Finny Dodd´s trout flies

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October 12, 2013

This week a package arrived for me in the post. When I opened it up I found it was full of flies. Most people would not be too excited about that, but this was different. These were flies I was expecting.

They were tied by Finian Dodd who lives on the shore of Lough Arrow in County Sligo and include many of the patterns which are effective on the lough and, no doubt, many of the larger loughs throughout the country.

I have used Finny´s flies myself on Lough Arrow during a visit this summer and on a previous visit a couple of years ago. The fish in July and August seem to feed very late in the evening and into the darkness and the locals don´t venture until quite late and the big sedges are likely to be on the water. The flies which are successful are Green Peters and murroughs which are fished dry.

I have to admit that I was unsuccessful on the occasions I fished Arrow although I did hook a good fish that spat out the fly after a few seconds. It was just one of those things. Even though a couple of years have passed by I can´t think about Arrow without remembering that fish!

A work colleague, Geoff Lawrence, was kind enough to take some photos of some of Finny´s flies and I have attached the photos below.

If you ever want to fish Lough Arrow, Finny hires out boats and knows the lough like the back of his hand. He is exceptionally knowledgeable about the lough as a fishery and it is well worth having a chat with him. Here are some of Geoff´s photographs of Finny´s trout flies.