Irish Angling Forum

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It’s Summertime – and the Fishing ain’t Easy!
The 2008 Season on Blackwater Lodge Salmon Fishery on Ireland's Cork Blackwater.

Adapting a line from George Gershwin’s famous song, Lodge proprietor Ian Powell looks at
the catch statistics and explains how changing tactics helped to ensure great catches.

Fishery Records Tumble in 2008!
2008 will be etched in our memories as three long-standing all-time records were beaten this year.

August Catch
The first was the total catch for August which was 422 of which 209 were released.
The record had stood since 1992 and was 377.

One Day Catch
The second was the total catch for one day, which we broke on September 13 when no less than 55 salmon were caught for the day – 26 of which were released alive. The previous best day was 52 in August, 1992.

First Ever Salmon Caught
The third was the number of anglers who caught their first salmon.
This was 61 which beat the previous best of 52 in 1998.
The number of first salmon caught expressed as a %age of the total rod days for the season
was also the highest ever recorded at 3.25, beating the previous record of 2.9 in 1992.

Season Summary
2008 was actually a very good season. The total number of salmon caught was 1,024.
Of these, 527 were released alive.
This was the second highest total recorded in the last 10 years, and the eighth highest since 1986 (23 years).

There were so many stories of great experiences on the river this year that we could never recount them all.
The highlight was probably the Van de Laar party from Holland who had just one day fishing guided by Glenda Powell. None had ever salmon fished before and four of them had never even fished. Starting fishing at almost mid-day, every single one of them had caught their first salmon by 3pm., two of them had caught two each & even the driver who was chauffeuring them for the day had caught one as well!

Then there was Fay Voysey-Moore & her son James from Devon who were here for a week in September. Neither had ever caught a salmon before, though were quite experienced anglers. It was Fay’s dream to come to Ireland to catch a salmon. And she did – 11 fish to 12 pounds for Fay and 10 for James. Her dream came true in style!

Table 1. Catch Statistics by Month 1986 – 2008
This gives the actual numbers of fish caught by month, plus a number of averages.
YEAR Feb. Mar. Apr. May June July Aug. Sept. TOTAL
1986 19 13 23 6 48 87 207 347 750
1987 7 20 14 20 43 81 74 120 379
1988 10 18 17 43 293 383 315 409 1,488
1989 13 35 48 35 255 135 265 370 1,165
1990 13 28 22 31 76 34 54 97 365
1991 6 7 18 40 57 75 39 86 328
1992 1 6 8 33 145 222 377 590 1,511
1993 15 18 26 53 255 280 150 367 1,164
1994 8 14 23 82 255 130 147 218 878
1995 2 23 23 28 191 117 44 190 619
1996 3 14 15 72 210 163 276 333 1,086
1997 - 13 8 24 184 140 138 326 833
1998 1 3 10 25 160 296 268 352 1,115
1999 3 15 17 41 129 79 173 266 723
2000 1 3 12 51 215 264 130 283 958
2001 2 Closed F&M 31 160 118 208 254 773
2002 2 4 6 9 132 137 197 282 769
2003 3 13 9 49 80 162 94 143 553
2004 14 8 22 23 49 86 353 524 1,079
2005 5 6 6 29 70 114 108 309 647
2006 1 17 38 39 50 61 47 407 660
2007 1 5 12 8 43 115 273 333 804

Average 1986-2007 6 13 17 35 141 149 179 300 848
10YA 1998-2007 3 7 13 31 109 143 185 315 808
10YA 1999-2008 4 8 14 30 95 125 201 322 799
5YA 2003-2007 5 10 17 30 58 108 175 343 749
5YA 2004-2008 5 8 18 24 47 99 241 398 843

2008 5 4 14 22 21 117 422 419 1,024

We can conclude from this:
- within the lottery that is spring fishing, catches appear to be holding their own.
Our gut feeling would be that the spring run is improving slowly, but other factors such as
number of rods fishing and river conditions belie this fact.
- there is a continuing downward trend in number of fish caught in May & June.
Here again, number of anglers plays a very significant part. Decimation of the grilse run by the nets discouraged
a large percentage of visiting anglers. Obviously, we are expecting a resurgence of grilse now the nets are gone -
but with these fish being predominantly 1/1 (one river & one sea year), we will have to wait until 2010 for the
progeny of the 2007 run to return.

Grilse and autumn fish
- It was blatantly obvious in 2008 that grilse run was even later, and in fact peaked at the end of August.
This helps to explain not only the good catch figures for August and September, but also the very poor ones
for June, which was when one would normally have expected these fish to run.
- Over time, there is a definite improvement in catches, especially in the latter part of the season.
The 5YA & 10YA figures for August & September are growing steadily. However, this year, the majority of the fish caught in September were not autumn fish. Not withstanding the high water levels throughout the summer, we only started to see our fresh autumn run fish making an appearance in the lower beats on the last two days of the season.
One angler on Beat 3 caught six sea-liced fish all on fly on the last day.
Obviously, catch statistics are affected by not only the number of salmon returning to run the river, but also the rainfall & river height, plus of course the number of anglers actually fishing.

In order to see the trends in recent years, here are a couple of tables of statistics.

Size of Fish

Table 3: Average Size of Fish by Month.
Year Feb Mar Apr May June July Aug Sept Total
10YA 1997-2006 (Nets) 7.3 7.5 7.6 7.9 5.1 4.2 4.7 5.6 5.3
5YA 2002-2006 (Nets) 7.8 8.4 8.0 8.3 5.6 4.5 4.8 5.6 5.6
2007 6.3 7.6 9.6 8.0 6.9 5.7 5.9 6.2 6.2
2008 7.5 8.8 8.4 7.3 8.0 6.0 5.2 5.7 5.7
% change cf: 10YA 3 17 11 -7 57 43 10 2 7
% change cf: 5YA -4 5 5 -12 43 34 9 2 2
% change cf: 2007 19 16 -13 -9 16 5 -12 -8 -8

The above table shows that the average size of the fish in June & July increased even further in 2008 relative to 2007 and the averages for the previous years. In August & September, it was still above the 5YA & 10YA up to 2006 when the nets still operated, but fell below the 2007 figures. This was due the late grilse and autumn runs

Weather and River Conditions
We thought that 2007 was a wet summer, but there was actually 54% more rain fell in 2008 compared with 2007.

Table 4: Summer Rainfall in mm for 2007/8
Year July August September Total
2008 113 98 91 302
2007 106 56 34 196

This obviously reflected even more in the river height.

Table 5: Average River Height in cms by Month for Recent years
Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July Aug Sept
2008 168 89 84 49 35 39 113 98 91
2007 135 121 122 35 29 35 61 56 36
Average 2004-2006 121 75 73 66 59 39 30 39 58
2006 127 57 76 60 83 42 25 21 61
2005 130 74 56 74 53 40 33 27 37
2004 105 93 87 64 41 34 31 68 75

During early summer & the backend, we can observe the following trends:
- Lower levels in April, May & June for the last 2 years.
- Very much higher levels in July, August & September this year.
- In 2007, the levels were higher than normal in July & August, but not to the same degree.
This explains why last year, we had such excellent results on the fly in August & September, as the river came down to a lovely fly height during this period. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case in 2008, as the water level was just too high at this time for good fly-fishing.

Table 6: %age Fly-caught Fish by Month & Year
Year Feb. March April May June July August Sept. Total
10YA 2 22 17 21 23 31 16 11 17
2007 8 29 67 63 48 20 38 37 36

% Change for 285 31 304 192 111 -36 136 234 109
2007 cf 10YA

2008 40 25 71 14 10 38 8 19 18

Whilst we had a high percentage of fly-caught fish in July 2008, this was definitely not the case in August and September, when fly-fishing was virtually impossible.

Table 7: Average River Height by Month in cms
Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July Aug Sept
2008 168 89 84 49 35 39 113 98 91
2007 135 121 122 35 29 35 61 56 36
Average 2004-2006 121 75 73 66 59 39 30 39 58
2006 127 57 76 60 83 42 25 21 61
2005 130 74 56 74 53 40 33 27 37
2004 105 93 87 64 41 34 31 68 75

This shows that the river level throughout the summer in 2008 was way above normal.
The figures for 2007 were not nearly so high, which explains the difference in the number of fly-caught fish.

The extremely prolonged wet period required a change in our thinking – we had to re-write the fishing handbook,
so to speak. Normally, we would say that fly-fishing was best below 0.65m on the gauge, and spinning best below about 0.80m on the gauge. At heights greater than 1.10-1.20m, we would have not considered it worthwhile going out, as the water was just too damn high.

Fishing is a wonderful sport, and woe betide anyone who thinks he knows it all!
Fortunately, we were not so dogmatic, and persisted fishing in what we would have thought previously were impossible conditions. We were helped by having a new style spinner in stock in our shop – the French-made Silver Bullet – which fished superbly well in these high water conditions.

It was with a black & silver 22g one of these with a very large blade that I hooked a huge fish on August 13th. last.
I had refilled my spinning reel with 19lb. nylon just before leaving, and fished our Beat No. 5 - Inchinleama – on the lower river. In the early afternoon, I hooked a very large fish which I played for 25 minutes before the spinner came out! Four other anglers witnessed the event. The fish was reckoned to be in the 20-30lb class - that's fishing!

But what about the fly in high water – I hear you say?
Not quite such an easy proposition as much of the river is best fly-fished by wading – which becomes next to impossible at gauge heights of 0.65m or more. We are however, looking to the future on this, and hope to be doing far more fishing with Shooting Head Lines, which lend themselves much better to sunk line high water bank fishing.

Courses:
Glenda ran a course on Shooting heads last February with her fellow Loop No. 1 Pro Team colleague Thomas Bergren from Sweden with great success, and they are planning a further two in the first week of February 2009. Contact the Lodge if you’d like to book a place.

Looking forward to 2009 and beyond……………………

The 2008 season started badly when we were given the news day before the 2008 season opened that a spring quota and brown tag system would be in operation up to May 12 on the Blackwater. This put off a lot of (Irish) anglers from taking out their licences in the spring. The administration of the system blatantly didn’t work, and we are assured by the CEO of the Southern Board that it will not be in existence for 2009.
It’s about time that those in charge came to their senses, and made a change to our season.
If we genuinely wish to preserve spring salmon, the best way to do it is to delay the start of the season until March.
The bag limit per day also needs to be revised. The grilse running in June & July need to be conserved, so a bag limit of one fish per day would make much more sense. With the bulk of the salmon now running in August and September, this would be the better time to allow a 3 fish per day limit.
Serious consideration should also be given to changing the season to allow us to fish on into October.
Many rivers in the UK close much later. The number of anglers who fish in October and November would help to provide a great economic boost to an industry that has suffered greatly in the last eight years. The Blackwater has superb late runs of fresh fish which could well be exploited – even if it was on a fly only and perhaps catch and release basis for a trial period.
But for now, the rods are stored away, and we can but sit and wait to see what the powers that be will have in store for us for the coming season.

_________________
Ian is proprietor of the Blackwater Lodge Salmon Fishery on the Cork Blackwater with his wife Glenda - Emerald World Masters Ladies Salmon Distance Champion & renowned casting instructor APGAI-IRL (Salmon & Trout).