Stoneflies
Caddisflies
Chironomids
Gammarids
A migratory lough close to Newport in Mayo, salmon and sea trout running up from the tidal river below. Good boat fishing for salmon from June onward — the method is to watch the water and put the fly where a fish is likely to be lying, not fish blind. Sea trout come into the shallows at dusk and on into the dark. A productive system whenever fish are actually moving through it. For 2026 this is catch-and-release only under the Wild Salmon & Sea Trout Tagging Scheme — every salmon and grilse goes back.
Lough Beltra lies in wild country five miles north-east of Newport in Mayo, two miles by one of mountain-ringed water beneath the Nephin Beg range. It is one of Ireland's loveliest and most renowned spring-salmon loughs — drawing a large run of fish through March, April and May, salmon typically in the eight-to-ten-pound class, with a smaller run of grilse and sea trout from June. All its fish are entirely wild. The water is soft and peat-tinged off the surrounding bog and mountain, the lough fed and drained by the Newport river system. The character is classic western drift-fishing water: a big, open, often wind-ruffled lough fished from the boat over rocky shoals and along the productive shoreline lies. Wading has little role here — this is boat water, read by the wave, the drift and the known holding ground, an outboard the only practical way about it.
Wading: Open, wind ruffled boat water
No venue-specific hatch data yet; as a mixed stillwater in this Cork/Kerry sandstone-freestone system, expect a broader stillwater character spanning buzzer, sedge and terrestrial fall depending on the bay and bank fished — treat this as a general expectation, not an observed hatch.
- Lough system
- Mixed
- Unconfined
- Stillwater
- Lough