UK Fishing BBS

[bwlodge]

Salmon Fishing Report from the Cork Blackwater


The river came up yet again after heavy rain in the last 2 days.
Graph above shows the height up & down river.
The upper river has already fallen well back, but is still very dirty.
The lower river peaked in the early hours of this morning, & is falling albeit rather slowly.
Clarity throughout is about 6 inches as of now.


This graph shows height of the lower river for the last month.
Very variable in both height & clarity which means unsettled fish - not usually good takers.


Not withstanding difficult conditions, we've managed to catch 197 fish for August for 351 rod days.
When conditions improved, we had some good days in the last few days.
On the 27th., 10 fish to ~9lb were caught.

The Best fish of the Season was taken on August 28 by John Purslow from the UK. It weighed 16.3lb.
11 fish were caught in total for the day.
On the 29th., 7 fish were caught to 9.8lb.
On the 30th., we landed 14 fish. Best was a First Ever salmon for Ian Hunt (UK)
which weighed ~15lb & was returned as it was slightly coloured.

29 of the fish caught were over the 10lb mark, & 93 were above 6lb.
Due to the high water conditions, the most successful method has been spinning,
which accounted for 131 of the fish caught.
28 anglers have caught their first ever salmon so far this season,
of which 12 were caught in August.
The total for the season to date is 405 fish for 1,096 rod days.

Current Situation & Prospects
With all the recent high water, the river is tending to clear off quite quickly after each flood.
There is more rain forecast for tomorrow, but the next 2 weeks are forecast mainly dry by Metcheck.
With these high water levels, we should see excellent runs of fish continuing in the coming weeks.
There are rods available throughout the month.

[bwlodge]

Blackwater Lodge will once again be offering free fishing from Monday to Friday, February 8th. - 12th. inclusive.
The river has been in flood for the last couple of days, but the forecast looks mainly dry right up until the 21st.
The river should come into order for the beginning of the week.
Booking is essential so please contact the Lodge to reserve a place.

[bwlodge]

Feb. 11. Free Fishing next week. Glenda appears at Dublin this weekend.

The spell of dry weather continues, and the river is coming down to a lovely level.
The picture above was taken today (February 11) with the river on 0.75m & clarity about 4 feet.
Air temperature this morning at 8.00am was -6°C.

Here's the current river situation:


This graph should update itself each time you log in until the end of February.

The river is now getting close to the magic 0.65m level which I would regard as ideal for fly.
There hasn't been any news on fish caught since the two on opening day,
but there have been very few rods out on the river.
Prospects for the next fortnight look very good with mainly dry weather, so we certainly shouldn't be flooded off the river.
With the comparatively low water levels, the best of the fishing will be concentrated in the lower river from Clondulane down.

Free Fishing again next week
The Lodge will once again offer free fishing from Monday to Friday next week - February 15 to 19.
Advance booking please.

Glenda Powell
The Nationwide programme featuring Glenda's tuition has been re-scheduled and will now be broadcast on Friday, February 19.
The whole half hour programme is dedicated to fishing.
For those of you who are not able to access this on TV, you will be able to see it
on the Internet for 21 days after the programme has been broadcast on http://www.rte.ie/player/.
Glenda will also be demonstrating at this weekend's Ireland Angling Expo at the National Exhibition Centre, Swords, Dublin on Saturday & Sunday, February 13/14.
We also will be there on Stand 55 next to the Casting Pool.
Glenda will also be giving free tuition & advice throughout the weekend.

[bwlodge]

Here's the current water level on the Cork Blackwater at Ballyduff on April 10th.

Source - Blackwater Lodge Fishing Report page: http://www.ireland-salmon-fishing.net/FishingReport/fishingreport.htm
The river is falling slowly but steadily. The clarity has improved dramatically & is now about 5 feet on the lower river.
It's still a bit too high to fish the fly comfortably.
The 5th. springer of the season on the Lodge beats was caught on spinner on Beat 5 - Inchinleama last Sunday (April 4th.) before the last flood hit the river.
One kelt was caught today - surprising that there are still some present in the river this late in the season.

[bwlodge]

Fishing the Fly at Last!


With such a beautiful balmy evening this evening, four of us decided venture out to the river about 6.00pm this evening.
We opted to go to Upper & Lower Kilmurry, the best of the Lodge's seven beats below Careysville
with the gauge height having dropped to 0.80m.
Glenda & I headed for Lower, and the picture above is her at the Lug Pool at 7.15pm.
She was able to wade & fly-fish the whole way down the pool even at this height.


I headed down below to the Island Stream. This was about 10cm too high to be able to wade,
though could be fished from the (rather high) bank with a shooting head.
The picture above was taken looking downstream at the Island Stream at 7.45pm


and this picture was taken looking up the Island Stream to the Lug Pool on the bend in the distance.

We didn't see or touch any fish on Lower Kilmurry, but when we went back up to Upper Kilmurry,
the other two had seen three large fresh fish moving through the Sand Gap & the Hut Pool and Daniel
(a student on work experience at the Lodge from the Swedish Sport Fishing Academy)
had briefly hooked one of them just after it showed.

The clarity is about 5 feet & the level is falling steadily, so the prospects for the coming week look good.

For the latest information, see our daily updated Fishing Report page: : http://www.ireland-salmon-fishing.net/FishingReport/fishingreport.htm

[bwlodge]

The First Springer on Fly is Caught!
Denis O'Donnell from Cahir caught this lovely sea-liced 8.4lb fish on a ½ inch cone-head Cascade tube on the Island Stream on Lower Kilmurry today.
He saw a fish running through the stream & caught this one 3 casts later, so there were definitely a few fish moving.
Late report (21.00)
Kieran Conlon from Cork lost a similar fish at the net with Denis in the Island Stream after about 6/7 minutes - he could even see the sea-lice on its back,
& lost another after about a minute on the Hut Pool on Upper Kilmurry. They saw at least half a dozen fish moving through.

Prospects
The lower river is rising slightly (a couple of inches) after yesterday's showers, but the clarity is still excellent.
The upper river came up about 6 inches & peaked during the night & is already falling.
The weather forecast is dry for the week, so fly-fishing prospects are excellent.
There are rods available for the coming week.
For the latest info: Fishing report page http://www.ireland-salmon-fishing.net/FishingReport/fishingreport.htm

[bwlodge]

The Best Day so Far this season with two sea-liced fish caught for only 10 rods fishing.
Brothers Larry and Michael Sheridan from Dungarvan fished the Lodge's lowest beat
(only about 4 miles above the tide).
Larry caught a 9.4lb. on #8 Ally's on a slow-sink tip & Michael a 6.4lb on FC.
A number of running fish were seen & two met, one on fly & one on spun prawn.
Interestingly, I also heard today (from anglers fishing Fermoy Trout club's competition today
which weighed in at the Lodge this evening) that two fish were caught in the Ballyhooly area
& a grilse up at Lombardstown in the last day or so.
The run is definitely picking up, & with dry weather for the week, the fly-fishing prospects look excellent.
The river was down to 0.38m today with clarity 5-6 feet.
For the latest info: Fishing report page http://www.ireland-salmon-fishing.net/FishingReport/fishingreport.htm

[bwlodge]

The First Grilse of the Season on the Lodge beats

There was nothing to report in the last 2 days as there were no rods out so
- needless to say there was no fish caught.
Three of us went out to Lower Kilmurry for an hour or so at lunchtime today and saw half a dozen fish
running through - mostly fish of 7-8lb but including one which was well into double figures.
We all persisted with the fly but no takes so had a few casts with spun shrimp & caught & released
this one almost immediately on the Island Stream.
Met two more, but only half-hearted takes & didn't connect, then had to get home to pick the kids up from school!
Would've loved to stay longer as I'm sure we would have met more fish.
This, together with reports of good runs of grilse & salmon running from other beats on the lower river means the prospects in the coming days are looking good. Very little rain forecast for the coming week, certainly not enough to have any significant effect on the river.
For the latest info: Fishing report page http://www.ireland-salmon-fishing.net/FishingReport/fishingreport.htm

[bwlodge]

Flood moves fish from tidal water!

This is the water level situation at Ballyduff in the last few days.
The small flood on Tuesday put the river out of order for a couple of days as it became very coloured.
By Friday it was improving and 3 fish were lost on the Lodge beats.
Yesterday (Saturday), four fish were caught - 3 on spinner & one on fly.
The best (~12lb) was caught & released by Ray Burns on Upper Kilmurry on spinner.
Today, there were 3 grilse taken on the fly. Clarity is now a good 3 feet.
Seven fish in total for 14 rod days in the last two days.
There has been a significant increase in the number of fish moving through the lower beats since the flood.
I'm also hearing about some grilse & salmon being caught up in the Mallow area.
For the latest info: Fishing report page http://www.ireland-salmon-fishing.net/FishingReport/fishingreport.htm

[bwlodge]

River Report for June

The river level for June has probably been the lowest for about 50 years, which means that most fish are holding in the tidal reaches rather than running into the main river.
The table below shows the average height for the month for the last four years – since the start of the drift net ban.
This year it was 0.18m compared to the average for 2007-9 of 0.41m.
In fact it was only above 0.30m (which we would normally regard as summer low level) for 2 days during the whole month. There have also been few rods out fishing for the month.

Statistics for the Month of June for 2007 - 2010

----------------------Year------2007------2008------2009------2010
Number of Fish Caught----------44------------21-----------51-----------24
----------Catch/Rod Day--------0.25---------0.09---------0.30---------0.30
--Average River Height--------0.35---------0.39---------0.48---------0.18

We can see from the Table that – whilst the catch number for the month was not high at 24 – in fact the catch/rod day was 0.30, exactly the same as that for 2009 when there was far more water in the river.

In fact, 22 of the fish were caught for only 24 rod days in the week from June 12 – an average of 0.9 fish per rod day, which was extremely good. One angler caught 5 in one afternoon – all on fly & 4 were released. Best fish of the month was a 12 pounder released on Upper Kilmurry.

July has started off well after a small fresh in the river on the 2nd. Seven grilse have been caught for 6 rod days in the three days from July 2-4.

For all the very latest information please see the Blackwater Lodge Fishing Report page on :
Blackwater Lodge Salmon Fishery - Daily Updated Salmon Fishing Report page

Prospects
Even although the river is very low, the clarity is good and runs of larger grilse (4-5lb.) are coming in.
There is more rain forecast during the week, so the prospects of sport for the coming week are quite good.
Very small flies, light worming & spun shrimp are working best, though fish are also being met on spinner.

Where to meet us
Glenda is fly-casting demonstrator at the Irish Game & Country Fair at Birr Castle in Co. Offaly on August 28 & 29th.
We will also have a stand at the Fair.

Availability
We have availability of rods & accommodation in the next couple of weeks.
Late summer and backend weeks are now filling up fast, so contact us quickly if you are thinking of fishing later in the season.

[bwlodge]

The rain that came across Ireland on the weekend seems to have missed the Blackwater catchment altogether.
The river is still at 0.08m at Ballyduff and there has been no rise at all on the upper river.
On a brighter note, the Metcheck forecast for Cork is giving 13mm rain on Thursday & 17mm on Friday night.
This seems to be borne out by the Bbc.co.uk forecast as well.

There were three grilse caught for 1½ rod days yesterday, which makes a total of 10 fish for 8½ rod days
in the last 4 days which is superb in the current conditions.

For all the very latest information please see the Blackwater Lodge Fishing Report page on :
Blackwater Lodge Salmon Fishery - Daily Updated Salmon Fishing Report page

[toma]

Some excelent fish there . Another very interesting indepth read