Finally! After what seemed like an eternity, a salmon was caught on the River Drowes on Sunday, six weeks to the day after the season opened.

Angler William Rainey, from Bangor, County Down, brought the long wait to an end while fishing with worms on the Mill Pool. His salmon tipped the scales at eight pounds.

Historically the Drowes has produced Ireland’s first salmon on New Year’s Day, the opening day of the season. However, the fish have been appearing later and later.

Read: Salmon anglers ‘hopeful’ after last year’s washout

Fishery owner Shane Gallagher reckons the salmon are now running into the river from the sea about a month later than normal and this year’s first fish is “by far the latest”.

The situation has not been helped by the lack of rain, making it more difficult for salmon to run up the river into Lough Melvin.

“The water is very, very low,” explains Shane. “It’s at summer levels.”
As he points out, the weather conditions were also far from ideal when William caught the first salmon.

“It was a terrible fishing day, with a cold east wind,” says Shane.
Encouragingly, the salmon William caught was not the only one he and his fishing companion saw that day on the Mill Pool.

“They saw another four fish running through it,” says Shane.

Read: Salmon anglers ‘hopeful’ after last year’s washout

He points out that since the first salmon was caught on the River Blackwater in Cork on February 1, several others have been landed.
“Hopefully it will pick up,” says Shane.