Salmon Fishing Ireland 2019

 
           
The fishery was busy with a large amount of anglers trying to tease a salmon out using various methods from spinning to fly fishing but mainly shrimping. The problem is that many of the people don't know how to fish properly and just sit on the same area for hours on end waiting for a take. The issue with that is they block any angler that wants to fish down the beat and it ends up being a case of combat fishing standing shoulder to shoulder and then nobody wins. There are four beats on the fishery with nearly a quarter of a mile on both banks that can be fished and at this time of year each beat is holding salmon so I can't understand why they just plant themselves in one spot. The normal way to fish is to start at the start and move down the beat and when you get to the bottom just go back and start again, it's common fishing etiquette but some of the people ( I won't call them anglers because anglers know what to do ) just plant themselves in one spot for the day.
I was dizzy watching bright orange shrimp floats bobbing down the water all evening and as it came to late evening the people decided they had enough and headed away leaving me with a short window to fish down beat 1. As you can see in the video the light had started to fade as I fished down the beat and just as I approached the first rock I got a hard pull as I was stripping the fly to counter act the lack of pace in the water. The salmon made a few darting runs and headed up in around the boulders which made me work very hard to stop it shearing me off on the sharp rocks. I eventually gained control of the salmon with my 10 ft switch fly rod and beached it, a nice salmon of about 8lbs and holding the fish in the current I waited till it was recovered and released it back into the river. The water was up earlier in the day and I caught a nice fresh grilse of about 5lbs which was also released. There are some nice salmon about but unfortunately most are well coloured and burned, but with more rain due this week hopefully we will see some more fresh fish entering the system.