Bandon Opening Day

The River Bandon opened on Friday the 15th of February with perfect water, hovering around the 0.3m mark on the gauge in Bandon and dropping slowly. I managed to get out for a couple of hours in the afternoon and caught 3 kelts, losing another. The condition of the kelts is exceptional. A possible reason for this is they are late running fish which have recently spawned and so have not spent long in fresh water. This has also been echoed on the Blackwater, aswell as other rivers. Below is a quick photo I took of the first kelt before release.

As you can see its pure silver with no sign of any disease or ragged fins. The gills were also very red in colour, although I didn't check for maggots. The other 2 were also in pristine condition. Many old fish were caught by other fisherman who ventured out, alas no sign of a fresh fish. February is always going to be the toughest month of the year, but no doubt some are running so there is always a chance.

Set up for the day was my Bill Drury Multi Tip Spey line, to which I attached a Guideline DDC Connect Multi Tip S6/S7,  short 4 foot leader and 3 inch Monkey fly tied on a 15mm aluminium bottle tube. This set up allowed me to get my fly as deep as I wanted by throwing in upstream mends and some slack line as soon as it landed on the water. I'm confident that if there had been any fresh fish around my fly would have been sufficiently deep enough to scratch them on the nose!

4 days to go...

Went for a small walk yesterday and the river is looking in fine fettle, just rising and colouring up a tad after some rain. Below is a quick blog of a couple more tyings, the first influenced by looking at the water yesterday, I imagined it to be perfect for a Gold Bodied Willie Gunn. It is tied with yellow and orange tanuki, gold holo tinsel and a black cock feather in front.

After the GBWG there is the Kinermony Killer, a red shrimp fly and the ever popular Monkey fly.

To finish, a few photos of the river from yesterday.

Some spring hairwings

Counting down the days here now till the 15th of February and the opening of the Bandon. The water is now dropping and looking at the long term forecast we might be in for a relatively dry spell which will be no harm as it will make it easier to try and find the needle in a hay stack that is a spring salmon in February! Good news on the Lee however as there was a spring fish caught on opening day weighing 8.5 lbs and sea liced. It was caught on spinner on the Cork Salmon Anglers stretch at Ballincollig Park.
Have not being tying too much lately as I feel that I have enough to do with for the spring months. For the time of year I would rather fish only a few patterns rather than have a box full of different flies.

The above flies are tied on size 6 Daiichi hooks which are very strong and sharp, highly recommended. Decided to tie these on singles as I'll probably come a cross quite a few kelts and there's no reason why I wouldn't get a firm hook hold with a spring fish if I came across one.

Above is a zonker pattern incorporating a black/orange over yellow tiger barred rabbit strip tied on a 15mm brass bottle tube for high coloured water. Can't wait to see the movement of this one in the water. Botched the head up a little though with a few too many wraps of thread and the whip finish kept slipping, especially as I was trying to add in some hot orange ice wing to the head. Must sharpen that part up! 

Here now is a green butt park shrimp tied on some plastic tubing, with a conehead placed just in front of the tinsel. I added in the conehead for some weight and it will add to the movement of the fly.

Lastly a Garry Dog variant tied on a 22mm brass tube for high and clear water. I'm hoping the fluoro green butt and antron tail along with the pearl rib will add to the pulling power of this fly and attract the attention of a running fish. 

Lastly, for anyone reading this who may not already know, a big march is taking place on Saturday the 2nd of March in Galway at 12.00 p.m. We are meeting at Eyre Square and marching to Salthill to a BIM sponsored event at the Galway Bay Hotel. 

1st cast of the year

And what a chilly one it was! Last week I got a call from a great buddy of mine, James Barry, to come over to Waterford for a cast! Couldn't wait as it was going to be my first cast of the year, my first ever in January. Looking at the weather forecast it looked like we might be timing it just right as some high pressure was moving in, at last.

We were to fish off a saltwater mark on the Waterford coast, specifically targeting bass and a chance of a possible sea trout. Before I continue, note that if you are specifically targeting sea trout you need a state license. Also, we were not fishing an estuary or anywhere near a river so close season does not come into the equation.
Hoping to fish the dropping tide, we knew it was going to be an early start. We reached our destination before first light and it was bitter, with a very light northerly wind and frost everywhere. Our plan of attack was to use fly and lure. Rigging up I begun with a savage gear psycho sprat  of 28g weight to bang across to the far side of the channel. Fishing our way down with the tide dropping sport was slow, with just one dropped fish on the fly for a friend.

As the tide hit rock bottom it was time for lunch and to try and warm up...we were frozen. I think the big difference between air and water temperature was a big contributing factor towards the lack of action that morning. Sandwiches eaten and a glance at the water told us to get our asses back in gear as the tide was on the way in again. At least now the sun was up and air temperature was on the rise.

At this stage I had switched back to my trusted kilty lure, an old reliable that keeps on producing. Concentrating our efforts on a particular spot one of the lads let out the roar of fish on! The fish played well and kept quite deep and it wasn't until it was beached that we saw that we had a sea trout.

A lovely fish about 2lbs weight. The photo mightn't show it properly but she was reconditioning well after the rigors of spawning. However you can see her body isn't exactly pristine and we put this down to net marks, with several lines along her upper flanks. The big lesion, which was also on the other side, may have been caused by coming into contact with a net before entering freshwater, which would have taken the scales away. This vulnerable area than picked up an infection in freshwater but looked like it was healing now its back in saltwater and feeding. James didn't catch the fish, another friend of his did and it was returned to continue feeding and hopefully make it back to the river to spawn again. The fish was caught on a P boy metal lure. Interestingly, he was using an "assist" single hook up at the head of the lure and took off the treble hook at the end. There is a reasoning behind this madness though as he believes fish attack the head of a lure rather than the back and so uses this method with all his metal lures. Food for thought for the future...

A lift in confidence for us all now and the hope of more fish to come spurring us on, apart from Usna dropping a fish after brief contact, that was to be it. Great to get out again though to dust off the cobwebs!  

On the river front, it has now been confirmed by IFI that the Bandon will be open for salmon fishing from February 15th. Fishing for sea trout below Innishannon Bridge is still prohibited until March 17th though, and rightly so.