Dodder Clean up

PLOPS

Me and few a Members of the dodder Angling Club do meet up on a weekly basis- cleaning and Making Weirs on the dodder. Would anyone be interested to help out as We need a few more Able bodied lads to get things done. I think it would make the river better to fish when the Summer comes around and the level will drop and will be harder to fish with all the Bikes and trollies/ bikes coming visable.

On another note has any one noticed the Foul over flow pipe at Milltown has emptied its load into the river a few times lately? We where cleaning up last night and Maxi pads and toliet paper was in at the Waterfall and Milltown.

Any way- Anyone interested?:pac:

coolwings

Yes for evenings. Please PM the times, and if I'm free I'll be there.

To tell the truth, it's great fun pulling rubbish out where I want to fish in a few days and chatting with the lads swopping info during cleanups.

stevenmu

I'd love to lend a hand so count me in, as long as it's ok to pump everyone else for tips and info at the same time If you post the times up here or drop me a pm I'll come along if I can make it.

PLOPS

Hey lads

i thought we might of had a better reaction but 2 more bodies is better than none. We've built a few nice weirs in the milltown area the last few weeks. i went down down this evening to see if it was fishable- but it was way too brown. a few of the lads are very experienced- one of them is fishing the river over 40 years. so they can give there opinions on what works best.
with the weather looking dodgy for the next week we wont be doing much till its a little better, weather wise. so keep an eye on the thread and i'll PM you when we are doing a nights work. :)

zacmorris

Im pretty busy at the moment, but I would lov to help when I have a couple of hours free one eve.
Let me know the details and I will try my best

viper123

PM me and I'll see if I'm available...

firephish

PLOPS wrote: »

Hey lads

i thought we might of had a better reaction but 2 more bodies is better than none.

I'm happy to help if its after work hours. Post times and dates here, or pm ... as long as its _above_ the milltown overflow pipe

Doc Farrell

i'm gonna put this thread so that it comes up on my hotmail account. can u post the time and place?
i'm guessing waders are a must?

erm, if tampons and toilet roll is a problem i guess rubber gloves too?

also, who is red o'hanlon?
thanks.

(if its good enough for coolwings and stevenmu its good enough for me)

edit: i was wondering if the red o'hanlon you mentioned was actually the writer, explorer and naturalist Redmond O'Hanlon, probably the most interesting fellow on this island other than Tim Severin....

Slasher

I'd be available in evenings. PM me with details.

PLOPS

i think there is a few lads doing work this thursday down at milltown. i will know tmro for sure and i can put up where they are meeting.

Red o'hanlon is not the one you speak of- but the chair person of the dodder angling association.

apparantly weather looks good for thursday too- might bring your rods too and catch the last hour of the rise hopefully:pac:

Doc Farrell

i'll be along, barring a last minute nct job.

had to break into my own car tonight so i'm not a happy camper. only in the door, fished till dark then locked my keys in the boot. marvellous. :mad:

thanks.

Lickarse1

I'll be dere with brush and bin bags

PLOPS

HEY

We'll be down below the waterfall just after the nine arches (luas bridge) around half 7. we'll be building weirs along there if any one has an hour to spare.

Thanks

coolwings

Well I'm back from a weirbuilding session on the Dodder at Milltown.
The water was high with a medium fresh coming down, but we got stuck in anways, moving boulders into place fixing up a broken weir.

Doc Farrell came along and we met and had a good chat, shifted rocks and formed a pool that will now remain wet even when the water levels fall in summer drought periods.

We also met some of the Dodder AC old hands. Nice to meet, hadn't spoken to them for a long time.

it was interesting to see how much sub aquatic insect life and trout food was attached to the underside of many of the boulders we handled. The Dodder is in much better condition than many people who have a more superficial knowledge of it think. In fact we watched trout rising constantly within feet of where we were building our weir.

Some of the other chaps dug out sediment collecting rushy weed clumps which were beginning to clog up the run and stickle that leads into the newly deepened pool. The run now has nice clean gravel in which the juvenile river flies and insects can live and thrive, increase and multiply, and feed the trout as they do their thing.

All in all a fine evening's (hard) work in nice surroundings, with a few scoops afterwards and a good fishy natter.

coolwings

Weeded up River Dodder run


Workparty gets stuck into removing undesirable mid-stream weeds


Afterwards - the stickle-run is cleared


R Dodder boulder weir broken by winter floods


Replacing boulders in weir restores pool depth and keeps gravel bottom (and fauna living in it) wet during summer droughts


After work party - weir fixed and an excellent trout pool restored


R Dodder: Prime trout holding water just as the evening rise begins - nearby to the area where fishery maintenance work party operated this evening.

It's a satisfying thing to do, "putting a little back" into looking after a place that provides such angling pleasure during the year.

firephish

nice work.

btw i noticed there is also a facebook group for "dodder anglers" ... might get more people comming along by posting there?

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=93161790131&ref=mf

PLOPS

Lads firstly i'd like to apologise for not being able to make it, but i had no way pf making it down. i'm sure as you could see the hard work we've done with fixing up weirs all along the milltown stretch and back up to the dropping well. any way hope to see you there next time.

stevenmu

Nice job guys, unfortunately I couldn't make it last nice, but I'm looking forward to taking advantage of all your hard work Hopefully I'll make it along to the next one.

b.w.ollie

I'd be interested in giving a hand too at a future date, pm me. also Redmond (Rad) O'Hanlon is the Secretary of the Dodder Anglers, Jack Jones I think is the chairman, There is also a site run by Tony Butler for the Dodder Anglers you may get some more bodies there for clean up's/weirs the site is DAA.com. hallo coolwings from an old pal ( he of the famous floating groundbait!!!)

rpmcmurphy

Hi guys,
Congrats on all the good work. I was up visiting my brother inDublin at the weekend and ventured out on the Dodder early Sunday morning. I am unfamiliar with the area but started at the rathfarnham bridge and worked upstream along the bushy park area. I was fishing small dries but didnt rise any fish. Any trout I noticed were extremely small. Was i wasting my time fishing in this section. I had heard of the Dropping Well section but am unsure how to get to it so didnt bother. I also made my way to a big weir on lower Dodder road but blanked there also.
The sections i covered did contain some pools, riffles and glides and did look like typical water

coolwings

It's a wild fishery, after the big stockies have been caught in the first week or two.
That means angling for hard to catch small fast reaction brownies averaging 4 oz, a half pounder being a good one, and a 3/4 pounder the fish of the week/fortnight.
A wild pounder from the Dodder is an achievement, though they do grow bigger, but larger fish are always holding in an inaccessible spot.

What you saw is what you get, but unless you were there at nightfall, you saw only 5% of the fish rising, and the smaller ones.
When the bats take flight the bigger brownies come on the feed.

rpmcmurphy

coolwings wrote: »

It's a wild fishery, after the big stockies have been caught in the first week or two.
That means angling for hard to catch small fast reaction brownies averaging 4 oz, a half pounder being a good one, and a 3/4 pounder the fish of the week/fortnight.
A wild pounder from the Dodder is an achievement, though they do grow bigger, but larger fish are always holding in an inaccessible spot.

What you saw is what you get, but unless you were there at nightfall, you saw only 5% of the fish rising, and the smaller ones.
When the bats take flight the bigger brownies come on the feed.

Thanks Norm,
I appreciate that. The river i fish at home has similar sized fish and I am happy to catch wild fish that size anyday. Its the scenery in River fishing that i find most appealing What i wanted to know was is the stretch i was fishing one of the better areas or is the dropping well the most productive area and also was i fishing far from there. I had a sat nav in the car but it wouldnt pick Classons Bridge.

coolwings

in Bohernabreena to Old Bawn it's an acid stream in floods, or neutral in low water.
From the sandpits it gets interesting, with good pools beginning to appear.
Templeogue is hard of access generally, a lot of back gardens and high banks.
Access gets better and the river becomes more alkaline from Rathfarnham downstream, but not dramatically so.
They grow a little faster in the Rathgar to Dropping Well Milltown to Clonskeagh area, I'd say there are fewer trout there.
Clonskeagh to Beaver Row is the "above the tide area where brownies grow bigger, but Beaver Row is the normal limit of migratory fish, so don't expect sea trout above there.

The sea trout .... they have extremely limited spawning area available, Beaver Row Donnybrook to Marion College Ballsbridge. and numbers are very few.
A few grow to very large size.
In the interest of conservation, I'd ask anyone who catches Dodder sea trout to return them all.

I like the Rathgar to Milltown, and tidal zones, sand pits, and Bohernabreena mostly. I also put all my Dodder fish back.

rpmcmurphy

Thanks for that!

coolwings

I should have added, the Upper Bohernabreena reservoir: it's populated with smallish trout, and hard to beat the 1/4 pound mark, never mind a 3/4 pounder, but they are not mountain trout in type.
They are small but perfectly shaped, and are equal eating to wild sea trout. It's something to do with their food and the water quality, but they are the best tasting brown trout from any Co. Dublin water I know of.
I'm always happy to take a few home from there if I can catch bigger ones than normal.