A Hard Day

Today I fished three different beats on the Blackwater (Blackwater Lodge). Starting this morning on Ballygally the lowest beat all was quiet with nothing seen or met.

After lunch I went to Kents a few kilometers upstream of Ballyduff and while I failed to catch anything  I did see one very fresh fish. Not quite sure if it was a small Springer or an early Grilse. The fish was about 4lbs.

Lower Kilmurry this evening looking upstream to the Island, great water for the fly.

I then went to Kilmurry after 6pm for the final few hours. Trying both the Hut pool on Upper and the Island stream on Lower with F/I/S2 head and a 4cm Silver Grey tube, A good setup for searching out the faster water in lower levels though to no avail on this occasion.

I decided to rest the Island Stream before giving it a final run and swapped over to a F/H/I head and a 10cm black/green Samurai. This is a fly that works best casted more squarely and stripped back across the current.

Getting back in at the head of the Island stream I quickly contacted a fish though it was a tentative affair and failed to hook up, still the method worked where 15 min before the standard tactics had moved nothing.

I fished on down the stream getting a good take opposite the bench, just where you'd expect however after a brief fight it turned out to be a Seatrout, unexpected though not unwelcome after along day on the  river.

The Seatrout that fancied a 10cm Samurai

While water levels are very low for the time of year, there are still a few fish coming into the river and while  a good flood is definitely needed, it's still worth a cast on the lower beats. Hopefully I might get out for a few hours tomorrow evening.

There is a great stretch to the evenings now, despite a lot of very dark clouds about this evening it was 9pm before  I stopped fishing.