Short Video Opening Day 2019.

A small bit of snow on the mountains and a few deer crossing the river really added to the atmosphere of the opening day just a pity there were no fish.

Salmon Season Opening Day 2019 " The Laune River ".

Opening Day 2019

Beat 1

Beat 1 Looking downstream

Looking up from Laune Bridge

Looking down to Beat 2

Beaufort Bridge Beat 3

The only silver fish that I saw all day

Beat 2 lower

The Lower Laune

The Lower Laune

Some cracking brownies can't wait for the trout season on the fly.

Well it was another quiet affair again on opening day on the Laune river, there were about six anglers that turned out and to be honest it was really a beautiful day pity about the lack of water and fish. I did see a few Kelts throwing on beat 1 and again further downstream but no silver fish except for the statue at Beaufort Bridge. The lack of high water really put a damper on proceedings and with it being extremely low and clear it was going to be very hard to tempt anything. I did have some fun with some cracking brown trout that were willing to take a size 4 flying c in fast water but couldn't tempt anything with a fly. I definitely had some fun ironing out the kinks in my casting and testing out some of my new patterns for this season, now is the time that one has to get ready for the days that there will be fish in the system it's like a practice day before the main event. Hopefully with a bit of heavy rain it will start to bring some fresh fish in, on leaving the river about four o clock I hadn't heard of any fresh fish being caught or seen. My next session will be on the opening of the Lee and Blackwater on the first of February but that could all change if we get some heavy rain, we will need the river to be up about 4 ft on today's levels to have any chance of running fish. It's the first time that I can remember the river so low on opening day but I will be keeping a close eye on the weather over the next couple of weeks just in case of some rain.

Set Ups for Salmon Fishing, Fly and Spinning.

These videos cover most of the set ups for salmon fishing with a few tips thrown in that will save you time and money. There is a small section on clothing on the blog which will help with the cold wet weather just click on the link on top of this page to enter that post.Tight lines for 2019 and nice to see the first salmon caught and released early in the season.

Merry Christmas to all.

Salmon Fishing Ireland 2018.

Here are some of the photo's that I promised of the rocks in beat1 and 2 and 3, judge for yourself to see if they will improve fishing.

                                          Beat 1 they are like small islands

                                          Beat 1

 These smaller flatter stones in the pictures below would have done the job perfectly and trust me the salmon would be happier with these rather than those tall boulders.

Salmon Season 2018 " End of Season ".

Well it has been a very strange year especially with the extreme hot weather conditions and very low water levels so much so that I didn't fish at all for salmon from May till the start of September. Unfortunately the salmon that I caught in September were very coloured and stale so again another year goes by without a late fresh salmon for the freezer to see me over the winter.There has been more work done on the ESB salmon fishery but to be honest it's just a joke, it's like some body just dumped a load of big rocks into every croy in hope that it will improve the fishing.

 The upper beat 1 had huge rocks put into it last year and that has proven to be useless and now they have carried that  through most of the other croy's and to be honest beat 4 didn't fish last year after the so called improvements and for the first time in 30 years I haven't caught a salmon on beat 4 or the start of beat 1 regardless of the hot weather because there was plenty of fishing done before it arrived. I fear that next year will be bad because the fishing effort will subside due to anglers having to deal will trying to fish in a minefield of big rocks especially when losing spinners and flies to those ridiculous boulders. I will put up some photo's of the croy's and rocks on the next installment just to show how bad the issue is.

Salmon Fishing Ireland 2018.

           

The water was just starting to come on as I arrived for an evening session, it seems to be the norm now to run the water at 4pm just as the lads arrive to fish the evening ticket. I really would like to fish the fly in low water but I have to make do with spinning in high water. The water was quite clear and moving at a good pace so I put up a size 4 flying C and started spinning upstream working the salmon lies when I got a small bump quickly followed by a hard pull and then a few head shakes and we were on. The salmon took off downstream very fast but having set a strong tension I was able to turn the fish and bring it in close for a look to see where it was hooked, luckily it was only hooked outside the mouth so I decided to play the fish fast and control the fish close in keeping the salmon away from the large boulders. Running the salmon in circles I turned it towards the shallows and tailed the fish, removing the spinner I rested the fish for a few seconds allowing it to get some strength back before I released it back into the river. It was a very fresh wild sealiced salmon of about 11 lbs and in cracking shape as you would expect at this time of year. Hopefully the main run will start now and we will have some low water which will allow me to fish the fly.