Beat 1 Woodside Inniscarra Dam Beat 1 Woodside

This is the Woodside section of Beat 1 Inniscarra Dam Salmon Fishery. The video was taken a few years ago when the salmon fishing was good and we had a large number of springers returning from late March onwards. The average weight of salmon/springer was around 10lb and there was a 60/40 ratio of hatchery salmon to wild salmon. The last few years have seen the decline in the numbers of spring salmon returning  to the Inniscarra Fishery and even the fish that are arriving are coming later. The water levels that i find most successful for catching salmon are full load ( 6-7ft ) or half load which is around three feet as shown in this video. In full load the best method is spinning with Flying " C's " and in half load i prefer the fly with either a floating line and sink tip combo or a full intermediate fly line. Flies can vary in size from 7 down to 11 depending on water clarity and speed, sometimes the salmon will not touch a large fly but will be happy to take the smaller fly even in the same pattern. The Ahilles shrimp fly and Cascade have taken a large number of salmon here over the years so they are the flies that i recommend using first when fishing the Dam fishery. Sink tips vary according to water levels, clarity and speed so change to heavier tips to fish the deep pools and lighter tips for the runs. The most successful tip is the green tip ( 2.6ins per second ) but when fishing cold water the deeper you go the more chance you have of moving and catching fish. One year i caught most of my springers on Pot Belly Pigs due to the very cold water temperatures and with the salmon hugging the bottom it was the only way i could move them to attack the fly.