2007 Season on Ireland's Cork Blackwater

[Ian Powell]

The Future - Glenda Powell releases a fine springer on April 14, 2007

I received some criticism earlier in the year for being somewhat commercial in my previous report for which I humbly apologise to all participants!
I was also criticised for not reporting the whole river. The Blackwater is the second largest river in Ireland, next to the Shannon - being ~75 miles in length. The vast majority of fishery owners/operators do not make any information available, so an overall report is not feasible. I maintain very accurate records for the 16 beats for which I am responsible. Since this comprises some 14 miles of fishing rights spread over ~40 miles of the river starting only 3 miles above the tide, I believe that this gives a representative picture of what is happening on the prime part of the river from Lismore to Mallow.

I am posting a report here for the season in a hopefully acceptable format. It gives great cause for optimism for the future of salmon stocks in the river, Ireland & also the UK, France & Spain.


The Net Result - The Drift Nets are Gone!
Larger Grilse & Summer Salmon finally return!


Summary

This was the season that our dreams came true!
The drift net fishery was gone, and the ban was effective as only one net-marked fish was reported out of the 802 caught on the fishery for the season!
Even more encouraging was the large increase in the number and overall size of the fish running into the river.
This was coupled with a large increase in the percentage of fish taken on the fly and also the number of fish released alive back into the river.
The improved runs should also be seen in western UK fisheries, notably in Wales & Wessex.

The First Half of the Season
February:
The opening week of the season saw the river at a lovely height, with the river falling from 70 to 54 cms on the gauge. All of the fish taken for the month were baggots or kelts, and all but two were taken in this first week. Then the rains came and for the rest of the month the river was between 105 & 264cms on the gauge which meant that fishing was impossible.

March:
The high water continued well into March with the height between 94 and 314cms up until the 20th. A few rods only ventured out after the 10th., and were rewarded with five fresh spring salmon. The rain stopped around mid-March & by the end of the month the river had fallen to 50cms – a very low level for the time of year.
April:
The river fell from 50 to 30cms through the month which brought it down to low/medium summer level and few fish were running. All but one of the fish caught were taken by the 20th.
May:
The river was between 30 and 20cms for almost the whole month. On the Blackwater, we usually enjoy a very good run of what we would call our May fish. Well into double figures with a good proportion in the 14/15lb. class, this is a distinct run that comes later than the springers & usually just before the grilse.
Unfortunately for us this year, we suffered abnormal drought conditions from mid March right through until a 4 foot flood on June 22. Consequently, very few fish moved into the system and the May catch was well below normal – exacerbated by the low number of anglers fishing.
Overall Comments on the Spring Run
In recent years, we have seen a significant increase in the spring run. This was not evident from catches this spring, but most of the run had obviously come in on the abnormally high water from mid-February to mid-March, leaving few fresh fish to come in during late March & April. This was exacerbated by the drought conditions that immediately followed the floods.


The Second Half of the Season

June:
The drift netting season was June and July, and we naturally had high expectations for improved runs of fish at this time now that they had free passage into the rivers.
However, Nature was cruel, and the drought extended right up to the last week of June so the few anglers fishing out of the Lodge in the first 3 weeks of June didn’t see the benefit of the drift net ban. The river level was between 37 and a disastrously low 15cms right up until the 19th., during which time only 7 fish were taken.
Rain then put the river in flood & out of order for 5 days, and 37 fish were taken in the last 9 days of the month as the river began to fine off.

July:
The average height in July was almost 60cms, very high for the time of year and with four spates spread over the month which took the level to 100cms & one to 70cms. This of course got a great run of fish coming into the river. Rather low angling effort kept the actual catch total lower than would be expected, but the catch per rod day was very high at 0.6.

August:
Again the level was very high for summer time, with a couple of spates reaching 90 and 130cms. The catch level was exceptional (the fourth best ever for August) considering the number of rods fishing, and the catch per rod day was a spectacular 0.8.
September:
The river fined off steadily from 35 to 24cms for the first 3 weeks of September when a flood took it up to 190cms on the 21st. It fell back to 50cms on the 24th, rose again to 59cm the next day then fined off to 32cms by the end of the month.
The catch total was very good, partly due to a much higher rod effort in this very popular month, with the catch per rod day at 0.4.

Overall Comments on the Second Half of the Season:

Percentage of Fly-caught Fish

There was a dramatic increase in the percentage of fly-caught salmon this year relative to the 10 Year Average. The only month which showed a reduction was July, which was due to the very high water for the time of year making fly-fishing very difficult – if not impossible.

Increase in the Weight of Fish Caught

There was a significant increase in the weight of the fish caught this year relative to the 10 Year Average. Overall, the increase was 17%, with the months which were formerly the netting season ie: June & July both showing a massive 36% increase!

Number of Fish Caught and Catch per Rod Day
The total number of fish caught for the whole season was 8% higher than the Five Year Average to 2006. However, this is relative to the number of rods fishing.
If we take the catch per rod day, the overall figure for the season is a remarkable 0.46, which is 41% higher than the Five Year Average and 58% higher than the Ten Year Average. It was only equalled by the superb catch in 2004, when August floods brought in huge numbers of autumn fish.

Summary
The removal of the drift nets has been of immense benefit to the stocks of salmon in the Blackwater. There have been far more and far bigger fish running than normal, and the sport anglers have enjoyed has improved as a consequence.
Most importantly, the drift net ban has also evidently held up well, as only one fish caught in the whole season displayed net marks.

There is a massive stock of fish in the river, which should ensure an excellent spawning year and further improved runs in years to come.
There has been a huge and welcome change in visiting anglers attitude regarding releasing of salmon, and a far higher percentage of fish have been returned alive than ever before. All sporting anglers realise that “a wild Atlantic Salmon is far too precious a resource to be caught only once!” (Lee Wulff).

[greenbanks]

Super post Ian.
Great to read some fishers had a super August as we had in Scotland.
Hopefully this will encourage some more anglers to travel over the Irish sea and fish in your lovely country.Have heard so many nice stories about Ireland and have met some super ambassadors for your country like Robert and Granville who post here.Good luck for next year.

[kercock]

A joy to read Ian, well done. Here on the Tay the catches are well down ,our own beat, Kercock ,is about fifty fish down on the average catch (five year) this season and165 down on last years record catch for the season! ! Brings tears to a glass eye.

[sealicer]

Good to see you had a better season Ian, but why are you recording kelts & baggots in your final total of 802 salmon?

[Ian Powell]

Thanks to Greenbanks & Kercock for the comments. With a huge head of fish especially in the upper catchment we are set for a fabulous spawning year which bodes well for stocks in years to come.
In response to Sealicer.
We always had a policy of only recording absolutely fresh genuine spring salmon, which inevitably meant our catch numbers wer low, particularly in February. In response to a lot of comments from my guests that most other fisheries would record baggots and kelts as salmon caught, I invited all of the people on my mailing list (~3,800) for their comments as to what we should be doing. The overwhelming majority felt that they should be recorded so this is what we now do. We get quite number of baggots in February and even early March - beautifully conditioned sea-liced fish which many people would be forgiven for mistaking for genuine springers, especially as they fight so well. Also I find a surprising number of anglers who genuinely think they have caught a spring when in fact it is a very well-mended kelt.
In any event, the number is very small (less than 20) in comparison to the 802 fish recorded on our beats.

[sealicer]

Thanks for the explanation Ian, the reason i asked was that i have never counted kelts or baggots nor have i seen them counted on any beats i have fished (Dee, Don, Spey, Deveron, Tay) As you say they are not a high percentage of your catch, but on some beats in the north east rivers they can total hundreds in some springs.

[minitube]

I find your post hard to comprehend Ian.

Sea liced baggots.

The overwhelming majority of your mailing list wanting kelts and baggots included in your catch.

Personally I don't know any Fishery anywhere in the U.K. or Ireland that counts kelts or Baggots as part of their catch, or that would wish to do so. Indeed I don't think anyone else anywhere in the world would do so apart from the Mirimachi Black Fish Fishery where they clearly state it is Black fish fishing for spent fish.

I also don't know one single angler of my aquaintence in Ireland who would want to see baggots or kelts included in salmon and grilse catch records.

[whippy]

A RECORD of kelts and baggots would provide useful fishery information/indicators but, to include them in the actual catch records gives the wrong impression.

[castslikeaghille]

Kelts and Baggots (Rawners anyone) in the official catch returns - now that really is the thin end of the wedge for all sorts of reasons.

Jeeze

CLaG

[altmor]

Shocking to include kelts, baggots or as CLaG rightly says, rawners (unspent hens) in any beat's catch tally, but and at the risk of being controversial, let's look at the stats :

We arrive with good intentions and high hopes to our chosen beat in February, having dusted off the close season's blues, with as much pent up enthusiasm as a pedophile at a school's sport's day, (possibly bad analogy), and no-one I know would set out to deliberately fish for kelts/baggots.

However in the quest of the silver taker, a kelt takes the fly / tube / waddington (or for that matter spinner / rapala etc).

It's in season, it's been caught by legal means, it's a fish, which by it's definition as a kelt under all beat rules / regs I'm aware of is a fish to be returned - yet all the same it is a fish.

On the basis that a "fish" has been caught by an angler, then estates may feel justified in recording it as a catch, and is that wrong ?

Morally however,this only sets out to deceive anglers and possibly prospective purchasers of the beat at a time of sale, when "numbers" mean money, so it's not so much a question of is it bad or wrong to "catch a kelt", as this will happen - is it not more "it's wrong of the estate to deceive" in this manner ?

Again, I'm not aware of any beat / river in Scotland that follows this practice thankfully, it is after all, and I would hope, fresh fish the majority are after.

Altmor.

[castslikeaghille]

altmor said:

Shocking to include kelts, baggots or as CLaG rightly says, rawners (unspent hens) in any beat's catch tally, but and at the risk of being controversial, let's look at the stats :

We arrive with good intentions and high hopes to our chosen beat in February, having dusted off the close season's blues, with as much pent up enthusiasm as a pedophile at a school's sport's day, (possibly bad analogy), and no-one I know would set out to deliberately fish for kelts/baggots.

However in the quest of the silver taker, a kelt takes the fly / tube / waddington (or for that matter spinner / rapala etc).

It's in season, it's been caught by legal means, it's a fish, which by it's definition as a kelt under all beat rules / regs I'm aware of is a fish to be returned - yet all the same it is a fish.

On the basis that a "fish" has been caught by an angler, then estates may feel justified in recording it as a catch, and is that wrong ?

Morally however,this only sets out to deceive anglers and possibly prospective purchasers of the beat at a time of sale, when "numbers" mean money, so it's not so much a question of is it bad or wrong to "catch a kelt", as this will happen - is it not more "it's wrong of the estate to deceive" in this manner ?

Again, I'm not aware of any beat / river in Scotland that follows this practice thankfully, it is after all, and I would hope, fresh fish the majority are after.

Altmor.

I thought about playing devil's advocate on this one, along the lines above. However, I decided that this was such a piece of sh1te I wouldn't and here's why.

Fine to post every fish you catch. Ok so Park on the Dee had about 700 and i'd guess 2 - 300 kelts more? - SPK - comment please. So suppose the published (and undistinguished catch is 1000). Now a genuine angler would go wow - but they would be being conned. Now suppose the catch was published as split, the beginner would go wow 1000 fish, but they would just be being naive and exploited

If kelts looked like springers and usually battled like springers; no issue - but the reality is they don't 95% + of the time. They are unclean spent fish. Any move to have them counted as sport is heinous on two grounds:

1) The impact they have on fish price. Fish Greed would have a field day. Overnight the most over rated and priced salmon river in the world could suddenly claim the annual catch was 20,000+ - guess what happens to rod prices.

2) More importantly, morally. Most spring beats in January, February and early March have relatively light fishing presure these days. Anything that encourages people to start queueing up to fish for spent and truly fecked creatures, of which only 5% will survive at the best of times, is a total and utter disgrace.

What next, rainbow trout fisheries counting perch in the bag average? There endeth the polemic.

CLaG

[greenbanks]

castslikeaghille said:

altmor said:

Shocking to include kelts, baggots or as CLaG rightly says, rawners (unspent hens) in any beat's catch tally, but and at the risk of being controversial, let's look at the stats :

We arrive with good intentions and high hopes to our chosen beat in February, having dusted off the close season's blues, with as much pent up enthusiasm as a pedophile at a school's sport's day, (possibly bad analogy), and no-one I know would set out to deliberately fish for kelts/baggots.

However in the quest of the silver taker, a kelt takes the fly / tube / waddington (or for that matter spinner / rapala etc).

It's in season, it's been caught by legal means, it's a fish, which by it's definition as a kelt under all beat rules / regs I'm aware of is a fish to be returned - yet all the same it is a fish.

On the basis that a "fish" has been caught by an angler, then estates may feel justified in recording it as a catch, and is that wrong ?

Morally however,this only sets out to deceive anglers and possibly prospective purchasers of the beat at a time of sale, when "numbers" mean money, so it's not so much a question of is it bad or wrong to "catch a kelt", as this will happen - is it not more "it's wrong of the estate to deceive" in this manner ?

Again, I'm not aware of any beat / river in Scotland that follows this practice thankfully, it is after all, and I would hope, fresh fish the majority are after.

Altmor.

I thought about playing devil's advocate on this one, along the lines above. However, I decided that this was such a piece of sh1te I wouldn't and here's why.

Fine to post every fish you catch. Ok so Park on the Dee had about 700 and i'd guess 2 - 300 kelts more? - SPK - comment please. So suppose the published (and undistinguished catch is 1000). Now a genuine angler would go wow - but they would be being conned. Now suppose the catch was published as split, the beginner would go wow 1000 fish, but they would just be being naive and exploited

If kelts looked like springers and usually battled like springers; no issue - but the reality is they don't 95% + of the time. They are unclean spent fish. Any move to have them counted as sport is heinous on two grounds:

1) The impact they have on fish price. Fish Greed would have a field day. Overnight the most over rated and priced salmon river in the world could suddenly claim the annual catch was 20,000+ - guess what happens to rod prices.

2) More importantly, morally. Most spring beats in January, February and early March have relatively light fishing presure these days. Anything that encourages people to start queueing up to fish for spent and truly fecked creatures, of which only 5% will survive at the best of times, is a total and utter disgrace.

What next, rainbow trout fisheries counting perch in the bag average? There endeth the polemic.

CLaG

Nigel as requested i can confirm 696 fish caught,over 100 seatrout and perhaps 400 kelts between feb-april.There were 95 taken on opening day and Mr Armandleg had 18 on the Sunray which whilst giving lots of takes and raising hope for him one can only imagine his disenchantment at not getting a clean fish amongst all the pulls that day.In the north bank bothy that evening there was a lot of commiserations offered.Nick more than made up for that with a lot of susbsequent successful sorties during the season.Its a con in my opinion to count kelts,rawners baggots as fish,the courts i suspect call them unclean and not fish dont they,you cant eat them or wouldnt want to?I had some Norwegian guests in early march who were catching kelts who were disappointed that when they showed me the pictures,proudly of course,of their Lax caught i advised that they were Kelts.I suppose its understandable that there may be confusion as their season doesnt open until June so they dont see Kelts.Perhaps on the Blackwater in Feb their customers are European and dont know any better?I am surprised that customers would be canvassed to get their opinion but nothing surprises me in angling,but am at a loss to guess why they would be asked that question,unless there were more questions asked at the time,that we dont know about, where we may not be getting the full picture here.

[minitube]

Well said Altmor, Clag and Greenbanks,

Any Moy stretch vould increase its catch by literally hundreds and the whole river by thousands if anyone started counting kelts or fishing for them in February.

[lomond]

Greenbanks, if the Norwegians didn't take any pictures, the fish would have been recorded as springers ? On a C&R river, surely inexperienced rods catch kelts, return them thinking it was a springer and tell they Ghille they caught a fresh fish and it is thus recored ? Surely you don't see every fish caught ?

Lomond

[greenbanks]

lomond said:

Greenbanks, if the Norwegians didn't take any pictures, the fish would have been recorded as springers ? On a C&R river, surely inexperienced rods catch kelts, return them thinking it was a springer and tell they Ghille they caught a fresh fish and it is thus recored ? Surely you don't see every fish caught ?

Lomond

Lomond this is a problem for all ghillies,and you are right you dont see all,but you can see most, but you have to rely on your fishers to call you when they hook up,Ghillies on opposite banks do call each other when they see a rod hook up.This at least gives you a chance to motor to the scene and see the fish for yourself.Fishers are pretty good at keeping fish in nets for verification if they have a wee doubt,or for taking pictures on phones and cameras.If they have any doubt then by and large your fish is usually a kelt,this gets tricky come the end of april though with the last kelts being caught are very well mended.There will always be statistical anomalies though and there must be some wee springers thought of as kelts and wee kelts thought of as springers.There is no substitute for experience Lomond and you to a degree, have to carefully extract info tactfully from an angler without upsetting him, if he claims a kelt is a springer as he's the paying customer, and as ghillie you really want him to enjoy his sport,helping with their fish identification is something you can do.Guess we have all at one time thought a kelt was a fish early on in our fishing careers though? I find that by chatting to your fishers you will assess beforehand who knows what a kelt is and who may be unsure,then you can keep close by and point out things like post spawning extruded vents etc.This is what makes our sport a gentlemans activity as there has to be trust involved or your beat loses its credibility by massaging erroneous figures.
I highlighted the norwegian fishers scenario as an example of what can happen.I had 4 norwegian anglers through the spring period of which 3 were internationally renowned,1 wasn't,however 2 were not used to seeing kelts imo and as keeper of the books you have to report your findings as honestly as you can.

[lomond]

Thanks for the explanation Greenbanks. It's a tough one to keep track of. Sounds like you are doing a good job of it at Park. Cheers L

[greenbanks]

lomond said:

Thanks for the explanation Greenbanks. It's a tough one to keep track of. Sounds like you are doing a good job of it at Park. Cheers L

Thanks Lomond for your kind remark.
It is certainly a challenge at times but one that can be so enjoyable, a bit like our sport.Tight Lines to you.

Kenny