Monday, 19 August 2013
Salmon Fishing Ireland 2013 August ( On the Fly ).
Having fished down beat 4 with a Hot Orange Ahilles shrimp fly i decided to give it another run, this time with a new fly pattern that i had just tied up the previous night. Moving down the beat a salmon just barely broke the surface film with a fast turn and suddenly my line was going down stream at high speed, lifting into the salmon it showed straight away and i could see that it was a coloured fish. Putting plenty of side strain on the fish i brought it in close to me and then i allowed the fish to fight for a few seconds so that it would easier to deal with as the fly wasn't visible in the mouth. Landing the salmon i saw that it had taken the fly deeply but seeing as i was only using a size 15 double it was easy to remove from the salmon with very little harm done to the fish. Holding the fish for a few seconds it was ready and rearing to go so i released it back into the river. The new fly has now been moved to my smaller fly box which is for my blooded flies, these are flies that have successfully taken salmon and depending on their success rate will be tied in all sizes for future sessions. I hear anglers complain about their favourite fly that was lost either in a huge fish or a rock but they couldn't remember the exact colour etc to get a new one tied up, well that is why i keep a good stock of my blooded flies to save that happening to me. If you have a great fly that catches fish either take a photograph of it on your mobile phone or take it to a flytier so that you always have a copy of it just in case you lose it, also keep two boxes and everytime a new fly catches a salmon put it in the blooded box so that it will boost your confidence next time you use it as you know it has worked before. As for my new fly it doesn't get aired on this blog until it has a better success rate because it could have been a fluke and that might be the only salmon that it takes..
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Hi Paul,
ReplyDeleteHaving not fished for years I'm trying to get back again. I found your videos on Youtube, excellent and by far the best I've seen. So natural with lovely coverage. I'm in Limerick and wondering if you could suggest where best to buy flies and spinning baits, either Irish tackle stores or online? There are so many online outlets I'm sure you would have good suggestions - thank you.
For all flies my buddy tony o sullivan at osullivanflies@hotmail.com will cover the flies and he's cheaper than most shops, spinners are cheap and most tackle shops in Cork stock a good range DAN in the Halfway tackle or Noel in the Watercourse road, Murrays and Cork Tackle kinsale road, online orkon on ebay or flyfishingireland.com
ReplyDeleteThanks Paul, I'll follow up with your suggestions. If you have time sometime I think it would be a great addition to your site to include a heading devoted to tackle - rods, flies, baits, clothing, supppliers, etc It would take effort though as never changing ... but interesting too. You might get a supplier to sponsor you with gear too! Another question I have, do you ever use 2 flies on a salmon cast. I'm wondering is there an issue with one fly getting caught in a weed, rock etc if a fish is hooked on the other? We use 2 flies for trout and so I'm wondering why not for salmon too.
DeleteUnfortunately this is Ireland and very few tackls shops do sponsorship, if it was the U.S. no problem even England but here no, as for tackle unless i have used and am happy with the quality etc i won't endorse anything. Two flies can used for salmon, normally a dropper 3 feet above the point fly, i used a dropper for many years it was either a Wickhams fancy or a Dunkelt in size 12 and i caught lots of salmon on these when there were very few fish taking. I will show how to tie the cast for this set-up in a video soon as it has to be a running dropper just in case of snag ups when playing a fish.
DeleteYes Paul, what you say makes sense especially about endorsing only if you are happy with an item's quality. If you do manage at some stage to creat a video showing a cast set up it would be very interesting to see how you do it. When tying a one fly cast can you tell me if what I do is right?: to my main line which has a loop at the end I have joined a tapered tip using the connecting loop form the wide end. The other narrow end of the tip has no loop and I'm wondering should I tie the fly directly here? Instead what I have done is that I tied a loop at the narrow tip end and then I knotted a length of monofilament to it, and it is on this that I tie a fly. When I want to try a different fly I cut the fly off and change. Gradually the monofilament is reducing in size and my plan is to snip it off at some stage and replace with a longer stretch. In effect I am trying to avoid cutting the tapered tip! But I'm wondering if this is the right way, if the monofilament is necessary, if I should tie the fly to the tip and accept that the tip will shorten each time I change the fly. You see I haven't fished for years and when I did there was no tip, header, etc to consider, just a main line and a monofilament cast! What we used do was to tie a monofilament cast with an end loop, and then to use a figure of 8 to tie the main line to the cast, where the figure of 8 knot was easily undone to change a cast, .... I hope I'm not taking up too much of your time!
DeleteHi everything is loop to loop for easy changing, you tie a perfection loop to the end of the tapered leader so that way it is always the same lenght. Then you tie a perfection loop to the Fluro or Mono tippet and loop that to the tapered leader and then you tie your fly, as you change flies the tippet will always get smaller but that is the way it goes. Always make sure that your tippet and tapered leader joined are one and a half times the lenght of your rod as this will give you a smooth cast.
DeleteThanks Paul - your tips are much appreciated!
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