Kells Anglers Association AGM 2015

Secretary’s Report

Fishing.

The past season will be remembered for the number of big trout. There was at least 30 fish of 4lb and over. One 21″ fish was caught four times, which shows the value of catch and release. The best that I know of were, two of 5.5lb caught by myself. The highlight of the fly hatches or in this case falls of fly was the Black Gnat in May. One angler caught and released three fish of 20″ in an evening. The sedge and the BWO was so so. There was good fishing to a smaller Black Gnats in early August. As Zebra Mussels have been confirmed in Lough Ramour, water quality in the river will improve, thus fly life will improve. The Mussels don’t colonize rivers.

Salmon.

There was no salmon reported on club water. The salmon spawning was very, very poor, on the back of a poor year last year. It was another excellent trout spawning season.

Development work:

Kells did not carry out any projects but were involved in a project on the Lislea Stream. Navan Anglers carried out a 1000m project on the Yellow River and Kilbride Anglers carried out a job on the main channel. Kilbride also landed second place in the Ellison Environment Awards. All these projects contribute to the over all well being of the system. An OPW enhancement project on the main channel was held up by the National Parks and Wildlife. The club intends to do a project on the Blackwater next year.

The Kells Blackwater Trust had two projects. One was to break up calcified gravel with a strong leaf blower on the Martry River. The gravel here was placed here four years ago and had become solid which is no addition to fish or fly life. The leaf blower was able to deal with it which was funded from the Salmon Stamp Fund. The second was the Lislea Stream, also funded from the Salmon Stamp Fund to the tune of 14939 euro. All the genetic samples have been collected and sent off to Queens University. The samples from L. Ramour and the Blackwater were collected by anglers. All the samples from the streams were collected by IFI while they were conducting a catchment wide salmon fry count. The cost of the survey is 7500 pounds, which has been raised by contributions from contractors involved with enhancement works, Tara Mines and Dublin City council. As it will be a while before the results come back, there is time to collect scale samples from any big fish that you might get.

Junior’s:

Congratulations to Ger McLoughlin and Brendan Heaney on qualifying for the Irish Team for the World Junior Fly Championship in the USA next summer. Brendan Heaney is the Irish Lake Champion and was second in the River Champions for 2014 and Gerard is the Irish River Champion and was second in the Lake Championships. A raffle was held at X-mas to raise funds to subsidize the trip. In September Trim Anglers hosted an open junior fly competition on the Boyne. It was a great day with everybody catching fish and at the end of the day Pat O’Toole knocked up a great barbecue. There are plans to have three such events in the coming season, in different club waters.