Heavy rain this morning.......

By 09.45today, the heavy rain was right into the upper catchment.
There is more heavy rain forecast for tomorrow.

Finally the rain is falling in the catchment. Expect great fishing if a flood comes.........

 This was the radar rainfall picture at 05.15 this morning.

 I had 10mm rain on the Lodge gauge @ 08.20 this morning

This is the river at 08.20 this morning. Ballyduff gauge on 0.25m.

10mm of rain in the early hours of this morning has not started to affect the river levels yet.

We have caught 19 fish for 42 rod days for the 10 days to yesterday.
Yesterday, there was just one rod out & he released a grilse
& lost a very good fish of ~15lb.
which opened his treble - both fell to fly.

Prospects

This is the very latest radar picture which show heavy rain
heading right for the catchment at 09.00 today.
Looks as if there's plenty more to come.

We should see a good rise in the level
& this will mean fantastic sport as soon as the flood begins to fine off!

.

The river freshens up.................................

This was the river this morning at 12.00. 0.26m on the gauge.

After a 6 week drought, we finally had some quite heavy rain starting on July 23,
& the forecast is continuing broken well into the coming week.

Whilst there hasn’t been any significant rise in the river,
the water has certainly freshened up.
Sea-liced grilse are running through to the upper beats,
which promises well for sport for the coming week.

The week before last was a blank, but we have taken 16 grilse
for just 34 rod days for the week to July 28th.,
including the Joint Second Best Day of 2013 yesterday (28th.)
with seven grilse caught – 6 of which were on fly.

Prospects for the coming week are looking good
and we have availability
for both fishing & accommodation.





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Rain livens the river up a bit.................................................

At Ballyduff, 3mm rain fell on the 23rd. & 20mm on the 24th.
The Ballyduff gauge rose 15cm to 0.35m, peaking @ 06.45 on the 25th.
as can be seen more clearly from the graph below.

Rain fell in the upper catchment, where the level also rose ~15cm.
It also peaked once again again this morning at mid-day at Killavullen
with a total rise of 20cm at that time.

After a week without fish (though with very few rods out) we have had 8 grilse
caught in 5 days for just 23 rod days which is a reasonable result.
Five were caught by Peter Berger from Germany in 3 days.
 

Bizarrely, a club beat on the upper river which is situated amongst our upper beats
recorded well over 20 caught between Wednesday evening & Thursday mid-day,
whilst other beats in the area are not even seeing fish!

The forecast predicts very broken weather for the next 5 days
with quite a lot more rain due especially from Monday to Wednesday.

High Tides & maybe some rain for this week.............................

Spring tides will peak at 4.0 metres on Wednesday & Thursday this week.
Hopefully this will be combined with some rain which should encourage fish to move up from the tidal water into the main river.

One fish of 5lb. caught on spinner on the lower river today.

A Change in the weather ?

http://www.met.ie/forecasts/5day-ireland.asp


The Met Eireann 5 day forecast is now showing a break in the weather for the coming week
with some rain due in the catchment on Tuesday & temperatures falling gradually during the week
from 25C down to 21C.

Any rise in the water should get the large numbers of fish gathering in the tidal reaches to run into the main river.

Challenging Conditions.................................................

The Heatwave continues........................................

 This was the Blackwater below the Lodge on July 16.

We have uncharacteristically high temperatures at the moment 

- most days are in the high 20s & it has gone as high as 34C !
With no significant rain since June 16, the river is now very low.

Large numbers of grilse & larger salmon are building up 

in the tidal reaches just waiting for a rise in the water
to encourage them to run into the main river.
In spite of the challenging conditions, we have managed to
catch 19 fish in the first two weeks of July for just 87 rod days. 
Three of these were first ever salmon.