Salmon Fishing Report from the Cork Blackwater

[bwlodge]

Salmon Fishing Report from the Cork Blackwater

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The river came up yet again after heavy rain in the last 2 days.
Graph above shows the height up & down river.
The upper river has already fallen well back, but is still very dirty.
The lower river peaked in the early hours of this morning, & is falling albeit rather slowly.
Clarity throughout is about 6 inches as of now.

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This graph shows height of the lower river for the last month.
Very variable in both height & clarity which means unsettled fish - not usually good takers.

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Not withstanding difficult conditions, we've managed to catch 197 fish for August for 351 rod days.
When conditions improved, we had some good days in the last few days.
On the 27th., 10 fish to ~9lb were caught.

The Best fish of the Season was taken on August 28 by John Purslow from the UK. It weighed 16.3lb.
11 fish were caught in total for the day.
On the 29th., 7 fish were caught to 9.8lb.
On the 30th., we landed 14 fish. Best was a First Ever salmon for Ian Hunt (UK)
which weighed ~15lb & was returned as it was slightly coloured.

29 of the fish caught were over the 10lb mark, & 93 were above 6lb.
Due to the high water conditions, the most successful method has been spinning,
which accounted for 131 of the fish caught.
28 anglers have caught their first ever salmon so far this season,
of which 12 were caught in August.
The total for the season to date is 405 fish for 1,096 rod days.

Current Situation & Prospects
With all the recent high water, the river is tending to clear off quite quickly after each flood.
There is more rain forecast for tomorrow, but the next 2 weeks are forecast mainly dry by Metcheck.
With these high water levels, we should see excellent runs of fish continuing in the coming weeks.
There are rods available throughout the month.

[mrwell]

Nice report there,very informative well done

[bwlodge]

Feb. 11. Free Fishing next week. Glenda appears at Dublin this weekend.

The spell of dry weather continues, and the river is coming down to a lovely level.
The picture above was taken today (February 11) with the river on 0.75m & clarity about 4 feet.
Air temperature this morning at 8.00am was -6°C.

Here's the current river situation:


This graph should update itself each time you log in until the end of February.

The river is now getting close to the magic 0.65m level which I would regard as ideal for fly.
There hasn't been any news on fish caught since the two on opening day,
but there have been very few rods out on the river.
Prospects for the next fortnight look very good with mainly dry weather, so we certainly shouldn't be flooded off the river.
With the comparatively low water levels, the best of the fishing will be concentrated in the lower river from Clondulane down.

Free Fishing again next week
The Lodge will once again offer free fishing from Monday to Friday next week - February 15 to 19.
Advance booking please.

Glenda Powell
The Nationwide programme featuring Glenda's tuition has been re-scheduled and will now be broadcast on Friday, February 19.
The whole half hour programme is dedicated to fishing.
For those of you who are not able to access this on TV, you will be able to see it
on the Internet for 21 days after the programme has been broadcast on RTÉ Player: Catch up with your favourite TV programmes online.
Glenda will also be demonstrating at this weekend's Ireland Angling Expo at the National Exhibition Centre, Swords, Dublin on Saturday & Sunday, February 13/14.
We also will be there on Stand 55 next to the Casting Pool.
Glenda will also be giving free tuition & advice throughout the weekend.

[bwlodge]

Blackwater Lodge beat 7 – Upper Kilmurry on Wednesday, February 17.

The Lodge will once again offer free fishing from Monday Feb. 22 to Friday, Feb. 26 inclusive.


This graph should update itself each time you log in until the end of February.
The river is in superb fly order. We’re still waiting for our first springer to be caught, but are seeing some fresh fish running through every day.

If you missed The Nationwide programme on Friday, February 19 - which was entirely dedicated to fishing - you can access this on the Internet for 21 days after broadcast on RTÉ Player: Catch up with your favourite TV programmes online.

Took a few pics at Swords Show last weekend & put them up on Youtube.
YouTube - Fly-casting Instructor Glenda Powell at the Angling Ireland Expo in Dublin - February 13 & 14, 2010

[bwlodge]

The First Springer is Caught on the Blackwater Lodge beats

Lodge regular Gavin Wishart from Newcastle, Co. Down came down to celebrate his 40th. birthday
this weekend & scooped the First Salmon of the 2010 season to be caught on the Lodge Fishery.

He was fishing yesterday (March 6th) with Connie Corcoran on Ballinlovane and took the fish on Flying C at Cloonbeg.
The fish would have been released, but was bleeding from the gills so had to be kept.
The cast before he lost what they both believe was another springer, so there were definitely a few about.
It was hardly surprising that it took us until now to catch a fish as there were only 64 rod days
for the whole month of February. There would certainly be more springers caught if there were
more rods out on the river each day.

Prospects
There are more fresh fish being seen in the river in the last few days.
The river is in absolutely cracking order at the moment - even for the fly.
0.44m on the gauge so perfect fly height & clarity a good 4 feet.
The weather forecast (Metcheck) looks dry for the next 2 weeks apart from about 6mm on the 15th.
Daily Updated Fishing Report: Blackwater Lodge Salmon Fishery - Daily Updated Salmon Fishing Report page

[bwlodge]

The Second Springer is Caught on the Blackwater Lodge beats

Bass fishing guide Michael McCormack from Wexford with the second fish of the season from the Lodge beats. It was sea-liced & weighed in at 10.2lb.
It was taken on Silver Bullet on the Green Bank on Upper Kilmurry.
Michael saw 3 or 4 more fresh fish as well during the day.
He was the only rod out on the river today - one springer for one rod day cain't be bad!

[bwlodge]

The third springer of the season was taken on Sunday, March 14 by Larry Sheridan (Dungarvan) who gillies for the Lodge.
He released the fish which weighed about 12lb & was taken on black Flying C at the top of the Island Stream on Kents.
It didn't have sea-lice but very fresh. He saw a couple more springers there as well.
Unfortunately no picture as he doesn't carry a camera with him.
The river is now at summer level - 0.36m on the Ballyduff gauge. Perfect fly order.
Lots of kelts being caught on flies as small as size 8.

[bwlodge]

Here's the current water level on the Cork Blackwater at Ballyduff on April 10th.

Source - Blackwater Lodge Fishing Report page: Blackwater Lodge Salmon Fishery - Daily Updated Salmon Fishing Report page
The river is falling slowly but steadily. The clarity has improved dramatically & is now about 5 feet on the lower river.
It's still a bit too high to fish the fly comfortably.
The 5th. springer of the season on the Lodge beats was caught on spinner on Beat 5 - Inchinleama last Sunday (April 4th.) before the last flood hit the river.
One kelt was caught today - surprising that there are still some present in the river this late in the season.

[bwlodge]

Fishing the Fly at Last!


With such a beautiful balmy evening this evening, four of us decided venture out to the river about 6.00pm this evening.
We opted to go to Upper & Lower Kilmurry, the best of the Lodge's seven beats below Careysville
with the gauge height having dropped to 0.80m.
Glenda & I headed for Lower, and the picture above is her at the Lug Pool at 7.15pm.
She was able to wade & fly-fish the whole way down the pool even at this height.


I headed down below to the Island Stream. This was about 10cm too high to be able to wade,
though could be fished from the (rather high) bank with a shooting head.
The picture above was taken looking downstream at the Island Stream at 7.45pm


and this picture was taken looking up the Island Stream to the Lug Pool on the bend in the distance.

We didn't see or touch any fish on Lower Kilmurry, but when we went back up to Upper Kilmurry,
the other two had seen three large fresh fish moving through the Sand Gap & the Hut Pool and Daniel
(a student on work experience at the Lodge from the Swedish Sport Fishing Academy)
had briefly hooked one of them just after it showed.

The clarity is about 5 feet & the level is falling steadily, so the prospects for the coming week look good.

For the latest information, see : Blackwater Lodge Salmon Fishery - Daily Updated Salmon Fishing Report page

[bwlodge]

The First Springer on Fly is Caught!
Denis O'Donnell from Cahir caught this lovely sea-liced 8.4lb fish on a ½ inch cone-head Cascade tube on the Island Stream on Lower Kilmurry today.
He saw a fish running through the stream & caught this one 3 casts later, so there were definitely a few fish moving.
Late report (21.00)
Kieran Conlon from Cork lost a similar fish at the net with Denis in the Island Stream after about 6/7 minutes - he could even see the sea-lice on its back,
& lost another after about a minute on the Hut Pool on Upper Kilmurry. They saw at least half a dozen fish moving through.

Prospects
The lower river is rising slightly (a couple of inches) after yesterday's showers, but the clarity is still excellent.
The upper river came up about 6 inches & peaked during the night & is already falling.
The weather forecast is dry for the week, so fly-fishing prospects are excellent.
There are rods available for the coming week.
For the latest info: Fishing report page Blackwater Lodge Salmon Fishery - Daily Updated Salmon Fishing Report page