William Thornton reports
Angling effort was well up for the last week of the season with over 700 salmon reported caught with a big percentage released. This brought the total catch for the season to 7,427 which is slightly up on the 2017 total and well up on the previous five year average of 6,523.
Over the last week, water levels and conditions were good and the weather was quiet mild. Catches were spread out across the system with the majority of fish taken on spinner and prawn. On the Moy Fishery, Ridge Pool Ghillie, John Howley, had the last fish of the season, a 3.75 lbs. bar of silver taken on trout flies. On the Ballina Salmon Anglers’ water, Michael Griffin ,NI, had another fresh fish of 7+lbs., while on Mount Falcon a group with Phil Martin landed 35 fish in four days. French visitor, Eric Faure, caught a 9 lbs. salmon on bubble & fly on Gannon’s, while John Chambers, NI, and Brian Niall caught and released fish of 9 lbs.+ on the Foxford Fishery.
Bernard Bozec, France, landed a six pounder spinning on the Cloongee Fishery. On the East Mayo Anglers water, German flyangler, Michael Weisser, had a 7 lbs. fish which he released. Other successful anglers on East Mayo included , Ewan MacGregor, Scotland, with a 4 lbs. fish on fly (released) and Wolfgang Belger, Germany, who had a fine fish of 11 lbs. also on fly.
