Irish fishing adventures from the past Part 3 - Ballyconnell Co. Cavan

Following on from Part 2 the next Angling Centre we tried was Ballyconnell in Co. Cavan our first visit there was back in 2012. The obvious place to stay was the Anglers Rest which is a Guest House, Pub, Restaurant and for a while had a Tackle Shop as well. Irish Bait and Tackle (Maggot Farm was just up the road as well.

The Anglers Rest is owned by Irish International Francis McGoldrick and his family.

Ballyconnell is quite a small town but there are some fantastic fishing to be had in the surrounding loughs, namely Brackley, Bunerky and the famous Garadice which is only a short drive away. The Woodford River also known as the Woodford Canal runs through the town and forms part of the Shannon Erne Waterway. Enniskillen to the North is about 18 miles up the road.

Access to the Loughs in this area is pretty good but like most venues in Ireland you can only get access to a very small percentage of the shore line.

In the beginning and due to the weather we concentrated on Garadice Lough, the Church Shore section were there are lots of good pegs and you can park alongside most of them.

The hybrid fishing on the tip was fantastic and we had the odd dog roach and big skimmer but no proper bream.
I think we had bags of between 30lbs and 40lbs from Garadice which more than satisfied us.

Dale H netting a skimmer on Garadice

Turtle also got among the fish

On that first visit the weather improved from the middle of the week and Francis recommended Burneky Lough. This was prior to it being used in the World Pairs and access was a bit limited. Once you were on the shoreline it was fine, the walk wasn't that bad to be honest. It's a huge Lough with only a B type road if that running alongside it.

How big?

The roach fishing was fantastic, proper sized fish and we had some lovely days on the waggler. Mr. Pike also gave us a bit of trouble.

Some of the roach Steve and I had

I fished the Woodford River a couple of times and had some nice hybrids on the pole holding back with a 12BB Crowquill. Dale and Turtle fished down near the Lock and had plenty of roach.

I think we stayed with Francis twice, bumped into Bob Nudd and Baz Smith one night as they were fishing the World Pairs which was on the same week.

We always had our evening meal in the Anglers Rest, the food especially the steaks are superb. We did have the odd pint in the bar but used two other pubs up the road. One was a Sports Bar run by two young guys who told us a story about the previous owner. Apparently he had Sky Sports via a rouge device and painted the pint glass icon in the bottom of the screen with tippex! That was until he got caught lol. We used to play darts in there during the week but they had a band on at weekends. It was mainly for younger people to be honest but Dale managed to befriend a few of the older ones after practising his First Aid skills on one of them after he some how spilt his head, god knows how.

Turtle getting stuck in to a meal in the Anglers Rest. He was on a diet that week, no chips but had garlic bread instead!!

Molly Maguires pub was were we usually ended up and on a Friday and Saturday they had a duo or single singer, Country and Western. The first thing I noticed was a gun and a couple of hand grenades over the bar and as you looked around the walls there was more memorabilia about a certain illegal paramilitary organisation commonly known by 3 letters!

One of the duo's at Molly's

During that time property in the area was really cheap. On the opposite side of the river from the Anglers Rest there were blocks of apartments totally empty and they hadn't long been built. In fact I remember an advert in the local paper offering buy one get one free!

It is a lovely area with another angling centre Ballinamore just down the road.