Salmon on the Fly.

 

           
The water had just dropped off but there was still a fair bit of colour due to the recent floods and visibility was down to only two feet or less. I started at beat 1 and fished it slowly using a floating line and a 6 ft five inches per second sink tip just to get down to the fish because the fly being down at their depth would give them a chance to see it and maybe induce a take. Fishing around the stones i retrieved the line slowly so that it would move the fly and keep it just off bottom but also to add a bit more life to the Hot orange ally's shrimp. The salmon hit hard taking 10 yards of line from the reel and started kart wheeling down river, quickly recovering line i noticed that it was a coloured fish and put pressure on the salmon cutting down the angles so that it would tire out fast allowing me to land and release it quickly, but as all anglers know coloured salmon are great fighters and know the river well so it took me a bit longer to get this fish under control. It was in great condition nice and solid with little or no damage so she will definitely survive through the spawning cycle, sadly some of the fresh salmon and grilse this year were lean and will find it hard to survive after spawning. I will have to look around at some of the other rivers for a fresh salmon due to the fact that the Inniscarra salmon fishery on the Lee doesn't really get a back end run of fresh fish. For all the subscribers to this blog and my youtube channel i will be sending them a link for a bonus private video that i am making on tactics and tackle tips for salmon fly fishing with  double and single hand rods which will only be available to them.

Salmon on the Fly.

 

        
Having recovered from a shoulder injury i started back salmon fishing with my new Shakespeare 11 ft Switch 7/8 wt fly rod, i had bought the rod a few weeks ago but with my injury couldn't use the rod and as all anglers was disappointed not being able to try out my new toy. The line i was using was a 6/7 wt shooting head trout fly line with a short front taper but it was able to cast a Rio 3.9 ins per second sink tip and salmon fly with ease, having just started salmon fishing the water had come up by at least 3 ft due to the dam releasing water so the fly was now fishing just under the surface due to the speed of the water where as it had been fishing at about 2 ft down prior to this. I had two fish pitch over the fly as i fished it through the pool so i quickly changed over to a small Scierra bullet type tube fly that i had tied up for high fast water, doing a few experimental casts i was surprised that the line and rod were quite capable of throwing this combination with a bit of effort and tweaking on my behalf.
On moving back over these fish i hit a good salmon of about 12 lbs which shot off down river at a rate of knots but then doubled back on itself and came back towards me keeping up with the fish it then made a second good run and then the line went slack.... every anglers nightmare, on checking the fly i realized that one of the hooks was slightly blunt bad observation on my behalf while tying up the fly i should have checked this but in the excitement of having seen fish come at my fly it was obviously overlooked. That's the difference between catching and fishing just a fraction of a mm can make a good day or a bad day. Changing the hooks i started back through the pool and found that the tube fly was fishing nicely well over a foot down in the fast high water, i felt a short bump followed by a very aggressive take and i was into a nice grilse cartwheeling into the air and zigzagging across the river, it put up a great fight and i quickly beached and released it and the new rod was now christened. A few minutes later a second grilse succumbed to my new tube fly and this was also quickly landed and released, both fish were extremely fresh and had just arrived off tide due to the heavy water bringing them up over the Kingsley weir. The fly line i was using is only an outbound shooting head trout line but even though it was light for the rod i was still able to cover the whole river with a 3.9 ins per second sink tip and a heavy tube fly, i can imagine matching up the rod with a proper line like the Rio Switch fly line or even the Shakespeare Switch line what the rod will be able to do. If i was to make a few changes to the rod i would definitely make it (1) four piece instead of six, (2) shorten it to 10 ft and put an extendable double hand butt on it which would bring it up to a 10 ft 6" rod  when opened then you would have the perfect Switch rod, but for the price it's a good Switch rod. When i can afford the Rio Switch line i will do a video on what to look for in a proper Switch rod / line as there seems to be a lot of issues there considering the number of views i get on my Switch rod post.