Flyfishing on Ireland's River Suir

The River Suir rises in the Devil's Bit Mountain and runs south to Cahir and then East, flowing through Clonmel and Carrick-on-Suir and then out to sea at Waterford Harbour.

Upstream dry-fly fishing on the Suir in summer

Tributaries
The Suir's main tributaries are the Tar, Nire, Annagh, Aherlow, Multeen and Clodiagh. The Nire in particular is a great river for anyone new to trout fishing. (See our Beginners' Guide to Trout and Grayling Fishing, available online...) Both the main river and the tributaries provide excellent trout fishing. In the lower reaches there are good numbers of sizeable trout whilst higher up the stock tends to be smaller but much more numerous.

The Nire falls and clears qiuickly after rain, providing
great sport when the main river is out of sorts

Trout fishing
The Suir is a freestone (rain-fed) river, but the relative uniformity of the riverbed makes it one of the easier rivers to wade - although care is needed because there are some very deep pools. The river flows mainly through farmland, and the banks are frequently tree-lined although not to the point where flyfishing is too difficult.

It's not just the main river that holds specimen fish; this lovely
brown trout was caught (and released, of course) on the Nire

While the Suir is not famous for its mayfly hatches, which only occur between Camus Bridge and Golden, it does have prolific hatches of other insects of which the most important ones are sedges, hawthorn flies, olives, iron-blues, midges, reed smuts, caenis and pale wateries. (Pat O'Reilly's bestselling illustrated book Matching the Hatch covers all of these aspects.) On faster stretches of the river there are good stonefly hatches too.

If you need detailed advice on river trout flyfishing, our Beginners' Guide to Trout and Grayling Fishing is available online...

Salmon fishing
Although generally known as a trout river, the Suir holds the distinction of producing Ireland's record for a rod-caught salmon weighing 57 lbs which was caught in 1874. The best salmon fishing is to be had downstream of Ardfinnan.

Most of the fishing on the Suir is controlled by syndicates and angling clubs.

Tackle
A good all round rod for trout fishing on the Suir would be a 9 ft or 9.5 ft AFTM #6 rod although an AFTM #4 or #5 not longer than 9ft would be useful for the tributaries, parts of which are completely tree-lined.

For Salmon fishing, a 15 ft double-handed AFTM #10 rod is adequate for most situations.

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