A Happy Christmas to all our listeners and as it’s that time of the year we thought we’d bring you a bucket list episode that many of us can only dream about – fly fishing for the golden mahseer in remote Bhutan.

Jake Anchell joins Tom Doc to tell him about the recent once-in-a-lifetime trip he made with his father, David.

Find out about Bhutan, the place of the mahseer in their culture and how you can target this massive fish on the fly. One for the Christmas wish list!

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So, the salmon and trout season is over for another year and while there was plenty of negatives with fish kills and pollution incidents, there was also still a lot of great fishing to be had.

And for this week’s episode we’re focusing on the brown trout season with Eamonn Ross from Lough Sheelin and Mike Keady from Lough Corrib.

Plus Tom also has updates on a recent worrying development of green algae on Lough Corrib.

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No matter the fishing and conditions, the 2025 fly fishing season will go down in memory as the year of the worst ever fish kill in the history of the State, which is certainly saying something based on this country’s approach to pollution, water quality and environmental protection.

We’ve discussed fish kills on this show before, highlighting the fact that when guilty verdicts and fines are handed down, the consequences are risible anyway.

But for this week’s episode we wanted to focus on the questionable practice in the Blackwater investigation and why the current legislation is not fit for purpose.

Conor Arnold of the Upper Bridgetown Salmon Fishery on the Blackwater has been to the forefront during this crisis, spending untold hours highlighting the issue and trying to get to the bottom of it as best as he can.

Conor also spoke as an invited witness at last week’s Oireachtas Committee hearing into the Blackwater fish kill and a day later he spoke to us about the hearing to tell us what arose from it.

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