lakes donegal

This is a large, shallow expanse of water between Inch Island in Lough Swilly and the mainland at Burnfoot. The water is brackish and the level is maintained by means of floodgates in the dam wall. It now holds occasional salmon and sea trout but was once noted as one of the greatest sea trout fisheries in Donegal. The trout are mainly taken on sand eels and by spinning, through you many still chance to get one on a Teal Blue and Silver or Peter Ross off the cormer of the dam. Permission: Not u...

These loughs are referred to locally as the Twin Loughs and lie to either side of the Buncrana-Cardonagh road. Fad is the larger of the two with a road running along the north and east shores. It is very deep and hold only small brownies and you will do well if you get one of a half lb. It holds a large population of small char and they can sometimes be taken on fly off shore in May. The most popular fly patterns are Peter Ross, Mallard and Claret, Black Spider and Wickham's Fancy. Lough Namina...

This is a lough of some 40 acres, 2 miles form Belleek on the A47 Pettigo road. It is stocked annually with brown and rainbow trout and being a limestone lough has a good stock of natural trout too. The season runs from 1 March to 30 September and there is a 4 trout bag limit and a 10 inch size limit. Only orthodox fly fishing is allowed. Boats may be hired from Mr John McGauran, Bally-megaghran, Leggs Post Office, or from the Carlton Hotel, Belleek. The avergae size of the trout here is over 1...

These two loughs lie to the west of the T73 Quigley's Point-Moville Road. To get to Lough Inn, take the mountain road up the side of Glencaw Hill:the loughs is to the right after 3 and a half miles. It can also be approached from Cardonagh. Lough Inn holds small brown trout and you might be lucky to get an occasional sea trout from August on. Lough Inn lies to the north east on the northern side of Tawash Hill. It is reported to hold only char that average 6oz. They are sometimes taken on fly i...

This lough is also on the Fermangh-Donegal border. Most of it is in Co. Fermanagh, but the best access is off a by road on the Donegal side. It has a nice stock of trout ranging in size from a half to one and a half lbs. Recent reports indicate that the fishing is not as good as it used to be and that the trout are smaller. There are good hatches of duckfly, olives, sedges and even mayfly. Lough Rushen is easy to fish from the shore and seems to fish best in the evening. An unusual feature of th...

This is a small narrow lough just over a mile south west of Creeslough village. Access is gained by the farmhouse on the north west shore and approximately half of the bank is fishable. The average size of the trout is over 1lb though the lough used to hold trout of 2-5lb before stocks were reduced by gross over fishing. The fishing is now very dour but a small stock of good trout still survives. There are hatches of duckfly in spring, murroughs in Jume, and Green Peter in late July and August....

This lough is to the east of and adjacent to the T73 Buncrana-Clonmany road. It is a lough on which you need a boat because of the reeds. It hold a big stock of small brown trout and is best fished on summer evenings with small flies. If you are careful you can fish in shallow water between the reedbeds and the shore. You must hold your fish tight when yu hook them to prevent them escaping into the reeds. Expect to get up to a dozen, a couple of which should weigh between a half and 1km. Small s...

Lough Derg is a large, shallow lough of over 2,000 acres, 4 miles north of Pettigo. This is the lough with the famous island known as St Patrick's Purgatory, with its basilica and penitential exercises, where pilgrims flock every year from June to August. What is less well known is that it holds a stock of nice trout averaging just under a pound and some much better ones too-trout to 4lb have been reported. The fish are pink fleshed and their diet consists mainly of Gammarus-freshwater shrimp. O...

As you approach Falcarragh you will se New Lake, right and Port Lake is signposted , left. these two lakes are excellent brown trout waters....

Lough Deele is the source of the Deele River which flows east towards Raphoe. It lies deep in the mountains 6 miles south west of Letterkenny and is best approached via a small road from the east. This is a difficult walk through forest and across bog and will take at least one and a half hours to complete. The effort of getting there and back - is generally well rewarded- the trout average nearly three quarters pounds and some excellent catches have been reported. An average catch should produc...