A New Season Begins

For various reasons I haven’t updated this blog in a long team but hopefully I’ll be more attentive this year. Opening day has come and I’m looking forward to getting out on the river again. Hopefully there’s a nice bar of silver passing round Hook Head with my name on it.

A quick summary of 2013 season
Last year was the exact opposite of the rain fueled deluge of 2012. We had a very cold spring but it was followed by glorious sunshine through June and July. The river was down to its bones for most of the summer and small flies on floating lines in the late evening was the order of the day on most weeks.

It didn’t seem to have an adverse affect on the returning Salmon though as the Slaney had its best Redd count in 17 years. Hopefully this is the continuation of an upward trend and not a once-off blip.

The sea-trout run was disappointing though. Whether it was down to the cold Spring delaying smolts going out to sea or something else, the run was very late, smaller than usual and the fish seemed to be of a smaller size too. Fingers crossed 2014 will be better.