Blackwater salmon

Recent guided sessions produced some nice spring salmon from the Munster Blackwater river. This season the water levels have been quite high on our local rivers and fly fishing opportunities have been fairly limited. Luckily the weather has been improving and the rivers reached a better if not ideal fly fishing height, particularly in the upper stretches. As a consequence we managed a few very nice salmon.

My guests were using two outfits, one was a 13’7 Mackenzie Atlas rod matched with a Mackenzie Phased Density Shooting Head in Float/Sink 2 and a short leader to a White Francis fly.

The other client used a 15ft Mackenzie FX1 GRAPHENE Rod matched with a Mackenzie Float/S1 shooting head and attached to the business end was a local shrimp fly pattern called Hick’s Bug. The guys were blown away by this kit and when good fish came the were even more impressed.

So some very happy anglers and a nice tackle test was a great result. The river is coming into good order again after the latest flood so fingers crossed for some more action. Tight lines!

2013 A Review – Part III

September

Normally reliable this past season fishing was tough due to high temperatures, drought conditions and algal blooms.  But we still managed to catch some nice fish!

Night fishing for seatrout

Night fishing for seatrout with Conor and the lads

Maury after landing a nice autumn fish on the Blackwater

Maury from Tyrone after landing a nice autumn fish on the Blackwater

Gurnard on soft plastics with Kuba

Gurnard on soft plastics with Kuba

Casting tuition on Lough Derg

Casting tuition on Lough Derg

October

In October the bass fishing picked up a bit!

Darren with his first ever sea bass.

Darren with his first ever sea bass.

And the water in the lakes started to clear up.

Tom "Doc" Sullivan from Galway with a cracking Knockaderry Bow

Tom “Doc” with a Knockaderry Bow

November

With the rivers closed it was more saltwater fishing and of course the Waterford lakes fished well.

A quality Vantry trout

A quality Vantry trout

And a trip to the Irish Fly Fair in Galway which was fantastic.  I really enjoyed giving a talk there on winter tactics for stillwater trout.

At the Irish Fly Fair in Galway

At the Irish Fly Fair in Galway

Denis O Toole with some of his templedog style salmon tubes

Denis O Toole with some of his templedog style salmon tubes

December

The year comes to a close.  And a chance to catch up on some fly tying.

Dabbler

Dabbler

But with all the mild weather there are still some seabass caught along the copper coast when conditions are good and the lakes continue to fish well.

Mick catches at Ardaire

Mick catches at Ardaire

A cracking Ardaire bow

A cracking Ardaire bow

With only a few days left in the year and with winds estimated at 150kph Shane and I managed to fit in one more days fishing.

A super Ardaire Bow

A super Ardaire Bow