The season opens on the weekend nearest St Patrick's Day, but April is when they actually start fishing. Sessiagh Lough is 80 acres of alkaline water holding pound fish, coming into its own early and late in the season; four boats and bank fishing both permitted, with Black Pennell, Wickham's Fancy, Invicta and Greenwell's Glory as the standard patterns. Port Lough is smaller and shallower at 75 acres, full of free-rising wild browns averaging half a pound with fish to a pound — traditional wet flies do the job, two boats and bank fishing permitted. New Lake, at 230 acres and an average depth of only 2m, was thrown up by the great Atlantic storm of 1920 and is now reckoned one of the county's premier brown trout fisheries; trout of 1–2lb are routine and bigger fish get reported, but it's boat-only with six boats for hire. The mixed limestone-over-sandstone geology gives the lakes more alkalinity than most Donegal water, and it shows in the hatches. A useful base for anyone touring the north Donegal coast.
No venue-specific hatch data yet; as a productive limestone lough, expect a richer-than-average mixed hatch of midges, olives and sedges typical of fertile Irish stillwaters — a general expectation for this water type, not an observed hatch.
- Lake
- Mixed sandstone limestone