A Season's Finale 2008

"...The Summer/late season fishing has been improving over the last couple of seasons..."

With the season well and truly over now, tackle sorted, rods cleaned and put way in their cases, except my favorite double hander which I will use for Spey-casting practice during the winter. Looking back, we can say it was a mixed season with fairly sporadic Spring fishing (low water levels) and excellent Summer fishing right up till the close of the season, apart from the days where we couldn't get near the rivers owing to some huge floods. The Summer/late season fishing has been improving over the last couple of seasons, though the main runs be they Grilse, Larger Summer Salmon and Autumn fish seem to arriving later every year. Almost a month late in most cases. We are now seeing the main run of Grilse in August as opposed to June/July, the larger Summer fish that we would expect to see in August are showing up mid August to mid September, and on most rivers this year we caught only a glimpse of the Autumn fish in the closing week of the season. This is not to sat that the fishing was not good as numbers on most rivers here in the south were excellent particularly the Munster Blackwater it just seems to be happening later and later. I think as do many others at this stage that there is a need for the opening and closing times for the Salmon seasons to be re-assessed . Perhaps if everything opened a month later and closed a month later taking us up till the end of October, even on a catch and release basis. This would also in turn give the late spawners which we are seeing more and more off to finish what they started and the kelts more time to exit the rivers. We could do alot more with October than we ever could with late January & February (most of the Kerry systems open on January 17th with the 1st February for Cork). So What do I think about next season ? I think four months is along time. Seriously though things will depend a lot on water levels, if the pattern follows it could be a dry Spring and wet Summer though second guessing the weather can be tricky at best. We'll have to wait and see, though I'm quite sure the Summer/Autumn fishing will be excellent, A good Spring run will depend on water levels. I can tell you that no matter what the levels I'll be out there on opening day and I'm sure there will be a few fish around. In the mean time there will be plenty of casting practice, getting some new flies ready for next year and maybe a new rod and reel or two. If we get some settled weather over the next 2 months there should be some good Bass fishing to be had. will keep you updated. Kieran.