Dry Fly Fishing For Salmon Ireland

DryFlyFishing

I would like to know peoples method for Dry Fly fishing for salmon in Ireland or England .

Any one do this a lot? and how successful are you compared to wet fly...

what conditions do you do it in...

how fast is the water..

how deep?

fluro LB strength?

Types of Flys used per month of the season ... what is your favourite?

do you skate or dead drift ...

and a lot more......all the stuff one needs to know...

fisherking

yes i caught one once skating a muddler

ironbluedun

salmon will take a dry-fly but as far as i am aware it is not widely practised for salmon... they are also caught dapping on the corrib now and again but as grilse runs are getting later they are less likely to overlap with mayfly....most salmon lough fishing i have ever done was with wets. Over the years i have been salmon fishing on loughs such as burrishoole, feeagh, conn, inagh, carrowmore and a few others and never saw anyone dry-fly fishing for salmon... of course that is not to say it wont work..once read about about someone dapping natural blue damsel flies for salmon on the corrib, but never saw it done.... a salmon will take a skating fly in the surface in fast and shallow water but would you call that 'dry-fly' fishing??? i would imagine that most salmon caught on dries on loughs are caught by anglers trout fishing.....

DryFlyFishing

take a look at this Salmon Dry Fly dead drifting video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sGDq9LiF1k

we have got them on the dry dead drifting on the corrib.. cast side on as much as you can to the wind and let the fly drift over the fish... but you have to know there is a salmon there

going to give this a bash this year... in rivers


i presume one just matches the hatch.. the smaller bomber the better... but you need enough gape free of deer hair... or just use small wolf olive pattern... but from what iv seen on the corrib... if there is a fish rising and it is a salmon.... it will take your fly dead drifting...

how much fun would it be to get regular salmon on 3lb fluro and a little 9foot trout rod 6# line....

there is a photo on this video that shows the amount of mayfly that was in the salmon belly http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdXyjDVwSmw

J. Ramone

I rember a few guys on the Barrow years ago who regularily fished a bushy brown flag sedge below the weirs for gilean (if thats the right spelling). I never saw them catch anything other than trout but they had faith in the method and never fished a conventional salmon fly. If I remember correctly what they said most fish caught were under 3 pounds.

coolwings

There is a basic problem with dry fly fishing for salmon in ireland.

In countries with summer snow on high altitude slopes, the summer releases water into the rivers, which may warm up downstream but are swollen by snow or glacier meltwater.
So higher water temperatures over 60F are not necessarily in low water, and fresh fish can run. These are prime dry fly taking salmon conditions.

However, in Ireland we have rain fed rivers, with mountain bog water reservoirs at the headwaters. At least we use to until all the bogs were drained. Now most of these salmon rivers fall in level and dry up as temperatures rise to the temps that make salmon look harder at dry flies. So the supply of running fresh fish dries up, and we have stale fish in shallow slow flowing warm pools, and stale fish are not very cooperative on any technique when warm temps are also present.

Yes they can be got. I have done it once or twice. But I carried dry patterns for years and did better other ways.

I found that when fresh fish are running, and water is right, you will catch more by covering more water with wet fly style, and dry fly is more for stalking and not a good searching fishing style.

It's an interesting thing to try in fast water just above the tide when fish can't get properly into a river. I once had one on a cast upstream and skimmed downstream 2.25" tube whipped down over the wavelets, in temperatures high enough that ten minutes later I had another on a down and across wet size 12 from the same lie.

J. Ramone

coolwings wrote: »

There is a basic problem with dry fly fishing for salmon in ireland.

In countries with summer snow on high altitude slopes, the summer releases water into the rivers, which may warm up downstream but are swollen by snow or glacier meltwater.
So higher water temperatures over 60F are not necessarily in low water, and fresh fish can run. These are prime dry fly taking salmon conditions.

However, in Ireland we have rain fed rivers, with mountain bog water reservoirs at the headwaters. At least we use to until all the bogs were drained. Now most of these salmon rivers fall in level and dry up as temperatures rise to the temps that make salmon look harder at dry flies. So the supply of running fresh fish dries up, and we have stale fish in shallow slow flowing warm pools, and stale fish are not very cooperative on any technique when warm temps are also present.

Yes they can be got. I have done it once or twice. But I carried dry patterns for years and did better other ways.

I found that when fresh fish are running, and water is right, you will catch more by covering more water with wet fly style, and dry fly is more for stalking and not a good searching fishing style.

It's an interesting thing to try in fast water just above the tide when fish can't get properly into a river. I once had one on a cast upstream and skimmed downstream 2.25" tube whipped down over the wavelets, in temperatures high enough that ten minutes later I had another on a down and across wet size 12 from the same lie.

Never had an explaination before, it adds up. I had put the Barrow grilse size thing down to smaller fish feeling less vulnerable in breaking the surface (small fish are less restricted in getaway paths). 2 + 2 suggests the smaller fish are the only fresh takers in good dry fly conditions.

Two questions for any barrow fishers;

Does traditional salmon fly work in suitable flows?
Are grilse still caught on dry fly?

Sorry one more, what do you call grilse locally?

DryFlyFishing

coolwings wrote: »

There is a basic problem with dry fly fishing for salmon in ireland.

In countries with summer snow on high altitude slopes, the summer releases water into the rivers, which may warm up downstream but are swollen by snow or glacier meltwater.
So higher water temperatures over 60F are not necessarily in low water, and fresh fish can run. These are prime dry fly taking salmon conditions.

However, in Ireland we have rain fed rivers, with mountain bog water reservoirs at the headwaters. At least we use to until all the bogs were drained. Now most of these salmon rivers fall in level and dry up as temperatures rise to the temps that make salmon look harder at dry flies. So the supply of running fresh fish dries up, and we have stale fish in shallow slow flowing warm pools, and stale fish are not very cooperative on any technique when warm temps are also present.

Yes they can be got. I have done it once or twice. But I carried dry patterns for years and did better other ways.

I found that when fresh fish are running, and water is right, you will catch more by covering more water with wet fly style, and dry fly is more for stalking and not a good searching fishing style.

It's an interesting thing to try in fast water just above the tide when fish can't get properly into a river. I once had one on a cast upstream and skimmed downstream 2.25" tube whipped down over the wavelets, in temperatures high enough that ten minutes later I had another on a down and across wet size 12 from the same lie.

good description of the different country water systems..

but when a river rises and alot of salmon run and then the river falls quick, like most do,

and traps the fish in the deep pools... or lakes

one has a good number of fresh fish that steadily hit the surface taking flys.

but i have only seen this a few times..

the conditions are not there often for dry Fly ... but when they are i know i cant budge a salmon on a wet fly on a sunny warm day.

cj salmon

DryFlyFishing wrote: »

good description of the different country water systems..

but when a river rises and alot of salmon run and then the river falls quick, like most do,

and traps the fish in the deep pools... or lakes

one has a good number of fresh fish that steadily hit the surface taking flys.

but i have only seen this a few times..

the conditions are not there often for dry Fly ... but when they are i know i cant budge a salmon on a wet fly on a sunny warm day.

a very good topic be interested to see how widespread it is,i honestly havnt observed much of it,i have only seen fish to sulk in low pools on very hot bright days,,
i have heard on fish been taken on small nylon tubes on floaters more or less on the surface in streamy water.with the rod being held high and controlling the drift over a fish,but this is more or less finding the fish first and trying this.
another way i havnt tried but have heard is,for sulking fish,a fast sinking line in the deeper pools ,using a collie dog tube and stripping line back quite quick is meant to induce takes.

be good to hear of people who regularly dry fly for salmon,if any