Our long dry spell finally came to an end last Sunday night the 14^th, when we had 28.5mms or just over an inch of rain. It brought the river from -12 back up to 60. On Monday morning it was however very dirty, but it did clear by late afternoon. The rain was most welcome by most and especially fisheries as it finally gave smolts and kelts the opportunity to embark on their seaward journey. On the Sunday morning before the rain I made a point of counting the number of days we had without rain. It was actually 20 consecutive days with 0.0mms, which may be the norm for our Greek counterpart, but it is rather unusual in the Connemara Delphi to say the least.

Since then we have had showers of varying degrees but the river did taper off again to 20. However we got some rain on Saturday and Sunday night and it is now running at 40. We are supposed to get a mini heat wave in the middle of this week and then some rain on Saturday, but after the last six weeks I find it very difficult to have much faith in long range forecasts.

Fishing has been slow, despite the rise in water. Week 20, which was last week saw the return on many regulars, all keen salmon anglers and they did fish hard all week. We did actually manage to land two for the week and these were most welcome. Both fish were sea liced, but if they hadn’t been I would have said they had been in the system for two months. More than likely they had been in the Killary for a while and when the water finally came they ran.

Peter Milne had the first fish on the 17th, which was a real joint effort as it was taken at the top bridge. Robbie Burton spotted the fish. Leigh Hookes told Peter when to tighten and John Tappin and Hugh Brennan gave moral support. The fish weighed in at 7lbs7ozs and was taken on a Cascade.

Christopher Jarman managed to follow this up with a smaller fish on the 18^th. It weighed in at 6lbs5ozs and was taken on an Agnetha from the Horseshoe pool. Since then it has been slow but on a more positive note I did see three Springers in the Meadow Pool at 2pm today, which is encouraging.

At this stage I must compliment all anglers who have been here in the last six weeks, when conditions were far from ideal and you took it as it came and enjoyed the beauty of the place in spite of the poor fishing, so thank you for that, it does make our job that little bit easier.

D. McEvoy