Just after I post a blog about the beautiful weather we are having and the dreadful fishing conditions we are having, we catch 2 fresh fish. These wonderful creatures never cease to amaze me.

Yesterday morning Yvonne Zirngibl had a sea liced fish of  5lbs7ozs on a Willie Gunn off Finlough. For those of you who can’t remember I did say the river was at 3 cms, which is an amazing level for fish to run the river at.

Marcel Dittrich then had 1 in the afternoon of  approx. 7lbs off the Whin pool again on a Willie Gunn. This fish was fresh but without sea lice.

This brings our total for the year to 24.

Besides this we have a great story this weekend. It concerns a man who is visiting us at the moment. Bob Windsor was fishing the Whin pool in 1994 when he heard a funny noise in the hut. On further examination he discovered a kitten. He approached the nearest house which happened to be where I was living at the time and asked my wife Sarah who was expecting Orla was the kitten ours, which it wasn’t. He proceeded to take the kitten home with him and he named itDelphi. The cat only died last year aged 17 years and one of Bob’s tasks this weekend is to scatter Delphi’s ashes at the hut in the Whin pool.

It was only in discussion with Bob yesterday that we realised the young woman he talked to was my wife Sarah. This is definitely a story for the books.
D.McEvoy

Fishing this week has been difficult to say the least. One would be forgiven for thinking you were on the Cote d’Azuras temperatures reached 21degrees.

The gauge on the Rock Pool is now reading 3cms; so you could say water levels are low.

It’s on weeks like this one has to sit back and enjoy Delphi for what it is, one of the most beautiful places on earth, even though blue skies and no wind are the salmon fisherman’s nightmare.

Believe it or not we did actually catch 3 fish this week, all off Doolough trolling. Hasse Dehlin had one at Cross Point on Sunday of 10lbs approx.

Stephan Boninger had a fish of approx. 8lbs on Monday fromBadgerBayand Hasse Dehlin had his second on Tuesday fromWeedyBayof  7.5lbs approx.

All fish were fresh but not sea liced.

At the moment it looks like the dry weather is set to continue and the wind is to go northerly which will make fishing challenging to say the least. It may be a question of taking in the beauty once more and considering oneself lucky to be alive.

I’ll sign off now before I start talking too much bull—–
D.McEvoy

Paddy’s day was as per here; dry at first and then rain, rain and more rain. We actually had 26.5mm recorded on the 17^th.
So this made for great water conditions on Sunday but I’m afraid the fish did not co-operate. Some of our anglers even went to the Owenduff with nice conditions and they also blanked.

Yesterday, however we did manage to land 2 fish.

Thomas Dehlin had a fresh fish off Finlough of 7lbs on a Norwegian tube fly.

Local angler Peter Joyce landed a sea liced fish of 6lbs10.5 ozs in the Whin Pool on a Willie Gunn.

Conditions today are good with the river running at 30, but so far we have nothing landed.
D.McEvoy

It’s at times like this that the importance of catching fish pales into insignificance. It was with great sadness last night that I heard of the sudden and untimely death of Rosie Shortt last Friday

Rosie was a regular visitor to Delphi with her husband Mark who has a timeshare here in September. Many of you would also know Rosie’s brother in law Mike Shortt who is also a long standing customer.

All I can say is Rosie was a lovely woman and always enjoyed her time here. As a couple they were inseparable, you never saw one without the other.

I would like to extend our sympathies to Mark and all his family.

May she rest in peace.
D.McEvoy

Our last fish on Tuesday was when the river was at 20. Since then the water dropped until we had heavy rain on Thursday and Thursday night, 35.2mm to be exact.

This gave the system a good flush of water and we had fresh fish in. Conditions on Friday were good and Gareth Byrne from Offaly had a cracking fish off Finlough of 15lbs on a Cascade. Surprisingly that was all we had yesterday,

Today we have a new Swedish group in for the week headed by Hasse Dehlin.  Conditions today are excellent and the tops of the hills are even white so it’s typical Spring fishing. Joakim Jonsson started the week in fine style landing a fish that weighed in about 9lbs on a Sunrae Shadow from the Holly Pool. He then proceeded to lose one in the Rock.

The water is now running at 50 so there should be nice water for a few days.

And to all reading Happy St.Paddy’s day.

D.McEvoy

It’s been a very good seven days and we have had 3 cracking fish since my last update on Sunday, despite water conditions becoming relatively low.

Keith Pilkington had a 9lbs8ozs fish off the Rock Pool yesterday morning. The fish was taken on a Green and Black tube at 9.20am. It was netted by Keith’s long time fishing partner Peter Morrison who did according to Keith attempt to knock the fish off a couple of times but failed to do so and landed the fish safely.

This morning Laurence Lock landed a beautiful 12lbs9ozs fish as seen in photo. It was taken in the Rock Pool with the river at 20. The fly was once again a Mediator. Laurence has now landed 3 fish in 4 days which is pretty impressive at this stage of the season.

This afternoon Stewart Woodhead landed a 10lbs8ozs fish from the Rock Pool again, 10 minutes after he started to fish on a Dundee United.

The river is still at 20 and hopefully we will get a top up in the next few days. There is still some availability up till and including Friday.
D.McEvoy

The fish were late starting but it has been nice and steady since then.

Since my last update we have had 5 fish. There was 1 on Friday, 3 yesterday and 1 this morning. This brings total for the month and the year to 9 fish.

Friday’s fish was caught by Liam Dunne off Finlough in the stream and weighed in at 10lbs and .5 of an ounce. It also took a Willie Gunn. His fishing partner Paul Smyth had lost one on the river in the morning.

Laurence Lock is back and managed to hook and land a fish within 10 minutes of starting in the stream on Finlough. The fish weighed in at 8lbs2ozs and was taken on a Mediator.

Brian O’Donohue who started on the river yesterday morning landed 2 fish from the Whin pool, in 30 minutes. The first weighed in at 6lbs5ozs and the second was approximately 10lbs. Both fish were surprisingly taken on a Willie Gunn!!

This morning Laurence Lock had the first fish off Doolough of 7lbs approx. This was taken on a Blair Spoon in WeedyBay.

We are also joined this week by Keith Pilkington and Peter Morrison who have a lot to live up to after the great week they had last year. Peter is half the reason why the Morrison Pool got it’s name; Tom was the other. Peter lost it and Tom caught it ( it being the salmon of course) 30 minutes later, with Peter’s fly and leader still intact. After a coincidence like this it was decided to rename the Islandpool to Morrison’s.

Believe it or not this event actually took place on the 24^th of March 1993.

Water is now running at 30 and weather is mild so I would expect the present trend of landing fish to hopefully continue.
D.McEvoy

After finally getting off to a great start on Wednesday, this was followed yesterday with a cracking fish of 12lbs12ozs taken by Michael McLaughin.

Michael’s fish was taken off Finlough on a Willie Gunn in the stream. I’m glad to say that it didn’t take as long to land as the one he got last year on the 8^th of April which took two hours to bring to the net. By coincidence this was exactly the same weight as yesterdays fish.

There was nothing off the river yesterday despite excellent conditions. Hopefully someone will be lucky today with the river still running at 35.

We still have some availability next week so do contact us if you want to get off the mark for 2012.