Cast your eye over our site using this Navigation Bar:

Home Page (return to)  /  The Lodge  /  The Fishing  /  Fishing Report  Flycasting Tuition  /  Photo Galleries   News  /  Links   Articles & Videos
 Booking Information  /  Price Lists  /  Accommodation B&B & Self-catering  /  Location How to find us  /  Travel How to get here/Routes  /   Contact us

Blackwater Lodge News Page

The News page will include any interesting info which comes to hand especially during the close season. 
Lots of people look at the Fishing Report page during the season for up-to-date info on what is happening on the river, 
& I hope that the news page will be used similarly whilst the fishing is closed.

Click on the links below to see the latest News Postings:

National News

The Great Game Fairs of Ireland
 on Country TV.

Newsletters

2011
February 18
February 3
January 20
January 1
2010
December 23
November 20
November 11
October 31

September 1
August 9
July 31

July 26
July 20
July 14
July 10

Lodge News

The Big Freeze - December 2010 First time the river froze since 1601!
Glenda - the Completed Angler  : Sunday Independent (Lifestyle) article
                   January 10, 2010

Size Matters! Interesting info on 2009


               November 17, 2010


There were casting demonstrations on the helipad
outside by Glenda, Hywel Morgan & Charles Jardine
not to mention about 50 fly-tyers from all over Europe
in attendance to demonstrate their skills.
Add to that all the trade stands & you have a recipe
for a great show which received nothing but praise.
A Great Show

The inaugural Irish Fly Fair was held
on November 13/14, 2010 in Galway.
It was a great success in a lovely cosy
intimate atmosphere in the Galway Bay Hotel
& was attended by several thousand
enthusiastic anglers.

Plans are already underway for
next year's show.........................

Glenda is pictured here on our stand at the show with fellow demonstrator Charles Jardine (UK).
More Floods
Why does it always seem to be that
- once it starts to rain it never stops!
A lot more rain has fallen in the 2 last weeks
& the river is very high.
So much fell 2 nights ago that I had to go out at
11.00pm to rescue Glenda & a friend of hers
after her friend had driven her car into a flood
just 2 miles up the road from the Lodge.
The water was about 2 feet deep & Glenda had to
climb out of the car window to raise the alarm!
More Fish
I was talking to Fishery Board staff at the
Irish Fly Fair (Nov. 13, 2010) & got the latest
on the runs of fish into the Blackwater.
My last newsletter told of the 7,500 fish that had run
into the river in the 8 days from October 27.

Just before the Fair on the weekend of November 13/14, this figure had jumped to over 15,000....................!

This bodes well for our future stocks of salmon.
Regulations for the 2011 Season
The Draft Proposals for the Wild Salmon & Seatrout Tagging Scheme Regulations for the 2011 Season
 were issued in late November.
The quota for the Blackwater has been raised to 5,859
from the 2010 quota which was 5,054.
The number of tags for the spring (February 1 to May 11) has not been confirmed yet. Last year, it was one tag for the Blackwater but this was only announced in a Byelaw issued on December 17, 2009 so we are still waiting
to hear if it will be one or three tags.

Twenty-five Years Gone - and Twenty-five more to Come!
 
Earlier this year, we celebrated the 25th anniversary of me taking over the Blackwater Lodge in 1986.  It was an opportunity 
to reflect on the great times had in the Lodge over that period. But it was also a timely opportunity to look to the future.
In that respect, we have come to the decision that it's in the Lodge's best interests and the interests of our guests that
after 25 years at the helm, I now take a back-seat and let Glenda take over the management of the Lodge into the future.

Those of you who know her, know the passion and honesty she brings to anything to do with salmon fishing.
She's young, skilled and highly-respected, with a modern vision of what's required and expected in a leading salmon lodge.
I have every confidence that she will bring the Lodge in only one direction - forward, to better times, in these, the worst of times.

So from next season onwards, you'll notice Glenda's positive and insightful influence on every aspect of Lodge activities.
There'll be some very welcome changes, some of which she has already been working on...

Ian Powell    November 1, 2010