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.
Finally all the stormy conditions that we experienced in the last month have fizzled out. Now that the weather has calmed down the prospect of going out fishing once again has become more realistic. A buddy of mine has grown increasingly more enthusiastic about fishing lately and invited me to come and join him at Ballinlough Lake last weekend. Needless to say I jumped at the offer!
I've only fished for rainbows a handful of times and on each occasion I enjoyed it immensely. You often hear stories of how stocked trout are terrible fighters and come to hand like a drowned bag. Well, this is definately not applicable to the trout in Leap!
Tactics for the day were to fish relatively deep and slow. Rob used a slow sinking line and a team of 3 flies to start with. Patterns included a black booby, zonker and shrimp pattern. I opted for my Guideline 4cast sink tip line (5 inches per second) matched with a conehead black wooly bugger. On our second drift my fly was engulfed and we had our first fish of the day in the boat.
Every couple of drifts I managed to pick up a fish but they weren't exactly jumping onto our flies either. This was good though and added to the challenge because the novelty can soon wear off if your quarry are overly forthcoming! My last fish was my best fish and no exaggeration it took me nearly 10 minutes to net after all its jumping and long runs.
Enough was enough at this stage for Rob and I suggested he change his approach. Off came his cast of 3 flies and I gave him one of my conehead wooly buggers, this ones colour being olive. Taking the oars, I set us up to drift over the area where we had our best trout so far. With renewed confidence in his set up, he was putting out a lovely line, letting his fly sink for a few seconds and slowly retrieving it back to the boat. 5 minutes into the drift and BINGO the line went tight and I eventually slipped the net under Rob's well earned trophy trout.
We ended the day with a nice few fish between us, not a bad way to get 2014 rolling! As you can see from the photos the trout in Ballinlough are in great condition and they really are fit and powerful. I would highly recommend this place to anyone looking for a winter fix and as an added bonus it is set in a stunning location. Details for permits are on the photo below.
Finally, for anyone interested in taking up lure fishing for bass, the lads at Absolute Fishing are setting up a course on how to get started, free of charge. The course will cover everything from the gear you will need, tides and safety to learning how to read the water and work your lures effectively for optimum results. For more information on the course click here and if the notice is too short there is no need to worry as they will be doing more in the future.
First of all I would like to wish everybody who reads this blog a happy new year and tightlines for the new fishing season! Here is a fish we will all be aspiring to catch in 2014! It weighs 28lbs 3oz and was caught on the Bandon in 2008. The specimen can be viewed in the Munster Arms Hotel.
In my last post I touched on the spawning activity which had just kicked off. Since then, there has been a huge amount of spawning especially in the main river. Until the break in the weather on December 12th, any streams I walked seemed devoid of salmon due to low water. To give a picture of how much spawning occurred in the main river a certain stretch which had been observed from 2008-2010 yielded a redd count high of 17. However this year, while walking only half of the same stretch I clearly counted at least 70 redds which is over 4 times the amount counted in previous years. Whether or not this is good news is hard to say. Due to the amount of storms and high water we've had since my count, there is no doubt that a number of redds have been washed away in the main river. Thankfully, there were still a lot of unspent fish present. These floods will have enabled salmon to ascend any tributary, where their subsequent redds will be safer. Nature always has a way of looking after itself!
Below is a short video I put together of a couple of clear photos of salmon redds that I managed to capture. The footage shows salmon held up in a pool in low water. The fish are actually holding station over previously dug out redds.
Over the last couple of days I've been tying flies in preparation for the new season. I'm waiting on new material to arrive for my salmon flies so I've decided to sharpen up my skills by tying small size 14 sea trout doubles.
The new angling regulations for 2014 have been published and a summary can be viewed here. Bandon is open for business with a quota of 752 and it is great to see the Argideen is fully open again after a couple of years of catch and release.
It's late November and one notices a sharp transition into winter, with frost in evidence most nights. In contrast, sea temperatures have held up well and bass are still being caught on lures along our coast line. To be honest, I thought my last cast for a bass this year was back in October. However, a weekend of sport a buddy enjoyed up on the Copper Coast in Waterford recently spurred me on to give it another shot on one of my favourite marks in West Cork.
While bass hug the shore all year long, numbers are lower in the winter months and they are much less willing to give chase to a lure. This is mostly down to water temperature, with the magic measurement for lure anglers thought to be 10 degrees Celsius. At present, the temperature is between 11.5 and 12 meaning there is still time for a chuck and chance! The forecast for this week is for cloudy skies and less frost which will hopefully prolong the window of opportunity.
Not wasting any time, I decided to give last Monday evening a go as high tide was just approaching twilight. I spent a long time walking the rocks looking for some action in the water as there was very little swell. Luckily though, the swell was stronger the day before and the water was well fizzed up. With high tide nearing, water was beginning to rush in around some rocks at a distance and was now covering gullies which were high and dry earlier on. It was now or never, so on went my favourite shallow diving lure, the IMA Komomo SF-125. Within a few casts a fish hurtled towards it, revealing its presence by slashing the top of the water. 'Here we go', I hoped and 5 minutes later I struck silver! This lure is just the bomb... the lure doesn't find the bass, the bass find the lure!!
Rather than putting up a photo, I decided to upload a short video that I took of the release.
While on the topic of releasing bass, I recently received scale sample results from the IFI National Bass Programme. A scale sample was sent from a 69cm bass I caught during the Irish Bass Festival and it turns out the fish was 13 years old and was a fast grower. This underlines the fact that bass are extremely slow growers and the utmost of respect should be shown to these magnificent fish.
On the river front, spawning has now commenced on the Bandon. For the last couple of weeks trout have been busy on the redds in some of the tributaries. Due to the trout being mostly small down here, redds have proved hard to spot but here are a couple. When trying to find them the best areas to look are the edges and tails of pools. A patch of gravel lighter in colour should be evident, with a depression in the middle and a mound of stones at the tail of the redd.
Last Friday I spotted the first 2 salmon redds on the main river, no doubt spurred on by the frosty conditions. Thankfully these are a little easier to spot!
I also managed to capture a couple more snaps of wildlife on the river. The first couple are of an otter that was really gorging itself on small trout, taking no less than 6 in half an hour! Finally, the little egret, whose numbers have exploded in recent years along our rivers and coast lines.
As a parting note, we have had some great news on the salmon farming front in Ireland. The European Commission is to re-open its investigation into the negative effects of salmon farming on wild salmon. To read more on the issue, click here. News on this subject had been scarce for a while, so this is a very welcome advancement in the right direction.
