Four foot flood on the lower river yesterday gets May fish on the move…….

The river below the Lodge at 18.30 with gauge at 0.73m.

Conditions.
It was a dry day today with air temperature up to +13ºC at 17.30.
The forecast is for more rain tonight & tomorrow, but it should be coming in from the south-east & may not really hit the upper catchment.

The upper river at Millstreet dropped steadily until 14.00, then levelled & rose just 1cm after a few showers at the top of the catchment.

The upper river at Killavullen is falling steadily & was down to 1.56m at 18.30. Clarity upriver is improving slowly to about 1½ feet.

The lower river at Ballyduff is falling quite fast, & was at 0.73m at 18.30. Clarity is also about 1½ feet by evening.

Water temperature at Ballyduff: 9.7ºC / 49.8ºF @ 19.00 today.
Water temperature at Killavullen: 10.0 – 10.9 ºC / 50.0 – 51.6ºF.

Prospects.
I heard a very interesting report this evening of an angler fishing about 6 miles above Mallow today. He saw well over a dozen large (10-15lb) fish & lost one on spinner of ~10lb. at the net.
This would suggest that the first of the large May fish have already made their way to the upper river. 

I also just had a report from Kilmurry on the lower river where one of our rods met two fish spinning this afternoon – one large fish & one which could have been a grilse.

This bodes extremely well for the prospects of sport in the coming days, with good water levels, maybe a bit of rain to top the river up tomorrow, & tides peaking at 3.8m at Youghal until Thursday which should encourage even more fresh fish to move in.

The river will just about be coming into fly order tomorrow, & will be in excellent spinning order throughout.