Ballyarton Weir

Ballyarton Weir came into my head one day last week.  It will be a year, next month, since the weir got destroyed during the worst flooding the North West had ever seen.

I have very fond memories of the weir.  I remember my dad taking me to see if there were any fish running when I was young.  I'm old enough to remember the steps and all the attampts made to make the weir more accessible for migrating salmon and trout but none of them really working any better than what was there before. I remember fishing in the 'flats' above the weir.  I remember trying to get photos of the fish trying to get over the weir on the camera.  Great memories.  Hours spent there that seemed to pass in the blink of an eye.

I've tried to do a bit of research on the weir and the mills it served and uncovered a lot of information.  Including, Murder most fowl! I'll get some of it together and put it on a later blog post.

As I've said, I really loved this area but have not fished it in a good few years.  I already said that I'd lost the bug for fishing a bit and I didn't give this area the attention it deserved.  Now it is gone.  Is that a bad thing though?

When I was in my late teens and early 20s, almost every Sunday morning in the later part of the season, I got dropped off at McCandless's Bridge,  the wee narrow bridge on the Cumber Road and I fished the river, with spinner, all the way home.  A good 6 or 7 miles at a guess.

The whole area had changed long before last year's flood though.  I remember fishing it years ago and there were small rocky pools about half way down from the bridge.  These held fish.  Then at the bottom of the field on the right bank of the river, there was a huge bend with the river almost a horse shoe shape with a big deep pool right on the bend.  A few years ago, some organisation installed groynes of large boulders to help speed up some of the streams and pools.  Really all that was achieved was that the streams and pools silted up.  That, once extremely deep, pool had got really shallow the last time I fished it.  I seriously doubt if it held fish.  Maybe it did.  The outflow of this pool was the last piece of running, streamy, water before the 'flats'.

It was a great throw in good water.  Even if the water was dirty down with me, it always cleaned earlier up at Claudy and neck of Crossan's was always worth a throw.  Everyone knew this however.  I remember going to fish it one day and when I arrived at McCandless's bridge there was 24 cars parked up.  Needless to say I didn't get out of the car and came home again.

The fish laid up in the dam in low water and when they got the chance to run, they would move up through the stream.  If you could get there as fresh water was hitting, the sport could be fantastic.

The flats themselves could be quite dour.  It was flat, canal like, water and it could be very difficult to get a fish to rise to anything.  Most people who fished the flats did so with worms.  It was also a popular place for night time sea trout fly fishing.

That was back in the days when I believed that you couldn't fish fly in low water for salmon, let alone still water.  Now that I have learned tactics and techniques for low water, it will be a great regret of mine that I never tried them on the flats.  I had always intended to.  But, I put it off and put it off and now there are no flats.

The 'Flats' frozen in January 2010

As I said in the opening of this post, I am old enough to remember the old 'Carry Steps'.  They were literally that.  Concrete steps built in triangles and pointing downstream.  I remember them being there but I don't actually remember seeing a fish on them but apparantly fish could be easily 'gaffed' off the steps by poachers.

No matter how much of a barrier to migration the weir was, fish have always seemed to get over or past it someway with salmon and trout always caught above the weir during the season.  I saw this in Olly McGilloway's book, "Along the Faughan side",  "The layde, which starts fifty yards upstream of the weir, has a 'cut' into the river immediately below the weir.  The 'cut' acts as a pass to allow fish up into the dam at times of low water".  I never knew such a 'cut' existed.  I really do not remember that.  But, it must have worked to some extent. It was probably also abused by poachers.

In later years, there were tanks installed and were supposed to let the fish swim up into, rest for a while, before swimming or jumping up into the next tank and eventually over the weir.  This didn't turn out to be all that successful either with the force of water coming out of the tank openings being extremely strong the fish had difficulty getting through them in floods.

The last attempt to leave the weir more fish friendly involved putting in large boulders to force the fish through a narrow channel and up into holding areas where they could rest up before trying the tanks or even jumping over the weir.  Again, it didn't quite work as planned.  In flood, the fish found it difficult to get through the narrow channel with the force of the water.  When the flood started to go down, there was only a relatively narrow window in the height of the flood that the fish could jump over the weir.  There could be a foot of water left on a flood and the fish could not jump the weir, although they tried and tried and tried again.  The main problem though was that the boulders and concrete slabs that had been installed took a serious battering in floods with trees and other debris knocking them all over the place.  This then left it difficult for fish to get up through.  It was also an awful eyesore in my opinion.

The remains of some of the works to make the weir more migrateable in January 2010

I sat at the weir in October 2010 after the fishing season had finished.  I sat a good couple of hours and you could almost touch the fish I was so close to them.  This was my first time trying to photograph salmon at the weir.

Two salmon trying to get over the Weir in October 2010

I was still getting used to the camera and ended up with more photos of water than fish.  When I arrived there were plenty of fish showing at the weir.  My first thought was, "there is some run of fish in the river".  After I'd sat for those few hours watching fish jumping and jumping and jumping, it dawned on me.  Those fish couldn't get over the weir.  The water wasn't high enough.  Yet in their desperation to reach the spawning grounds, they were relentlessly jumping and falling back.  Jumping and falling back.  It was actually extremely sad.  It sickened me a bit.

For different reasons, I hadn't got fishing since September in 2010.  After watching those fish knocking their brains out trying to get over Ballyarton, I haven't cast a line after September since.  It just didn't sit right with me.  For a long time I had felt that I didn't really like catching coloured fish.  Some say that fish begin to colour as they reach spawning condition and lose their fats and nutrients as they spend time in the river without eating.  When I thought about those coloured fish and the nutrients they had already lost, the energy wasted on the end of my line, and maybe, still have to waste more energy trying to get over that weir, it just finished me with fishing for coloured fish.

I missed getting to the weir in 2011 but I got back in 2012.  This time there was much more water in the river.

More water in the river in early November 2012

Even in this height of water.  There were more fish falling back than were getting over.  It just still seemed an awful waste of limited energy resources.

Proof that fish did get over the weir eventually

This was the last time I took photos at the weir.  Again, I had intended to get back again as my knowledge of the camera improved, I was hoping my photos of the fish would too.  Again, I never got the chance.

22nd August 2017.  It started off not a bad day but there was a chance of thunder mentioned on the weather forecast.  The rain came on around 2pm and got heavier and heavier and heavier.  The type of rain we got occasionally as a shower.  A real downpour that soaked the place and then went away again.  Except this time, it didn't go away.  Not for about 8 hours.  The amount of rain that fell was unprecidented.  With the amount of rain that fell, it wasn't long until gutters couldn't take the volume of water, gullys couldn't take it and eventually the rivers and burns couldn't take it either.  Homes and businesses were completely destroyed within a few hours.  One of the main routes out of Claudy Village,  a bridge that had stood for around 100 years was gone as well as part of the Three Mile Bridge at Drumahoe.

I was getting messages and pictures the next morning from various friends and then I got the message, "The weir's gone!"

The flood came on a Tuesday night into Wednesday morning but it wasn't until the following Monday evening that I got to the weir.  I couldn't believe my eyes.

This is how I remembered it.  Taken in January 2010:

This was taken from the same spot in August 2017

The whole left side of the weir was completely gone!

So, we have no more weir and no more flats.  Is this really a bad thing?  From a nostalgic viewpoint, I'm gutted that the weir is gone.  We are losing our heritage at an alarming rate.  Old mills and houses are disappearing and the only idea that there was once something there is from looking at old maps.  This was a major landmark on the Faughan and a relic of our rural industrial past.  On the other hand, it was a major barrier to fish migration.  No more will they have to waste energy trying to scale the weir but can instead put that energy to better use cutting redds.  Perhaps the weir away could mean more fish surviving to spawn to return to sea as Kelts and maybe return again as larger multi-wintered and multi-spawning fish?

Where 'The Flats' once were.  The river used to be the height of the grass on the right of the picture.

The flats gone will be a great loss to many anglers.  On the road nearest the weir, you could almost guarantee that there'd be cars parked up at the gate any time you passed during the fishing season.  Sometimes the same cars. Some people will have lost their favourite fishing spots.  On the other side, the calm deep water made this area a favourite of poachers with nets.  How successful they were, I really do not know but I'm sure they got quite a few.  Perhaps a few more of these fish will be saved and go on to spawn?

The view from the top of the old weir downstream with the silted up 'tanks' in the foreground

The view upstream where the 'Flats' once were. The water used to cover the clay on the bank on the left of this photo.

 I was really looking forward to this fishing season to see how soon the fish started arriving at Claudy and the Upper reaches of the river.  Unfortunately we are in the middle of the longest dry spell that I ever remember.  Fish and trout are struggling to get over 'Bessie's Dam' in Drumahoe since last year's  flood. Rain and water is needed badly.

While reading 'Along the Faughan Side' and the section about the weir, I saw this. "The weir was erected by the Irwin family in the latter half of the 1850's and, according to Alan McCombe of Ballyarton, "It is said that prayer allowed the weir to be built without problems of any kind during the driest summer people could remember".  I found it quite ironic that the weir was built in the driest summer that "...people could remember...".  The first summer it has seen since it was breached is most certianly the driest summer that many people today can remember.

I am really sad that we've lost a massive part of our local heritage and history.  A landmark that holds so many great memories for me.  As a barrier to fish migration however, it is probably one of the best things ever to happen to the river.  It is very much, mixed emotions for me.

Down The Line: Hitting the target is the easy bit

I hinted at this on an earlier post titled Ability, Gun Fit, Mentality. I firmly believe that the easiest part of DTL is hitting the clay.  The more difficult aspect, is hitting the target every time, or as close to every time as is humanly possible.

I have yet to meet anyone who has come to shoot a line of DTL and not at least hit one target.  My club has had days where complete beginners, some of whom have never seen a shotgun before let alone held one or fired one, have come and had a go at shooting.  With a bit of help and assistance, a check for eye dominance, some basic safety procedures, and the basics of how to hold the gun and position their feet, they usually hit a few targets and they love it.

On the other side of that, there isn't a DTL shooter alive that has never dropped a target.  Everyone will miss a target at some stage, it is just that the better shooters do so much less than those in the lower classes of the discipline.  How do they keep doing that?  You would have to ask them.

For me, I try to make things as simple as possible.  I try to do the same thing in each stand.  I won't go into detail of the techniques I've worked out for myself over the years.  If I did, I could almost see coaches and our top shooters pulling their hair out.  I've told people in the past of what I do when I mount the gun etc. and they've looked at me in pure disbelief.  I should not be able to hit targets.  But, I can hit targets and that is all that matters to me.

All the things I do, I have worked out for myself.  My 'overthinking' and trying to make things as simple as possible has made shooting DTL Targets so much easier for me.

To do anything reasonably well you have to have a routine.  Most of it you do without thinking. DTL is about repitition. About doing the same thing 25 inidividual times in a line.  I beleive that more targets are missed from something not right on the stand, more than anything else.

The first aspect to get right is your stance.  How you stand on the shooting stand can have a huge effect on whether you break a target or not.  There really is no right or wrong way to stand but you must find a way that you can comfortably stand for the entirity of the line without getting sore.  If you are standing in a way that your knee, hip or back gets sore, you will be thinking of the soreness rather than breaking the target.  You also have to stand in a way that allows you unrestricted movement to move right or left after the target. You may have to change your position slightly when it actually comes to mount the gun and shoot the target, So, find a way that allows you to stand comfortably but that you can easily adjust to shoot comfortably.

An example of this was a guy at our club.  He hadn't been shooting too long but he has a hunger for shooting that I wish I could have again.  While marking the scores at a practice, out of the corner of my eye I saw a lot of movement in him as he shot.  He mounted the gun, called for the target and as he pulled the trigger, he was rocking back onto his heels and the barrels of the gun were rising.  He was really fighting with himself and the gun to get the barrels back down again if he needed to fire the second shot.  He wasn't a danger to anyone or anything but he was really struggling to hit targets and get decent scores.

After the line finished, I took him to one side and gave him some advice of how to stand and to transfer more weight onto his front leg before he shot.  He really took the advice onboard and has since won his class in our competition shoots.  He just looks so much more comfortable.  A simple change in stance has really helped him.

The next aspect is mounting the gun.  It too must be mounted the same every time.  Your trigger hand around the grip should be the same so that the trigger is pulled the same everytime.  Your hand on the forearm should be the same everytime.  The difference that the hand position on the forearm can make is quite significant.  Too close to the action of the gun can have the effect of making the barrels feel lighter and you can rush through a target too quickly.  The hand to the front of the forend can make the barrels slower to swing so you may not get to the target quick enough.  Find a nice balance point for your gun and stick with it.

I had a habit once of holding the forend right in touching the block of the gun.  At this time too I was holding my elbows high looking like some sort of a bird.  I was missing a right hand bird from stand 4 more often than not.  I was told that with my high elbows, when the bird went right from stand 4, my first movement was with the forearm and I was pushing the gun off my face.  I was told to get my hand right out to the very end of the forearm and get my elbows down.  It felt strange to start with but it definitely helped with hitting more of those particular targets.

The gun should be in the same place on you shoulder everytime. I have been as guilty at this than anyone.  You have shot 15 targets in a line and you mount the gun for the 16th target and you know it is not quite right.  The butt pad of the gun is sitting higher or lower, to the left or the right, of where it should be.  You say to yourself, "...I'm shooting well, it won't matter...". You call your target, fire two shots and then hear the referee call "Loss". You really do feel a right tit!!!  All it would have taken would be to open the gun again and go through the mounting procedure again.  So simple yet you feel so silly when you don't do it.

So you have the gun gripped by the trigger hand, a nice balanced grip of the forend, the gun is in your shoulder correctly and you have your head down on the stock and are ready to call a target.  The next part is the most important of all in my opinion and is the reason that I have been missing targets recently.  Holding the gun perfectly still until you see a FULL target.  Note that I have highlighted the FULL bit.

Rushing the target results in so many missed birds.  You just get into a habit of calling the target, moving the gun and shooting at the target. The number of people who move the gun on calling the target, before they see the bird, is probably one of the main differences from people in the higher classes than those in the lower classes.  A clay leaving a trap should be travelling at roughly 42mph.  It is the slowest travelling target in any of the trap disciplines.  You have a lot more time on the target than you might think.

It is most noticable when someone gets a 'no target' from the trap.  You hear them calling pull then watch the point of the barrels rising even when no target has appeared to shoot at.  You can notice a 'flinch' at times too standing behind someone and when they call the target, the barrels move left and the target could go right.  It is extremely difficult to stop the gun, get it going in the opposite direction than it was travelling in and still break the target where you think it should be broke.  It is a very difficult habit to get out of.

It comes down to people trying to break the target too early.  Everyone's eyes are different but there is a part of the flight path of the target that is a 'flash'.  An orange streak leaves the trap and at some point on the flight path, your brain picks up the signal from your eyes that there is a FULL target to shoot at.  The best shooters have found a way to have their eyes picking up the full target only.  It is only when they see this full target that they then start to move the gun towards the target.  Instinct kicks in then and you almost automatically pull the trigger without thinking, in the right place.  The whole lot happens in a fraction of a second but when you are shooting well it seems like you have all the time in the world.  When I shoot well and get into 'the zone', people tell me I shoot very fast.  It doesn't feel fast to me.   When I am shooting well, when I call 'pull' and my eyes pick up the full target, it looks like I'm looking at a photograph.  I don't see the flash of the target. I don't see any movement in the target whatsoever.  I just see a target sitting there to be shot.  When I am not shooting so well, I see a flash and move the gun before I see the full target and I am guaranteed to miss the bird.  If I do break it, it is nothing short of pure luck.

So, the very basics of DTL are:

•  Get your feet right
•  Close and mount the gun to your shoulder
•  Take up your hold point for the stand you are on
•  Call for your target keeping your gun perfectly still
•  See the full target
•  Now move the gun  

Sounds easy, doesn't it!

Pull. See the bird. Shoot the bird.  That is how difficult DTL is.  My problem is when I call pull, forget about the middle bit and try the third.  It very rarely turns out well.

The only thing I haven't looked at above is the hold point.  I'll take a look at this in another blog post.

Save Our Salmon Flies

Protected Geographical Indication is an EU protection given to food stuffs that must come from a specific area and have specific sets of rules about how they are grown or the ingredients used to make them.  Anyone selling Jersey Royal Potatoes must have grown them, or bought them, from the Channel Island of Jersey.  Armagh Bramley Apples must be "...grown within Archdoicese of Armagh,  Northern Ireland. Products must be harvested between early September and late October." Stronoway Black Pudding is; "limited to products produced using a traditional recipe with a prescribed ratio of ingredients and within the vicinity of the Isle of Lewis or "the surrounding 'Stornoway Trust' area"".  I dearly wish sometimes that salmon flies could be given similar protection.

These past 10 years or so, it has become very easy to start tying flies.  The amount of videos on Youtube and people willing to offer advice and help over various social media outlets such as Facebook or Forums, anyone starting out has never had more good information available to them.

When I started tying, it was done by trial and error with error being the key word here.  No one sat me down at a vice and showed me anything. I tried things, sometimes they worked but most of the time they didn't.  It is really only this past 3 or 4 years, after tying over 25 years, that I am finally getting things to look something like I want them to.  I don't mind that though and I wouldn't change anything.

An early attempt at a Cascade and a more recent version

The social media aspect of tying has had a downside too in my own opinion.  There seems to be competition.  One person trying to outdo another. People selling flies trying to extort those who don't tie with the next 'must have' pattern, which is the same as one that already exists but with badger hackles. People showing flies, trying to sell materials as they are part of a 'pro team'.  Then someone ties something that someone else has claimed to have 'invented'.  That can turn nasty and the threats and name calling begin.  Worse than kids on a playground. I have no time for any of that at all.

Suddenly everyone's an expert.  I know people who are selling flies and making comments on some of the outlets who have literally never caught a salmon in their life on fly, but now have a 'Joe Bloggs Fly Tying' page on facebook and are selling 'named' flies that may not even have half the materials in them. I find that quite sad.

I have only very recently discovered that I am an intorvert.  After a full life of not really feeling part of this world, feeling I was very different than almost everyone else, it turns out I was right. But now everything makes so much more sense.  For the first time in my life I can see why I felt so outside of the rest of the world. It has been liberating.

My mind never stops with ideas and thoughts constantly bouncing off each other.  On the outside, I'm quiet, I never speak much, I don't really enjoy interaction with other people a lot of the time and I keep myself to myself.  This is in complete contrast with what's going on in the inside.  Introverts need quiet time and solitude.  We do a lot of reading on different topics and writing things.  These are only a few of the times that we can quieten or brain.  It is how we re-energise.

Suddenly, my love of fly tying makes complete sense.  I have always said that I could give up salmon fishing tomorrow but I could not see my life without fly tying.  I now know the reason why.

My shed is my quiet place.  I can go out there, put on my small radio (not too loud mind) and start tying something.  When I really get lost in my tying, I only know the hours going in by the number of times I've heard the news at the top of the hour.  My mind is quiet. The more complicated the pattern is, the more I lose myself, the more time passes.  Absolute bliss.

It is this intorversion that has led me to become so protective of our salmon flies.  When not tying flies, I like to read about them.  The internet is great for this and you can read up on the history of a fly pattern from information given by those that tied them.  Ally Gowan's on what brought him to create his famous Ally's Shrimp and Cascade.  How the famous 'Willie Gunn' came to be from reading interviews with Dusty Miller.  One of the most interesting pieces of information I have ever seen was on facebook where a photo of a hand written pattern for the 'John Anthony Shrimp' was shown as described by his son.  The history of a fly, the story behind it, I find so much more interesting than many modern day attempts at tying them.

The website, 'Salmon Fishing Forum', used to be fanatastic source of information on the history of flies.  You had many of those famous ghillies and fly tyers on there including Ross MacDonald, who created the Park and Calvin's Shrimp,  Robert Gillespie who is most certainly up there among  the finest dressers of flies in the Island of Ireland, if not the world, and Peter Kealey who I would say is my own personal favourite.  Peter's Shrimp flies are the best I have ever seen and I am delighted to have a couple of Wilkinson Shrimps tied by Peter in a small display box in my shed.  For whatever reason, these people stopped posting, as have most others and the Salmon Fishing Forum is a bit of a waste of time now.

There were some great posts on that forum though.  I remember Robert Gillespie telling how he came to tie his shrimp flies with a shorter front hackle, rather than a longer front hackle (than the middle hackle) as was traditionally the case.  Or how the modern McCormick's Shrimp came to be.  The story of a forum member talking to the brother of Lawrence Cunningham, the creator of the local favourite, Green Silk.  He said that the shade of green used for the rear body was not important.  The important thing was that the green stayed the same shade when wet.  If the rear body went dark when it got wet, it could not be called a Green Silk.  He also said that if the pattern was tied without Jungle Cock, it could not, and should not, be called a Green Silk.  I absolutly loved information like that.  It is a great pity we don't have information like that from Pat Curry for example, or any of the other great fly dressers from years gone by.

The reason I hold information like this so dear is because I feel that there is a real chance that we will lose it.  With so many people out there now tying purely for profit and trying to outdo someone else, the actual patterns themselves seem to be becoming irrelevant.  This is nothing new mind.  I have never been able to find a definitive pattern for the 'Original' Green Highlander.  No one seems to know what it is.  Likewise, the Fiery Brown.  There seems to be no end to the variations and different materials used but which is the first one?  No one knows these days.

There is one pattern that I hold in a higher regard than any other.  It is one that I hate to see basterdised or people claiming to have put their 'own twist' on.  That fly is the Curry's Red Shrimp.  There are probably more attempts made at the Curry's Red than any other of the shrimp patterns.  Well, the Wilkinson Shrimp isn't far away either I suppose.  To me, the Curry's Red is the perfect shrimp fly.  The colours and materials work so well and have accounted for thousands upon thousands of fish over the years.  It is impossible to improve on perfection in my opinion.

Curry's Red Shrimp tied with Silver Badger (top) and Creamy Badger (bottom)

From my reading,  I understand Pat Curry tied his Red Shrimp to begin with, with the vielings at the sides.  I am not 100% sure if it was Pat himself or someone else who decided later that the vielings should go on top and below.  I have tied it both ways.  I can tell you that the profile of the fly in the water looks very different with the vielings at the sides but I have caught fish on both so I don't know if there is a right or a wrong way.  The point is, there MUST be vielings.  I know that 'Cock O' the Rock' or 'Red Ibis' isn't readily available in your local tackle shop but add hackle points, swan strips or something.  Like Lawrence Cunningham said about Jungle Cock on a Green Silk, if you don't have vielings on a Curry's Red then you haven't tied a Curry's Red. You have tied a Badger and Red at best.  I hold the Curry's Red in such high regard that I have never tied a single one that I am 100% happy with.  I feel I have yet to do the pattern the justice it deserves.


At the end of the day, salmon are not picky creatures.  A salmon does not know what a fly is.  I caught as many fish on my poorly tied flies as I have on my recent better tied ones.  Well, maybe that is not strictly true as it could be argued that I'm actually catching more fish now, even though I am fishing much less.  A salmon will take a Badger and Red as quick as a Curry's Red.  A salmon will take anything that is put in front of it if it is curious enough.  Presentation, depth, speed, size  etc. I feel, are much more important than the fly itself.

I know I am in a minority.  However,  I'll try to do my best to keep those original patterns alive for future generations.  If a pattern calls for crystal flash or angel hair then by god it will have it, but it won't be there if it isn't called for.  The same with Glo Brite heads, neon beads or Lite Brite bodies.  The simple use if the word 'variant' covers a multitude of sins and helps my blood pressure!

I'll do my best to remember the original patterns in memory of those who created them.  I feel I owe them that.

Salmon Fishing: Plenty of changes including myself.

I'll be completely honest.  Much like clay shooting, I don't have the same interest in fishing as I had at a younger age.  I don't have the same hunger for it anymore.  I still enjoy it and go now when I take the notion but I cannot think of spending 10 or 12 hours a day at the river anymore or being dropped off 6 or 7 miles from the house and fishing the river all the way home.  Setting the alarm to be up at 4:30am to make sure I get the first run down the pools in good water. Going to the river with a lunch and a flask so I didn't have to leave the river and maybe miss a fish. Those days are long gone.

In those days, I fished purely for numbers.  I wanted to catch fish every time I went to the river and the longer I spent at the river not catching, the more of a chore fishing became.  Running around with a fly rod and a spinning rod and battering pools, getting nothing, and then rushing to get to the next pool to do it all over again.  Catching a fish and not being content. I had to try to catch two, three or four. Looking back now, there's no way I could have enjoyed that.

My fishing habits have completely changed.  I don't cover the same amount of the river as I once did.  If there are fish outside the walking distance of my house, they're safe enough from me.  The 'Ugly Stik' spinning rod is gathering dust somewhere. I'm not even exactly sure where it is as it's so long since I used it.  I now only fish fly and for far less hours than I have in the past.

Fishing now is almost a part of a habit for me.  When the season has started and we get the first few spates and a few fish start arriving in the pools, I enjoy going to the river a walk after my tea.   I head off to the river around 6pm and am back home by 9:30 at the latest.  I may have only fished a few pools but that walk, bit of casting, maybe turned a fish, maybe hooked and lost it, maybe I've actually landed one for a change, maybe I haven't seen a tail; it really does not matter to me.  I've enjoyed it.

I usually only fish until September where as I used to fish until it got dark on 20th October every year. The last day of our season.  I just don't feel the need to do that anymore.  My 'wee walk after my tea' can't be done anymore.  Even by mid August you can notice a difference in the evenings and the light you used to have at 9 or 9:30pm in July, you have from around 8 by the middle of  August.  It just isn't worth going to the river after my tea from then on.  You can feel the evenings turning slightly colder too.

There are usually still some nice fresh fish entering the river in August and September so if I get the water that I like, I'll try a bit of fishing during the day.  It just doesn't feel the same somehow. I'm outside my comfort zone.

September has changed dramatically on the Faughan in my opinion.  We used to get trout arriving in June,  the start and bulk of the grilse run in July,  slightly bigger Summer salmon came in from the end of July.  August was always a pretty 'dour' month on the river with the earlier run fish starting to stay deeper and not rising to baits quite as easily but then September would arrive.  September was easily my favourite month on the river.  Some people talked about the 'Harvest Run' or the 'Autumn Run'.  Whatever the run was called, they made for the best months of fishing on the river.  Yes, the grilse run could be good but most of the fish were very small with 5lb being a big grilse.  These September fish were much bigger in size.  Probably averaging around 8lb in weight with double figure fish not uncommon at all.

I remember catching two one evening in the early 2000s.  Maybe 2001 or 2002, I just can't quite remember.  I had only arrived at the river and hooked a fish within my first four or five casts.  A beautifully fresh salmon of 8lb with sea lice still attached.  I then got another one within the following two casts and the two fish were like carbon copies of each other.

A couple of Red & Gold Shrimp Variants.  The Irish Shrimp version on the right was my favourite fly for September

This run of fish seemed to keep coming for the next three or four weeks and you still could catch very silver, fresh, fish right up until the last day of the season.

That 'Harvest Run' has all but vanished.  September now is fishing for dribs and drabs of coloured fish that have been laid up in the lower reaches for most of the season.  The odd fresh fish does turn up but this is an exception rather than the rule.  I just cannot get motivated to fish for these coloured fish.

I used to catch coloured fish when I fished in September and October in the past but at this time, these were the exception rather than the rule.  People say to me, "...but you're releasing them again, what difference does it make if they are coloured?"  I really don't know the answer to that but it just feels different and not something I can say I particularly enjoy.

Looking back now, the changes to the river and the runs in particular seem glaringly obvious.  In the early 90s, something strange started to happen.  The grilse were getting smaller.  I remember going to fish for trout with a couple of locals here.  I was only 12 or 13 at the time and these guys were like magicians the way they cast and tugged and manipulated the line to attract trout.  Great to watch.  They had got five or six trout between them and they came home and had them lined up on top of a neighbours wall showing off their catch.  "Wait to you see the size of this one...". Someone then said that it might be salmon.  I remember voices getting raised and the argument got quite intense.  No one had seen a salmon that small before.  This was the start of the 'Sharpening stones'.

1995 was the best season I ever remember on the river.  The grilse run was unbelievable.  Even the counter figure for the river shows this with it being the highest number ever recorded, before and certainly since.

People were catching double figures of grilse per day.  People were recording hundreds caught for the season.  What was most noticable about them though, were their size.  'Sharpening stones'. Long, thin fish that weighed averaging around 3lb in weight.  There were literally thousands of them in the river and there was definitly hay made while the sun shone.

The numbers of fish returning to the Faughan, and indeed the entire Foyle System, declined drastically after 1995.  We were still getting fish but they have not been in the river in such numbers since.  Still these small fish were turing up.  The smallest one I caught personally wasn't much over 1lb in weight.

Looking back now, I can't help but think that 1995 was a warning sign.  A sign that there were problems on the high seas.  Why were the fish so small and skinny?  Simple common sense would suggest that if something is skinny, it hasn't been fed.  Maybe that is a far too simplistic way to look at it but it could be possible. Some people suggested that these fish had not migrated but stayed around the mouth of the Foyle and just came back in with the rest of the grilse as they returned.  There were many theories but no hard facts.

That was over 20 years ago and in the years since that, the fish have seemed to have got slightly shorter in length overall, but much plumper.  We seem to be back to an average weight of grilse in the 4-6lb range but there are far fewer of them.

A nice plump Faughan Grilse

The grilse run now seems to be the only real 'run' of fish we get.  The only time they arrive in numbers.  June/July, a good number of fish arrive and then they come in dribs and drabs after that.  The counter figures published this past few years seemed to indicate more fish entering the river in December than in September and October.  I don't mind that though. 

They say species evolve to ensure their survival.  Perhaps the salmon have evolved to miss the times when their numbers are most at risk? During our fishing seasons.  I doubt that, but there has been changes in our runs and certainly not for the better.

William

I know this is supposed to be a blog about fly fishing and clay shooting, but after events yesterday evening, there will be a slight change of topic today.

Anyone who knows me will know I love my Motorcycle Road Racing.  I know absolutly nothing about motorbikes.  I don't care about what makes a motorbike work.  The mechanics of motor bikes, or cars for that matter, are of no interest to me whatsoever.  My passion is for those who choose to sit on one and race them round a closed public road at alarming speeds.

Yes, I have my favourite riders that I like to see winning but I have the same respect for the guy riding in the support races at national level as I do for the guy winning the Isle of Man TT.  They are a different breed of people, every one of them, and I hold each and every one of them in a regard higher than any other sports person, or indeed any person, on the planet.

I will put on my TV today and see Johnny Rae riding in World Superbikes and then the British Superbike riders will take to the Knockhill Circuit in Scotland.  It will be on, maybe for a bit of background noise, but I can't say that I'll be interested in it.  If I'm absolutly honest, I'll find it a bit tedious and boring.

There is no other sport I know with such amazing highs and such gut wrenching, cruel, lows.  Unfortunately, the news that came out yesterday evening was most certainly the latter.

William Dunlop killed at Skerries.

Five words that completely knocked me sideways.  Knocked the stuffing out of me.  I never spoke to the man or had any interaction with him whatsoever and it felt like I'd lost a family member.  I can't even begin to think what his poor family must be feeling.  My heart goes out to them.

Growing up in Northern Ireland, even if you had no interest in motorbikes, you knew the name Dunlop.  Especially Joey Dunlop.  The five times World Champion was a name on everyone's lips.  Even as a kid, when you rode your BMX down a steep hill and paddled like mad to get it going as fast as you could, you were Joey Dunlop.  I remember falling off my bike as a child and busting my face, tearing my clothes and having bloody knees from trying to lean my BMX into a corner without turning the handle bars.  When my dad asked me what happened I said, through blood, snot and tears, that I was trying to do a Joey Dunlop.

Joey and his brother Robert were absolute heroes in this country.  In such a divided society were people were dying almost on a daily basis in sectarian violence, the Dunlops bridged that divide.  Protestant/Catholic or any other religion, no one had a bad word to say about the Dunlops.  They were held in such high regard by all of Northern Ireland and many millions of people right around the world.  The word Legends doesn't begin to do them justice.

I remember it being a Sunday, 2nd July 2000, when the news came on the TV that Joey had been killed in Estonia.  I think the whole country stopped that day. It certainly felt like it. I remember the funeral on the TV and seeing the thousands who attended.  It was hard to believe the crowds of people that were there.  Such was the level that Joey was held at.

It was 8 years later the Robert would also pay the ultimate sacrifice for the sport he loved.  Having fought and battled back from a horrendous accident on the Isle on Man in 1994, when his rear wheel disintegrated at high speed and he was thrown against a stone wall,  to getting back on a bike at the North West 200 just four years later only to have another accident, through no fault of his own, and be out for months again.  He had fought back once again.

It was the 15th May 2008.  A really cold evening it was too. I was standing in the field at the 'Magic Roundabout' on the North West 200 course watching the practice sessions.  It was the first lap of the 250 qualifying session. I remember the commentary on the tannoy. "...let's get out to Ballysally Roundabout where Robert Dunlop should be first on the road...". The bikes had already passed by the time the commentator spoke at the Roundabout but it was Richard Burns who was leading on the road with Robert second.  The commentator hadn't said two words in response when the red flags went out.  Practice session stopped. Robert had been killed.

The two Dunlop brothers were gone.  The whole country was stunned. 

The North West 200 went ahead the following Saturday and the 250 race was the first race of the day.  The race Robert had lost his life qualifying for.  I was going to play cricket that day so wasn't at the event but I had the radio on in the house before I left.  I couldn't believe what I was hearing when they said Robert's sons, William and Michael, were taking part in the race.  Unfortunately, William's bike broke down on the warm up lap but Michael went on to win the race.  I was in absolute tears in the house listening to it and I haven't been able to watch the pictures of that race since with a dry eye.  It was amazing and heartbreaking all at the same time.  The very next day the two boys would bury their father.

So, the revered Dunlop name lived on.  It is 10 years since we lost Robert but a new generation has grown up following the name Dunlop.  A whole new army of fans going to races just to see William and Michael.

It could be said that Michael, the younger of the two, has been the most successful having notched up 18 wins at the Isle of Man TT as well as wins at the North West 200 and Ulster Grand Prix.  In saying that,  I think William was held in as high a regard as his brother.  William was extremely successful on his own with over 100 wins at National Road Racing level.  At the different events, walking around the paddock, there were as many fans outside William's awning as Michael's.  They were Dunlops, that was the thing.

Michael comes across as a completely different person to William.  William came across as a shy person not seeking the limelight  where as Michael comes across as a bit of a 'lad'.  The truth is that both of them hated the spotlight.  If either of them never had to speak in front of a TV camera or do an interview, that would suit them fine.

The news broke yesterday evening that William had lost his life at Skerries in Co. Dublin.  I don't mind saying it.  I cried like child yesterday evening.

I don't know the Dunlop family at all but my thoughts went out the family.  William's mother buried her husband and now has to arrange to have her son buried.  Michael and Daniel buried their father and now have to bury their brother.  It was William's Granny I really felt for.  Having buried two sons and now having to watch her grandson being buried.  And then there's William's partner.  William was a father to a young infant of a child.  His partner is expecting their second.  Two wee babies growing up without their father.  It would bring tears to a stone.  I can't even begin to fathom what the whole family must be going through. 

So now we wait for another funeral.  Another young man taken far too soon.  Another Dunlop taken from us.  No doubt it will be another massive funeral with the tens of thousands of fans wanting to play their respects. 

God love that poor family as they try to come to terms with things over the weeks and months ahead.