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.

Salmon Fishing Season 2021.

Decided to give the trout a rest tonight and go out for a couple of hours at the dam. I went up for the evening ticket and started at beat 1 fishing with my 10ft switch fly rod, a floating line, 4 inches per second sink versileader and ally's hot orange sprimp fly in size 15 double. Second cast I hooked and landed a fresh sea liced salmon of about 7 lbs which I quickly released after taking scale samples etc. Moving down river I hooked and lost a second fish estimated about 10lbs again on the same fly. I had to leave and head home for a couple of hours but arrived back after 7.30 and again went up to beat 1. There were a couple of anglers fishing it down in front of me so I waited till they had moved on and set about fishing down. I hooked and lost a small fish, a very short take and it just rolled off the fly and it was gone. Recasting I moved on down further and again hooked a better fish, this time it was serious. The fished screamed up river leaving my line in its wake, scaring other salmon into the air. It went completely beserk cartwheeling and fighting very erratically but I was able to keep up with it and eventually get it in. I needed 3 attempts to beach the fish on the grass as it was so powerful that it kept ploughing back out through some weeds. I took out the hook which was under its tongue and set about releasing the fish, one of the anglers was filming the release for me when I noticed blood coming from its gills underwater. On close inspection the fish was bleeding under the tongue so I had to take the fish as they will bleed out and won't survive from a cut like that. I had just received my brown tag and unfortunately had to use it today. There were a few fish showing on beat 1 and beat 4 so there are some in residence and nice water for the fly. Short video will follow showing scale samples being taken from 7lb fish. The samples were also taken from the harvested fish. 

The full video of the fishing session will be up soon. I have a post running at the moment on Facebook under MrKingfisher3 where I'm doing an hour evening sessions fly fishing for trout with dry fly, if anybody is interested just check out the post it's up to date on the flies that I am using and catching with on the Lee River, its all catch and release. 

Salmon Fishing Ireland " Season 2021" The River Lee.

To be honest I really wasn't going to go salmon fishing this season with the carry on with the brown tags, virtual licences and covid thrown in, it really was starting to be too much hard work just to go out for a cast. I know that it's a bit of a rant but if you are going to pay money for a licence you should get a licence not a pdf file and then your tags posted days later. Why not include the licence with the tags seeing as you can't fish without both anyway, and if you're not going to accept a virtual licence why send one in the first place. The Lee is just starting to be too much hard work, I have fished there all my life and to be honest I'm probably the most conservation minded angler fishing there as I have been releasing salmon for well over 30 years, long before it became fashionable. Anyway rant over and here are a few photo's of the Lee well within my 5km area for exercise. I only took a rod/reel and a size 4 barbless flying c spinner with me not having any spares due to the brown tag draw only being notified the evening before the opening day of the salmon season. How does that work I wonder as you can't fish without the tags except barbless unless you wait for the brown tag to be posted to you. I fished above the weir for a few minutes and then walked upstream and again had a few more casts but really it was only a muscle memory exercise just to get my timing in and stretch out the braid. A few nice hungry brownies hit the flying c and gave me a bit of fun so it was a bit of excitment on an otherwise dreary opening day. At least I had it better than the blackwater anglers, I heard it was very high and badly coloured basically unfishable.

Well hopefully things will calm down regarding covid and the country will open up a bit more so we can go back to trying to be a bit normal again. Even the half hour that I was out was definitely a stress relieving exercise but they'll definitely have to open it up a bit with the 5km area as all it's doing is putting all the people in one area to exercise.

Happy New Year

Merry Christmas to all and a Happy New Year for 2021 and hopefully we will have some good days out fishing this year as we definitely deserve it after the year that we have put down and also spare a thought for all those that aren't with us anymore.

Salmon Fishing Ireland 2020 " End of Season Video ".

Salmon Fishing Ireland 2020 " End of Season ".

 

Well another salmon season has come and gone but this year we had another challenge thrown into the mix with trying to live and survive with Covid 19. During the lock down the fishing effort was very little and in my case non existant as I was outside the 2.5km and even as it extended I was still not able to cast a line till mid July. There was a good run of salmon on the Lee and it seemed to be the same in most rivers, due in part to the restrictions in travel on land and sea. This just lets one know how much poaching and netting are going on at sea when there are no restrictions in place, just think that we could have runs of salmon like this every season if it could be stopped. Unfortunately I was too late to the party all of my salmon from July onwards were coloured or stale fish well burned from fishing pressure downstream. The salmon were extremely well educated in all types of angling when they had reached the dam, they knew what flies, spinners, shrimp and baits in general to avoid so it was hard going trying to fish in the low water and bright sunshine conditions as well. I was just going out for the last hour in the evening waiting for the sun and temperature to drop before casting a line after salmon but I did have some fun teasing salmon on a dry fly in the late evenings. As soon as the weather turned and it got cooler I caught a few nice fish on the fly , all coloured of course but good sport all the same. I never got to travel to Kerry or the Blackwater for my fresh salmon but hopefully next year that can be fulfilled. Tight lines for the 2020 season and hopefully we'll have a safer 2021 season.