15th August 2011 - The Best Week For Many Years: 80 Salmon!

Water levels were recorded at 0.9m on Sunday the 7th, and with good angling conditions rods there was fantastic fishing with rods catching 18 salmon that day. Water levels and angling conditions remained good for the following two days and a further 10 fish were caught. Levels were recorded again at 0.8m at 8a.m. on the morning of the 10th, however the weather pattern changed dramatically and by 9.30a.m. with extreme heavy rainfall the river level rose to 1.8m. The spate peaked at 2.1m a few hours later and water levels remained high for a number of days falling slowly to 1.0m by the end of the week. With suitable water levels a great run of fresh fish entered the river.

Brian Holloway, a regular U.K. visitor to the Erriff, had a fantastic week landing 11 salmon for the week with most of the catchreturned again to the river – best day 4 fish taken on a Hairy Mary & Cascade. Kenneth Mills, U.K., a regular rod on the river in recent years had 9 for the week, mostly taken on an Orange Shrimp pattern. New rods on the river Michael Whitehead and Tom Byam-Cook, U.K. had 2 each and lost several more. Mr. Herve Rodrigue, France had 4, best fish 12.25lbs taken in the Falls Pool on Beat 9. Niall Wickham, Drogheda, Co. Louth caught one of 14.1lbs in the Washing Pool on Beat 4. Dr. Margaret Downes, Dublin had 4 for the week.

Richard Daly, Kevin Glynn and Edward Murphy all from Dublin had 8 fish between them. Cascades and Shrimp patterns in various sizes were the most successful flies and apart from a few fish all the catch was taken on fly. This was the best weeks fishing on the river for many years and it was good to see decent sized grilse up to 7lbs featured in the rod catch. Total catch for the week was80 salmon and 43 sea trout.

At the time of writing the report the river is in perfect condition after more rain yesterday, and water levels should remain good for fishing for the next few days.

Jane Beattie (NI) with a nice Erriff grilse