Saturday, 18th May 2013 -  I went to the Ballygarrett Beat of Blackwater Lodge. You access the river through a stud farm and the large brood mares are inquisitive and could be a bit intimidating if you are not used to the cheeky tactics of young horses.

All through April and May, there have been pheasants on the roads with the cock pheasants screeching away.

Cock Pheasants at Ballygarrett












The Ballygarrett Beat is one of the upper River Blackwater Lodge Beats, being just out of Mallow accessed via the Killavullen Road and so tends to clear earlier after rain than the lower river which is about 7 hours behind and the water level lowers earlier.

One of the better pools is reputed to be under the second set of electricity transmission lines. But I used a spinner without success.

Ballygarrett Beat at Pool under transmission lines looking upstream
Ballygarrett Beat at Pool looking downstream under transmission lines looking towards the bend

Grey, brown and olive/yellow duns have been hatching on Woodstream and Ballygarrett

Grey Dun Hatching at Ballygarrett

Olive/Yellow Dun hatching at Ballygarrett

 Brown dun hatching at Ballygarrett

 Brown dun hatching at Ballygarrett

Brown dun hatching at Ballygarrett

 Grey dun hatching at Woodstream

 Grey dun hatching at Woodstream











The colour in the water can be seen in the above photographs. It dirties up after rain with both sediment (turbidity) and colour from the upper catchment peat deposits.

I am off to Bridgetown Abbey Beat today and will take the salmon single handed rod, trout rod as well as the spinning gear.

I have added below the link to Youtube with  video of me catching my third salmon. Apologies for the lack of composition, it was hard to get the camera headband on whilst playing the fish. I shall improve.

My third salmon of the season caught at Woodstream