Shallow and eutrophic, it supports the famous dollaghan (Lough Neagh lake-run brown trout), which enter the tributary rivers (Ballinderry, Moyola, Blackwater NI, Six Mile Water) from July through October. Open-water trout fishing on the lough itself is challenging owing to scale and exposure — most serious anglers target the dollaghan in the tributaries during the run. Pike and coarse fish are plentiful. Commercial eel fishery is the traditional industry. Boat fishing by local arrangement; most fishing effort is bank-based in the feeder rivers. Angling on the lough itself needs the permission of the Lough Neagh Fishermen's Co-operative Society as well as a DAERA rod licence, and ownership of the coarse fishing rights faces High Court proceedings (DAERA, April 2026).
A historic Ulster University study (1997–2000) found trout diet on Lough Neagh dominated by the opossum shrimp Mysis relicta, with Gammarus shrimps and the isopod Asellus aquaticus also taken in numbers — a diet-composition finding rather than a hatch record, and current abundance shouldn't be assumed from those decades-old samples. Beyond that, only general lough-habitat modelling exists here, suggesting chironomids, small olives, sedges and bankside terrestrials as background food through the season rather than observed, dated hatches.
- Surface area
- 391 km² (96,640 acres)
- Mean depth
- 9.1 m (30 ft)
- Max depth
- 24 m (80 ft)
- Length
- 31 km (19 mi)
- Width
- 15 km (9.3 mi)
- Area, mean depth, max depth, length and width: Wikipedia, Lough Neagh
- Lake
- Mixed