Fishery News & Reports

DELPHI LODGE AND FISHERY

Posted in Feb 2015

Best February Since 2001

February 2015 was an excellent month for salmon fishing here at Delphi, with a total of twelve fish landed for the month. This makes it the most successful February since 2001.

You could say it started with a blast, excuse the pun, as we had a group of Germans from Bavaria who came over for the blast and cast. The blast was good, but the cast was beyond our wildest dreams with four fish landed on opening day. The highlight of these was Andreas Durr’s first ever salmon of 6lbs11ozs landed in the King’s pool on a Willie Gunn. It was rather appropriate as Andreas’ son Florian had just bagged his first woodcock with the last shot of the 2014/15 season, the previous day.

Local angler Sean Moogan from Westport managed to land a nice fish the following day of approx. 6.5lbs also on a Willie Gunn in Cooleens.

Water levels dropped off quite a bit then as we experienced quite a bit of dry settled weather. It wasn’t until Valentines’ day when Delphi’s own Mick Wade bagged a beautiful fish of 10lbs14ozs from the Whin pool on a Delphi Collie that we landed our sixth of the season.

Week 8 was one of near misses with quite a few anglers encountering fish but none managed to stay on until Steve Jones did exceptionally well to hook and land a fish in the Schoolhouse with the gauge at 63. The fish weighed in at 6lbs15ozs and was taken on a Delphi Collie.

An experienced party headed by Angus Sutherland fished hard all weekend with David Felton finally bagging a fish in the last few casts. The fish was taken on a Collie Dog from the Waterfall and weighed in at 7lbs4ozs.

There then followed an exceptional three days which was experienced by three Northern anglers headed by Philip McGarrity. They landed four fish and lost two. Robert Arthurs landed his first ever, a fish of 9lbs9ozs in the King’s on a Delphi Collie. Philip McGarrity landed three for three days, one from Cooleens of 7lbs7.5ozs and two from the Waterfall of 8lbs10ozs and approx. 8.5lbs, all on a Delphi Collie. We must spare a thought for the third member of the party George Yendell who sadly lost two fish.

The last two days of February saw quite a lot of rain with the river rising to 90 on Saturday afternoon in conjunction with southerly gales. Then the temperatures plummeted, both air and water and we even had some snow at ground level which makes spring fishing even more challenging. The river was at 70 on Sunday, 65 yesterday and is down to 58 today. This should bode well for the days to come as the temperatures, hopefully are supposed to rise.

All in all it was a great start to the 2015 season and personally February is one of my favourite months to fish as it’s great to get a fly in the water again. The contrast in weather conditions can also be fascinating and the peace and quiet is great. There is also the added bonus that the Bundorragha is almost always fishable due to the clarity of our water which is due to the three lakes on the system and the fact that most of the water comes off rock rather than bog. It is only in very high water or exceptional winds due to sedge grass in the water that it becomes unfishable but this normally only lasts for a few hours.

After a great February, here’s hoping the rest of the season continues in the same vein.
D.McEvoy