Salmon Fishing Ireland 2020.

              
Having been away from fishing for the last few months due to Covid 19, I was delighted to get a few hours salmon fishing on the Lee. Unfortunately the water conditions were challenging to say the least with low clear slow water and a lot of weed floating downstream clogging up the line and fly. Concentrating on the known salmon lies I kept casting in and around some of the large boulders and slowly retrieving line to give the fly some movement and hopefully excite a fish into a take. Grilse and fresh salmon like fast moving flies and sometimes will follow a fly halfway across the stream before taking it.Imparting some form of movement can trigger a fast reaction and I had a few pulls at the fly before eventually hooking up to a small grilse. The fish gave a great account of itself jumping and cartwheeling up and down the river before I finally beached it and held it for a few minutes to allow it to recover enough to return it back to the river. I was using a 10ft intermediate tip with a 6 ft tippet of 5kg flurocarbon attached to a size 15 allys shrimp fly. Unfortunately lately it has become hard to fish at the dam with large groups of people fishing there without permits. It's very annoying not being able to fish down the river with so many people there sitting on croys static fishing and not having paid to be there while others having permits can't get access to fish.

Angling Show 2020.

Just a few photos that I took while visiting the angling show in Dublin. We went there for some fly tying materials and saltwater fly gear but unfortunately there was very little there in saltwater fly rods and reels just one to be honest. At least we got our fly tying materials and a few accessories etc. We arrived early so the photos show some of the stalls just as the crowds were arriving.

The star of the show was this magnificent Eagle. 

I  checked online and found that Andrew Ryan had a show just up the road so we went there and got the saltwater fly gear with a discount thrown in, over all a successful day out. 

Salmon Fishing Ireland 2020 "The Lee River".

Just some photo's to show the water level yesterday  the 14th of February prior to Storm Dennis arriving. It was hard fishing with a very strong current running down the center of the river which kept dragging the spinners into rocks etc. basically little or no control on proper depth or tracking. At least the tickets are available but to be honest with the rain that's due over the coming days it's going to be hard planning any type of fishing until the weather improves and water drops.. The biggest issue while fishing this evening was clarity or in my case lack of it, visibility was down to only a foot so even if the Flying C had headlamps on it and bumped a fish nothing was going to happen. At least a couple of hours out in the open with plenty of fresh air will clear out the sinuses and cobwebs. Here are a few photos showing the clarity and water height.

The bottom photo shows the river Bride height and clarity. 

Salmon season 2020 "The Lee River".

This is going to be a very short post as again for another year there were no permits available on opening day. Heading downstream there were some club anglers dusting off the cobwebs on their fishing tackle and enjoying the fine weather but the Inniscarra salmon fishery was quiet and empty. Here are a few pictures showing lovely water ( about half load ) ideal for the fly with just enough pace on it to fish a tube well through the entire beat. Maybe next year we'll get a cast on opening day but I wouldn't put a bet on it. Hopefully we'll have a good salmon season this year with good water level's being maintained throghout the year.

Salmon season 2020 "The Blackwater River".

 Sunrise on another salmon fishing season on the Blackwater river. I arrived just as the sun was peeking above the hills , the river was at a nice height around .78m on the gauge and runnng very clear. I had a cast on lower Kilmurray with my spinning rod and touched a fish ,more than likely a kelt as there was very little positive contact and it was off. I fished up the beat casting at all the likely spots but to no avail. Fishing upper Kilmurray for about half an hour and again no contact so I decided to head down to Kents for the last cast as I had to be home by 12.30. Fishing down kents I hooked and landed 4 well mended silver kelts and a number of well conditioned brown trout, all were released bank into the river. The weather was perfect and about 10 degrees, a beautiful day to be on the river and even better a few pulls to get the excitement levels raised. I didn't hear of any fresh salmon being met but there were the usual stories of fresh fish being seen on the days leading up to the opening day something akin to "you should have been here yesterday". Here are a few pictures of the river and some of fish, none fresh but we'll take what we're given on such a glorious openng day.

                                                Looking down to lower Kilmurray

                                                      The island at lower Kilmurray

                                                              Upper Kilmurray

         Having fished the top of the island stream I decided to move on down to Kents beat.
                  The lower half of Kents Beat where I caught and released the kelts.

                                            Hopefully all anglers will adhere to the signs.

Salmon Season 2020 " The Laune River ".

           The photo shows the top of the Beat 1 from the far bank looking up into the lake

                                         Looking downstream from the Laune Bridge

                                                     Looking upstream from the Bridge

                                                               Downstream from Beat 1

                                           
                                            The sign heading down to Beat 2 from the Bridge

   

The water  level was at 2.38m when I arrived at the river but the clarity was good so it was looking promising for a good days fishing. Heading up to beat 1 I met some of the regular opening day anglers and saw a few kelts throwing and even a few being caught and released from the far bank. The main bank was quiet with only the odd pull from a kelt but no takers. I headed down river and fished for awhile with spinner due the water height and lack of access to virtually any water for fly fishing. Heading down to the bridge I was just about to fish the lower beat when I came upon a sign saying no access due to eroded bank and again when heading up stream on the right bank the water and access was blocked and very little effort if any to clear a path along the river. We pay thirty euros for a day's fishing with very little access to the majority of the river and even the parts that have access are over grown and not managed. In reality I should have asked for a refund, I headed home at lunch time not even bothering to check if there was any news of a fresh fish being caught. Next year a definite change of venue.

                                                              Looking up to Beat 1

                                                           Looking down to the Bridge

 
                                                        The field next to the river

I'll wait till February 1st before I venture out again because at least I know I have good access to the River Lee and the Blackwater for a day's fishing.

Salmon short video

Here is a short video showing salmon travelling upstream to spawn, the water clarity was slightly coloured as can be seen from the amount of leaves flowing past the camera due to a rise in water height. https://youtu.be/cofA75mOw5I