River Dodder (Dublin city)

Getting there

Features

Local notes

A genuinely flashy spate river off the Dublin/Wicklow mountains (source on the northern slopes of Kippure), not a limestone river — expect it to rise and fall quickly after mountain rain (roughly a 20-24 hour rise to peak per flood-study material), with the Bohernabreena reservoirs at Glenasmole partially damping, not eliminating, that flashiness downstream. The trout water runs Old Bawn (Tallaght) down to Ballsbridge, with Herbert Park-to-Beaver Row and Milltown-to-Rathfarnham the two most accessible, most-recommended stretches (linear parks, footbridges, mostly off-road parking). Wild and stocked brown trout run small on average — fingerling to around 6 inches is typical — but occasional trout to 3-4 lb turn up in the deeper pools above and below weirs (e.g. the pool below the Classon's Bridge/Dropping Well weir at Milltown), and evening into dusk consistently outfishes the day, especially once park foot-traffic drops. Sea trout hold in the lower river down into the tidal reach below Ballsbridge and fish best late summer, under a separate, stricter IFI bye-law on the lower river (Clonskeagh Road Bridge down to the Liffey at Ringsend) — check the current terms on IFI's site before fishing it — treat this as a distinct fishery from the resident-brown-trout story upstream. Atlantic salmon have recolonised the tidal stretch each spring since the early 2000s, a genuine urban-recovery story, but this reads as an ecological headline rather than a developed salmon fishery: no source describes it as a viable target fishery.