September Update

It's been a while since posting here last, our blog admin has gone a bit slack alright- Apologies! Nevertheless we have been out on the water and some fine fish have been caught in the last while. Here is some of the most recent catches:
Last week our own young Danny caught this fine 108cm pike. And yesterday while guiding a group of Swiss anglers, a beautiful 63cm/7lbs. brown trout showed up.

June update- Big Pike for father and son

Last week saw the arrival of two groups of anglers here in Boyle, first up were 4 happy anglers from Germany that started of the week with two very difficult days, after torrential downpours of rain, the pike seemed to be put off feeding for a while. But eventually the anglers persistance paid off and fish up to 110cm were landed by them. They also had 5 pike over 90cm and several smaller ones. We hope to have some of the fotos available soon...

On wednesday regular visitors Marco P. and Marco A.from Italy, this time accompanied by Marco P.s twelve year old son Eduardo, landed on the brilliant new Milano to Knock flight. After we picked them up at the airport it was only a matter of an hour or two before they were out on the water casting lures at pike.
The first day saw a few fish to nine pound being caught, but it was on the second day that the young angler struck into a Big Fish, he managed to play the pike really well and before too long we netted the beauty. Measuring 98cms the pike weighed exactly 20lbs. this was naturally a great new personal best for the boy. The next day it was his fathers turn to get a good fish, when he got a good double figure pike measuring 96 cms pike. Meanwhile their friend Marco was also catching pike up to 17lbs. on jerk baits.
The last day ended with a lot of small fish with no big ones showing up but at least everybody caught fish on that day too. Here is the photo of Edoardos great catch:

Bigger Pike - yet again

In the last post here I mentioned a one meter+ pike caught by the two Iatalian anglers Ezio and Ivan, well the big fish Ezio caught turns out to be the biggest pike landed by Angling Services Ireland guests (and staff!) this year so far. Ezio measured the big pike to be 114cm long! The fish took a Buster Jerk in perch colour.

Ivan also had a nice pike not far from the magic meter mark, that he caught on a jerk bait too.
After all the big pike the two anglers had follow their lures and missed takes from the day before, they surely deserved to catch some big pike.
Their last day brought a few more fish to ~90cm to the boat before they finished their short fishing holiday on Sunday.

May update- Lively Pike action

May has arrived and finally the pike have become a bit more lively and active. On Tuesday, Barry Jackson from Scarborough, UK, was out on a guided pike trip with us and a days trolling lures yielded 12 pike for him and many more missed takes. Biggest pike of the day was 13.5lbs.

The next day I had Italian anglers, Ezio and Ivan out on the water for a half day (they only arrived that morning with the great new flight into Knock, Ireland West airport from Milano.
The half days fishing resulted in 14 nice pike coming to the boat, biggest pike 16lbs. all on cast lures.
Yesterday they were not so lucky, only boating a few fish but many big pike followed their lures to the boat or threw the hooks back.
Today, their first Big pike over the magic one meter was caught already, more soon...

More Big Pike for ASI Guests

Just over a week ago the second big pike of the month was caught by german guest Bodo von Waldow. Measuring 108cm this is the longest pike of the year for us so far.

After that we had the pleasure of a visiting group of float-tube anglers from Italy, that despite unfavourable conditions managed to catch a respectable amount of pike, including some double figure fish on the fly, during their 4 days fishing with us. The group was fishing different small and medium size lakes in the Upper Shannon region around Boyle. A more detailed report of that group  should follow soon...

April update

Our spring fishing season has well and truly started with the arrival of the first few groups, and over the past two weeks there were some fine pike caught by our guests. The best fish of last week and indeed of the season so far, caught by Dublin angler George on Saturday, was a fine pike of 105cm, weighing 25lbs.

Earlier in the week German anglers Uwe Pinnau and his friends from the German Pike Angling Club were out with me and they had pike up to low double figures. The week previously to that saw a father and son from Luxemburg catch a few nice pike while on a guided angling trip with us, again low double figure fish were the biggest on the day and provided good sport.

During the annual Easter Pike Angling Festival held by Boyle & District Angling Club on Lough Key, we sadly didn't rank in the prizes but nevertheless had a few nice fish in the boat, biggest 15lbs. 4oz and my son Danny managed a nice wild brown trout as a by-catch, which of course was released again.

Prospects are good for the coming weeks and we will update this again soon.

Tight Lines,

Bodo Funke

Spring update

Hi guys,

Another year is well and truly upon us, as we are already in March. The fishing here during January and February has been fairly good and yielded a few nice fish for us, including the first 20lbs.+ pike of the year.

At present it seems that on many lakes in the area the pike are spawning now and therefore sport has slowed down somewhat. I hope the pike can reproduce in abundance and we won't harrass them too much for a few weeks from now.

Indications are perhaps though, that we could have an early post spawn bite again this year.

We are looking forward to that and hope to guide our guests to some nice fish again this season.

A nice February double for Angling Services Ireland owner and guide Bodo Funke.