The high and often dirty water continued into May and is only now (15 May) starting to settle down to what would be considered normal mid-April levels.
The poor spring salmon run experienced in virtually all rivers this year combined with almost continuous high water has resulted in very poor catches on all of the beats downstream of Bunclody and unfortunately, despite the high water, catches upstream of Bunclody have also been poor.
The nature of the run has left some experienced anglers without a single take in 10 or more days of fishing and has led to some reduced effort on the river. However, others have had much better luck as demonstrated but one angler who landed 2 fish in less than 4 hours and lost another the next day he was out.
There are fish to be caught. David O’Hagan landed this lovely 15lber on a Willie Gunn which was the “catch of the week” on the IFI website on Friday
We have had reports of another fish off the same beat caught on Bomber – the American salmon dry fly pattern!
A bit further upstream a nice fish was lost on a large stripped Collie Dog all of which proves that if the fish are there you have a reasonable chance of hooking one.
Here are a few more lucky anglers
