Irish Angling Forum

bwlodge

Salmon Fishing Report from the Cork Blackwater

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.

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.

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.

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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).