When your school trips involve fishing Lough Melvin and the Kylemore system in Connemara, there is a good chance you might get handy at fishing.
This was obviously the case with Sammy McGowan and no doubt helped him to burst on to the Irish Team as a 19-year-old on Loch Leven in Scotland.
Sammy won top Irish rod on this first cap and went on to earn many more international caps while still in his twenties.
Hailing from Co. Down, Sammy is well known on the Irish fly fishing scene. He took a step back for a while from the competition fishing in latter years but hopes to get back to it again.
Sammy turned his attention to dying and sourcing fly tying materials. In what started out as a hobby, it grew and grew for him and since Covid, has now become his main job, running his business, Irish Fly Supplies. For more, visit
https://irish-fly-supplies.square.site/For this episode Tom is joined by Mike Keady and they look back at how the mayfly fared, and talk to Sammy about his early years, competition fishing, fly tying materials, his love of Lough Neagh and, very interestingly, a Pink Flamingo which has nothing to do with fly-tying materials!