Salmon Fishing Ireland 2022 "Salmon on the fly".

 It's been a hard few weeks with very low water on the river Lee, I have no idea why the ESB are keeping such low water flow but it's definitely interfering with the fish and the fishing. I have been mainly trout fishing but with low oxygen levels due to the low water even that is proving difficult. There has to be an inquiry into this carry on because if it's not corrected there will be another brown tag season to come. At least they could run half load or less for a couple of hours every few days to clean it and freshen things up allowing fish to move through the system and not be held in the harbour or at the kingsley weir. You can see the lack of angling effort through out the river by the normal salmon anglers and when they're not fishing there's an increase in let's say other angling activities. 
I had literally just started fishing on beat 4, it was my 3rd or 4th cast and I was stripping line to impart some movement into the fly when the salmon hit hard and started swimming upstream past me very fast. I had to really be on my "A"game as I was using a barbless size 15 Ally's shrimp fly on a very light tippet due to the low clear water conditions. It came downstream just as fast and did a few explosive rolls just below me and honestly I expected the fly to pop out but it stayed in and I was able to beach the fish after some very powerful runs in the low water. It took a few moments of recovery to get the fish ready to return it back into the river and it was a very fresh wild salmon just over 10lbs. Hopefully in the next draw I can get a brown tag.............video is up on youtube link below.

https://youtu.be/cV8R0K9oGTI

Salmon fishing Ireland 2022

 Water levels on the river Lee have been irregular to say the least over the last few weeks, but they have been running water at 4pm most evenings this week at full load. I ventured up over the last few evenings and met about 12 salmon in the high fast water but when using single barbless hooks on flying c's its very hard to hold onto the fish for more than a couple of minutes especially when they want to head down stream at pace. Unfortunately you don't have the luxury of space at the dam and when the fish wants to go it goes very fast using the fast pace of the water to its advantage and as you try to put pressure on the barbless hook pops out especially as fresh salmon have soft mouths. The salmon I caught had pushed the single barbless hook through its mandible and caught the line on the other side enabling me to land the fish. It was a very fast fight beaching the salmon on grass as I was praying that the hook would hold till I at least touched the fish. It all went to plan and my first landed salmon of the 2022 season was accomplished not forgetting the other 12 that got away only due to the barbless hooks. Normally I might drop/lose one or two salmon in a season but 12 so far is just demoralising, the same last year but after about the fifth lost salmon I stopped fishing for salmon until I got my brown tag. Hopefully I'll get a brown tag in this draw and continue to fish normally and maybe do a video here and there, not like this one as the only video was on my phone when releasing the fish. It was a nice 9lb spring fresh fish, sealiced, wild with a bit of marking on the side from a bite more than likely a seal due to the size of the mark. I rested it for a few moments and released it back into the river to hopefully spawn the next generation of river Lee salmon. The upside of losing 12 springers is that its a good marker to the amount of fish moving through the system at the moment. Video of release is attached below. 

Salmon Season 2022 " The Laune River ".

 

Beat 2 Beaufort bridge.

 

Beat 1 

Just some photo's from the opening day of the 2022 salmon fishing season on the Laune river, its a day that got off to a bad start there were no permits available from the normal shop but were available online. Eventually I was able to purchase the permit from the O' Sullivans shop and petrol station at Beaufort bridge where the metal fish photo was taken at the end of beat 2. I started late as I had spent time driving around and looking for a permit, fishing at beat 1, I met a few of the regular opening day anglers but again this year their number had dropped and some of the older faces were missing unfortunately a sign of our times.
I fished down beat 1 and met a couple of hungry skinny trout but no salmon or kelts but there were a few kelts caught and released at beat 1 from the far bank. The water was at about 1.6 on the guage and that level can be seen on the photo of beat 1 just at the base of the stones. In terms of fishing it was ideal for fishing a fly and I had no problem covering most of the river with my 10ft 7wt Switch fly rod using a floating line and a 10ft 4 inches per second sink versileader and a small bullet allys shrimp fly. I had a very positive hit down river but the fish dropped the fly, not the normal kelt hit but hard and fast just like a travelling fish but we'll never know. I must admit it was a beautiful mild sunny day to be out in the fresh air and on a river bank, when leaving I didn't hear of any fresh fish caught or seen. There were about 20 anglers fishing beat 1&2 of the Laune river so a busy enough opening day.