A couple of lovely fresh fish..........

 The river is holding steady @ 0.25m.
Only 4 rods fished just for the late evening. Two fish were caught.

This 9 pounder was taken on fly on the Island Stream on Lower Kilmurry

This 8.3lb fish was caught on prawn on Carrahulta on Carrig on the upper river.

The total for May is now 30 fish for 154 rod days.

Second best day of the season........

The daytime water temperature increased
from 10 to 16.5°C between the 20th. & 27th. May, but has now dropped back by a degree.

 The Ballyduff gauge is steady on 0.25m

More fish were being seen every day up to the 28th. , and they are taking more freely, but often short as a good number have been met & lost.















Benoit Perros (France) caught his Second Ever on the 23rd. with a 4.3 pounder on spinner on the lower river. His father André lost a fine double figure fish on fly which would have been his First Ever salmon too!
We then had a couple of very hot bright days  which made fishing difficult.
Then on the 26th., Kieran McClements (N. Ireland) caught his first ever - a sea-liced 4 pounder.

The 27th was the Second Best Day of the Season with 3 fish to 7.8lb caught - all on the lower river.
There was another from the lower river on the 28th., & one from the upper river on the 29th.

The total for the month now stands at 19 for 152 rod days & the season to date is 46 for 330 rod days.

Fishing picks up on Tuesday May 22nd..............................

Sod's Law!  Just when I was posting yesterday that the fishing was slow
for the last few days,of course yesterday I was proved wrong.
Benoit Perros from Britanny, France (above) caught his First Ever Salmon
with this superb 9 pounder which was sealiced.
He caught it on spinner at the Lug Pool on Lower Kilmurry.

The aptly named Paul Pecheur from Belgium also had a fish yesterday.
He caught it on fly on Ballincurrig on the upper river.

 

There has been a noticeable increase in the water temperature in the last couple of days
which may well be the cause of the fish starting to take more freely once more.

 

This is the Blackwater today @ 07.00 - summer level & excellent clarity.

 The river has fined off well after a number of small floods.

 The website which gave us the gauge heights at 70 & 90km up river
at Kanturk & Millstreet is still not operational due to lack of funding.
We do however have a new source of upriver information from the OPW.
This gives us continuous readings of river height & water temperature
at Killavullen which is right in the middle of our upper beats.

 Rather surprisingly, fishing is slow at the moment.
With the high water in Late April & early May, I would have expected a lot more
grilse & large double-figure May fish to be caught,
but the fish seem to have been put off the take by the very unsettled conditions.
Hopefully, they will be more co-operative as the conditions settle & the weather warms up.

Total for May to date is 20 - 9 on fly, 6 on spinner & 5 on worms.
The total for the season to date is 37.

There is no problem for availability of fishing and accommodation at the moment.

There was a smallish dirty flood which hit the upper river yesterday morning.
The report from the upper river today is that it is too dirty to fish.
Down at Ballyduff, the river has peaked early this morning @ 07.30 @ 0.62m, but was already down to 0.58m by 09.30. Clarity is moderate @ 2-2½ feet. Air temp. is a cool 6°C @ 07.30.
Good conditions for spin/worm but borderline for fly.
Forecast for the next 5 days is primarily dry.
Brilliant prospects for the coming weekend & into next week.

The river has gone up 10cm at Ballyduff to 0.56m on the gauge. Clarity is not as good as it was this morning at 2-3 feet.
The river at Mallow was very coloured by mid-morning and up about 20cm.

The Ballyduff gauge is on 0.46m this morning. My rain gauge had 10mm on it overnight.
It looked on the radar last night  as if most of the rain fell to the east of the catchment with little in the upper Blackwater catchment.
However I just got a surprising report that the river is dirty & unfishable in Mallow just now.

The river is at 0.48m this morning & clarity is excellent throughout - perfect fly conditions.
There is quite heavy rain forecast for tonight so we will have to see what that does to the river.

A 4 rod Norwegian party started fishing on Monday for the week. The first day, they were fishing on the lower beats & hooked 6 salmon but only landed one - a sea-liced 5 pounder. yesterday (Tuesday), they were fishing on the upper beats & had another 5 pounder & lost a fine double figure fish. There was a second fish of 7.5lb. also caught from one of the upper beats yesterday.

Today, I have already had reports by 13.00 of two fish caught on the upper river - a 4lb. on spinner & an 8lb. on fly.

Website Problem.......

I am currently unable to access my website host server to update the Fishing Report page.
Will complete updates as soon as access is restored.    Ian

Another double figure fish.......

The second fish of the day which was caught on our very top beat - Ballygarrett - which was reported intitially as 8/9lb. was brought back to be weighed in & tipped the scales at 10.4lb.
It's not often that the weight of a fish is underestimated!!!!!!

Biggest Fish of Season today - on Fly!

The Biggest fish of the 2012 Season so far!

Tim Harty caught this sea-liced 14.2lb fish on fly at the Road Pool on Ballinaroone on the lower river after half a dozen casts this morning. The fish took an orange shrimp fly#6 on superfast sink tip.
There is also another fish of 8/9lb on spinner reported from our top beat just below Mallow.

Best Day of Season so Far..........

As expected the river came into excellent order today. The gauge at Ballyduff was on 0.58m this morning & only fell very slowly during the day to 0.55m at dusk. The clarity was a good three feet on the lower river.
The upper river also dropped only very slowly but has fined off very well & clarity is around 4 feet.
There were a number of reports of fish moving on the upper river - albeit somewhat sporadically.

Four fish were caught in total for the day by just nine rods fishing and there were 2 fish lost at the net. Three fish fish came from the upper river - 2 on spinner & 2 on the fly - of which 2 were released.
Two were extremely fresh (sea-lice just fallen off) & one had been in for 1/2 weeks.
There was one very fresh fish caught on spinner on the lower river, but none seen.

Superb prospects for tomorrow. We'll have to see how much rain falls Monday to ascertain the prospects for the week.

Another fish already..........

11.30 Another fish of over 7lb reported from our Bridgetown Abbey beat on the upper river this morning on spinner.

First fish caught for May.....

As expected, the river has fined off well. The Ballyduff gauge was down 6cm overnight to 0.58m this morning with clarity a good 3 feet. The upper river is also falling slowly & clarity is excellent at ~4 feet.
At 10.45 today, Garry O'Shea (Dungarvan) reported a 6lb. fish released on spinner on our top beat just below Mallow & I have also heard of a similar fish landed around Killavullen this morning.
This weekend we have the highest spring tides of the year, so this should also  encourage fresh fish to move in.
Looks as if we'll get yet more rain for Sunday night & Monday.

Fish moving on the upper river.........

Both the upper & lower river were dropping slowly today. The  clarity on the upper river was around 3 feet & it was coming into fly order. Some fish were moving up there, and at least 3 fish were caught in the Killavullen area, though all were on spinner and were in the 5-8lb. class.
The lower river fell from 0.70m this morning to 0.64m by nightfall & the clarity had improved somewhat to about 2 feet.

Fourth flood in 2 weeks fines down...

 Another 6mm rain in the early hours of this morning (Thursday) which was coming from the east & moving through to the upper catchment. The forecast is mainly dry for the rest of the week.The Ballyduff gauge was down to 0.74m @ 07.15 this morning & falling. The clarity is ~1½-2 feet & looks as if it will clear fairly fast.

There's a great sense of anticipation for superb sport for May having had 4 floods in the last 2 weeks.

The river peaked at 1.55m on the Ballyduff gauge in the early hours of the morning of the 2nd. By 21.00 it was down to 0.90m & the upper river was falling steadily during the day too.
Clarity both up & down was improving in the evemning & the river should be fishable with spinner/worms tomorrow.
The forecast for the rest of the week is dry, so the river should come into cracking order, & with the first of the large May fish being caught already a week & a half ago on the upper river, the prospects of sport for the coming week & month should be excellent.

Plenty of rain......

My rain gauge here at the Lodge registered 28mm in the 18 hours to 18.00 on the 1st.
The rain swept in from the east, through the lower catchment but extended will into the upper catchment as well.
The river at Ballyduff is already up to 0.90m by 20.00 & rising, as is the upper river.
The river will almost certainly be out of order above & below for the 2nd. (Weds.)