Laksefiskeri - Irland

Wondering why we haven't caught our First Springer yet....?

Well, it's quite simple really! The river has been so high that no-one has gone out fishing yet.

It has been probably the wettest start to the year ever and the river has been out in the fields for almost the entire time since the season opened on February 1st.

This was the river below the Lodge today February 9th. at 11.00am. 

The Ballyduff gauge height was 3.33m. It is still rising slowly.



This is the Ballyduff gauge height for the last month.

I have been keeping very accurate records of the gauge heights since 2004, & it is very interesting to look at the average height of the river for the first nine days of the season for the last three years.

They are as follows
2012:     0.82m
2013:     1.35m
2014:     2.95m

I would consider good fishing heights to be:- 
0.80 to 1.20m for spinning
0.50 to 0.70m for fly fishing

So not only does this explain why no fish have been caught so far, it also goes a long way to understand why it took us until February 22 to land the first springer 
in 2013, yet we had the first springer for 2012 on the 3rd. & the next two on the 5th.


This graph shows the Ballyduff Gauge Height for January & February with just the first 9 days being shown for 2014. As a general rule the water was always higher in January than in February, except 2011 & this year - where the height has far exceeded the norm - preventing us even being able to walk on the banks as the river has spent most of the time out in the fields.


The exceptionally high water levels have also been accompanied by higher than normal water temperatures especially in January when it was around 8ºC - 46½ºF.
For the first week or so of February this has dropped to around  7.4ºC - 45.3ºF.

All the right ingredients for a really good run of springers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now we just need the water levels to come down so that we can get out fishing.

Realistically, the forecast seems to be for a conveyor belt of rain & storms being brought across the Atlantic by the Jet Stream so it could be weeks before levels 
get down to good fishing height. But Hey - they've got it wrong before.

Meanwhile.................................

I will of course continue to update the river conditions daily.


Where to Meet Us!

Glenda will be demonstrating fly-casting at the Ireland Angling Expo being held
next week (February 15/16) at the National Exhibition Centre in Swords 
(just by Dublin Airport) & we have a stand at the show.

Book now for 2014