Last evening I fished Upper Killmurray Beat and lost a salmon of about 10 Ilbs spinning with a yellow size 3 flying C with gold blade. When a salmon takes the lure and rushes to the surface, very often you will lose the fish because the hook has not had a chance to set.

Today, I fished the Bridgetown Prior Beat with no success on the spinner or the fly.The water level was  about 600mm higher at the Killavullen guage and is now about 300mm higher, but the water is highly coloured from the rain percolating through the peat bogs of the upper catchment. But I had great fun learning the snap T spey cast. It has poured all day so I have lit the fire and made a cup of tea.

The rain is welcome as the fish often run when the river is freshened by a new flow. Not too much and not too dirty. There are fish moving. I saw two show today, but they are not taking. Hopefully when the rain stops and the river settles back and clears, we will have good fishing.

The spring salmon run in the Blackwater has been improving in the last few years according to Ian at Blackwater Lodge. In the 1960's the Blackwater was one of the first rivers affected by the Ulcerative Dermal Necrosis (UDN) which leaves lesions on the salmon skin. UDN cause higher rates of mortality due to secondary infections. Since this outbreak of UDN, the spring salmon fishing in the Blackwater deteriorated markedly and only since the banning in 2006 of the salmon drift netting in Youghal Bay has it shown improvement. UDN may survive up to 4 years in a river and spreads worst during the highest density migration runs. In 2012, UDN was found in salmon in the Spey River in Scotland.

We are waiting for the "peels" otherwise known as "grilse" to run and hopefully in good numbers. We need some warm weather as warmer water encourages the run. These fish should be about 3 lbs typically and increase in average size with the larger grilse being about 8-10 lbs as the season progresses. The average size increases because these fish are older and have put on more condition at sea. The grilse are already running strongly in the west coast rivers such as the Moy.