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.

Salmon Fishing Ireland 2020.

           
           
The water had just come up by 6 inches due to the salmon pass flushing water, with the extra pace on the water I decided to use a 3 inches per second sink tip rather than my normal 10ft intermediate tip. The intermediate tip sinks at a rate of 1 to 1.5 inches per second just a bit to slow for the faster water and seeing as I was hugging the large rocks I needed the faster tip to get down and move a few fish from their lies. It started working very well as I was getting the odd pull and seeing fish pitching out of the way of my fly.
The salmon hit the fly hard and fast pulling line from the reel and heading back down stream.I moved  back upstream into a more comfortable position where I knew I could exit the water fast just in case it was a good fish, using a small switch fly rod can have it's draw backs especially with high water and strong fish because you don't have the same muscle power as a proper 13 or 14 ft salmon fly rod. Seeing that the fish was only about 7 lbs I bullied it back into the pool and knowing that I was using 10lb flurocarbon tippet I was able to bring it into shallow water and beach it on the grass verge. Holding the salmon for a couple of minutes to allow it gain back it's strength I eventually released it back into the river.There has been a very good run of salmon over the past few weeks but getting the really fresh sea liced salmon at the dam is proving hard and as time moves on practically impossible with all the coloured fish in residence. Might treat myself to a day on the Blackwater or Bandon for a nice fresh fish before the season ends.

         
            

The water was about 6.3 on the gauge great water for salmon fly fishing especially as the clarity was good but not so good if one is targeting salmon on a very small dry fly. The pace of the water was causing the fly to drift unnaturally fast so I had to give a few false mends into the line to facilitate a drag free drift. The salmon are being heavily fished at this time with anglers spinning , shrimping, worming and even the odd fly being thrown across them so they are hugging the bottom and staying out of harm's way. Early in the morning or again at late evening they are moving about and this is when they can be targeted with dry fly. My set up is simple a 5wt soft action fly rod using a floating line and about a 3ft furled leader of about 7lb breaking strain copolymer combined with a 9ft tippet of 6 or 5x tippet and a size 18 barbless dry fly. Some size 18 hooks won't take a 5x tippet because of the thicker diameter so you have to step down to a 6x instead so a soft rod has to be used to protect the lighter tippet.
There is still enough back bone in the 5wt to turn a salmon but I would recommend that if anybody is thinking of trying this they'd be better served fishing for large rainbows on the same tackle first to get a feel for the rod , line and fly size in dealing with the bigger fish. It's very easy to bend one of these dry fly hooks but there is a balance between playing a fish fast and breaking the tippet. I played the salmon hard and landed it on soft weed before removing the barbless hook and holding the salmon for release. It is very important at this time of year to hold a fish a bit longer and let it recover well before releasing it back into the river. I hooked and released another grilse later on in darkness using the same method, it worked well for me last year and the harder the fishing pressure gets this seems to be the best method for catching heavily pressurised fish.