lot and the pike were hard to find and catch. A few small ones every day was all that could be achieved on two days that felt like November days in the middle of June, with only 8 degrees C in the afternoon!!!

On Saturday fly fishing enthusiast Cuan had a nice fish on the fly nearly straight away that morning, which gave a good account of himself.

There is still no stable weather in sight, but unless the temeratures don't fall as low as last week again, the prospects for pike fishing should be ok.

May update - Prime pike time!

The last two weeks were really exciting up here, with several groups of anglers enjoying their stay in Boyle and some fantastic fishing too.

First of were regular guests Stefano and Roberto from Italy who caught over 40 pike with spinning methods during their three day trip.

Then last week we were guiding international journalists Henning Stuehring from Germany and Gernot Heigl from Austria to do some fly-fishing for pike. They were here for five days of fishing, which they will report on later on in an article in the German magazine "Fisch & Fang". They also filmed some fine footage of the weeks fishing. The week started off on a High, when fly-fishing enthusiast Gernot hooked and landed his first meter pike nearly straight away on the first day of their trip. Many smaller fly-caught pike followed during the week both from boats and also while fishing from belly-boats (float-tubes).

Meanwhile a group of 4 anglers from France also started their weeks fishing with all of the anglers getting pike into the boats. The week culminated however, when on the third day Jean-Yves hooked and landed what turned out to be the biggest fish of the season so far! Well Done to Jean-Yves and also to our guide Brendan for boating such a cracking fish!
The Beauty measured 107cms and weighed in at exactly 28lbs.
This was a nice early Birthday present for the French angler who celebrated his Birthday the next day. On the same day we also boated pike of 97, 92 and 76 cms plus an amount of small pike, providing some great fishing for the group on their first ever trip with us.

March update - Pike fly action

With the spawning process of the pike being underway on many waters now, we still managed to find a venue with relatively cold water, where pike were still feeding.

A half day session of fly fishing for pike with a local guest yielded sixteen pike up to mid-double figures to the boat.

Earlier on during the week US guest Jason Scalise from Arizona had an enjoyable day with us catching a few pike on spinning tackle on a gorgeous spring day.

Angling Services Ireland owner and guide, Bodo Funke with a fly caught double figure pike.

Update March

Pike have started to spawn in many lakes and the current coldspell has slowed things down a bit since. Despite this we were out yesterday morning and boated six pike on the fly.

New year finally started!

After a long break (too long!) from fishing we are back on the water again. The first few pike (and even a trout) were caught last week and yesterday fishing team partner Brian Rush really kicked things off, when he boated himself some cracking pike, with the biggest of 21lbs 2oz. All fish came to Buster jerks in relatively shallow water. Well Done, Brian!