Salmon Fishing Ireland 2014.

      
          

  Having started my evening session at beat 4 i was just about to take a cast with my 6wt switch fly rod when i noticed that the sand bar that i was standing on was steadily disappearing and then i realised that the water was coming on. Moving up to beat 1 i changed over to my spinning outfit and due to the speed of the water put up a 25gr black and gold flying c, i find the gold blade works very well in low light conditions especially when there is a slight tint to the water colour. Casting far upstream i was able to then cover the lies at the proper depth and getting down below the top current i was able to slow down the pace of the spinner which increased my chances of a hook up. The salmon hit the spinner hard and took off downstream at a rate of knots but i quickly turned it and brought it back up to where it suited me to play the fish. I allowed the fish to run in circles and once or twice it rolled over on the line trying to shake off the spinner but i quickly regained the upper hand and landed it in no time. A fine  fresh 12lb sea liced hatchery salmon which had just arrived in no more than 24 hours from salt water. The only pity was that it wasn't on the fly but that will come soon, once the rain eases off and the water levels get back to normal i can then get back to my fly fishing and as i have tied up some new patterns i can't wait to try them out on fresh fish. Having taken the measurements of my salmon i checked to see if the weight calculator would be close to the weight that i had estimated and at a girth of 39cm and a lenght of over 79 cm it was just under 12lbs so i wasn't far off the mark with 12lbs. A good idea for the future just take the measurements of your salmon ( girth and lenght to v of the tail ) and put it into one of the fish calculators that are on the web and you will have a fairly exact weight for your fish especially if releasing the salmon.