A very wet start to June which rose the river levels and did bring some fish in from the estuary and moved fish above Carlisle further upstream. As the levels dropped and the water cleared, we’ve had one salmon landed, two lost and a few missed. More rain on the tenth and eleventh keeping levels around the foot mark with some colour.
Really strong westerly winds have persisted all through the first two weeks of the month, not an enjoyable experience in the middle of a river!
All change on the twentieth, a heatwave in the upper twenties Celsius have dropped levels to summer low and kept the salmon in and around the estuary. The trout fishing has been surprisingly quite good considering the high air temperatures and bright sunlight, the water temperature is around seventeen degrees Celsius so no stressed fish yet.
Plenty of invertebrate life on the river bed, a big improvement on previous months and minnow’s in the margins.
Had the pleasure of watching an Osprey fishing Carr Head pool and leaving with a decent trout while being harassed by a gang of crows, while an otter was also fishing in the pool!
The last few days of June, the temperatures are dropping and a little wet weather coming our way.
July is grilse time and the last two days of June we have seen both salmon and grilse coming in off the tides. With this low and clear water, using small flies and fishing first and last light if there is no cloud cover during the daytime.
The water temperature is at 17.5oC so no worries about fish stress if you handle them properly, keep them wet, get them recovered and get them back in the water as quickly as possible.
