Salmon Fishing Ireland 2014 " May ".

           




         

Having recovered from my previous days fishing session i decided to give the Dam a cast for a few hours and unfortunately the water being at full load it was back to heavy spinning as usual. There were a few anglers fishing there and one salmon of about 7lb was taken earlier in the evening, i had just bumped a fish so i decided to give it a rest for a few minutes and having just cast back on the lie the salmon hit very hard and came screaming in towards the bank and then doubled back out but caught up on a submerged tree stump. Thinking very fast on my feet i opened the bail arm and let the fish have plenty of slack line so that it might travel back down stream and thus releasing itself from the stump but to no avail. I could see the fish flashing outside me opposite the tree stump so i knew that it was well caught up and i would have to go in and release it. Dave reacted faster and just hopped into the water and pushed the line back around the stump and with that  the salmon was off at high speed across the river luckily still attached to my spinner, only for Dave's intervention the fish would have most definitely snapped the line on the stump. Playing the fish back towards me i beached the fish fast because the fight had gone on too long and i wanted to release it back without taking  too much out of the salmon. Luckily it was lightly hooked in the mouth and the spinner came out without too much trouble, it was a very fresh sea liced wild salmon of about 11lbs a  stocky deep bodied fish which are the best fighting of all the salmon. Holding the fish for a few seconds it was fighting to get back so i released it back into the river none the worse for the encounter. Over the past few days i have been lucky to have some met great salmon all well over the 10lb mark and with one over 22lbs being my best for the last five years, even though it broke the top ring of my Hardy Sirrus spinning rod it was definitely worth it, even my spinning reel is groaning a bit after that hard battle but not to worry its all part of of the sport we call angling.