Opening Week on the River Bandon

Rain, rain, rain...and more rain! The beginning of the 2014 salmon season across the country has been extremely difficult on a lot of rivers due to the continuous low pressure systems crossing the country. Luckily some fisheries such as the Drowes, Waterville, Delphi and Killarney Flesk are picking up spring salmon but for most the biggest challenge lies in being able to get near the river! As you might notice these systems have lakes, a huge contributing factor to their spring time success. A major effect of a lake is to stabilise river levels, hold back excess volumes of water and filter the water so that it is clear in the outflowing river (although the Flesk flows into Lough Leane).

The Bandon opened to a roaring flood of over 2.0 metres on February 15th, rendering it unfishable. Since then we have had a further 4 floods. However, in between these events it was possible to go out and wet a line. There have been no reports of fresh fish as of yet but no doubt a few are running with all this water. The best reported catch so far is a 3lb brown trout released on the fly. So far I have released 10 kelts and met a number more. I thought most of them would be gone by now with all the high water but this hasn't been the case as other fishermen have also been meeting a few. Due to the river levels I have been mostly spinning as I want to get the lure down as deep as possible and fish it around slowly. A good tactic has been to cast straight across river or slightly upstream, leave the spinner sink a few seconds, flick over the bale arm and leave it come around like you would a fly. One kelt came to the fly rod but the river has been mostly too high to fish the fly effectively for spring fish. Below are 2 photos of how the river is looking today, February 26th. The first is the "Swimming Pool" above Baxter's Bridge and the next is the "Rocky Hole".

When the water comes down to a more appreciable height I hope the following flies winkle a fresh fish or two out for me.

The tube flies in the top photo are tied on brass/copper tubes as well as one slipstream aluminium tube. Patterns, starting from top left going clockwise, are a Scandi Green Butt Cascade, Dee Monkey, Scandi Green Highlander, Gold Bodied Willie Gunn and Grizzly Green Butt Cascade. Flies in the bottom photo are tied on size 9 salar double hooks. Patterns, starting from top left going clockwise, are Green Highlander, Silver Doctor, Kinermony Killer Shrimp, Pearl Park Shrimp and Ally's Shrimp. Here is a closer look at the Scandi Green Butt Cascade with Pro Soft Sonicdisc.