Salmon season 2023 " The river Lee".

 Normally on opening day of the Salmon season in Cork I'd fish the Blackwater River in the morning and then head back to the Lee River for an evening session. But due to my shoulder injury and also the fact of being in good company with the lads from Blackwater Valley salmon fishery I stayed on and had a look at a few of their beats upriver and didn't make it back to the Lee in time.

I woke up this morning still a bit sore in the shoulder but the anti inflammatory did take the edge off the stiffness and pain. My shoulder had a quick chat to my elbow, wrist and hand and all decided we were okay to do a short evening session on the Lee. Got my permit at the petrol station and headed over to woodside beat 1 just below the dam and yes just as I arrived they put the bloody water on, I'm sure they can see me coming down the trail and turn it on for a laugh.

I just set up the spinning rod and covered all the lies hard, cursing the fact I wouldn't be able to fly fish it due to heavy current and very fast rising water. I gave beat 1 half an hour and then headed down to beat 3 and 4 again covering all the salmon lies with the spinning rod using barbless hooks due to the ongoing brown tag restrictions ( no I didn't get a brown tag again, got mine last year before the hot weather so didn't fish then either ). The current was really fast so I changed over from a size 4 to a 5 which held better and was definitely taking bottom but nothing, not even a trout.

Went back up to beat 1 finished out there till it got dark and thanked my lucky stars that at least on all the opening days I fished this year I didn't get wet....waders, jacket, boots etc all nice and dry going back into the boot of my jeep. Realistically I knew it was a long shot....really, really long shot of meeting a fresh fish on opening day at the dam but over a  decade ago it was possible and almost definite down river to get an opening day springer. I'll keep an eye on the Lee this year but really I'm fed up with the tags, water management issues etc so for this year I'll be fishing other rivers for salmon, at least when you check water levels for other rivers you can see what you're getting not like the dam it's a lucky bag at best. Before you say oh! but you can ring and find out their discharging times, you can but they don't even keep to those either....... Anyway like I said I'll do the odd session there but this year after over 4 decades of salmon fishing on the Lee I'm hunting new water. Photos below of beat 1 and 4 in high water again.