fishydreams

Our days here have settled into a familiar routine. If we had any brains we would be up at first light and looking for trout but this does not happen. We put the blame for this squarely on the shoulders of the Guinness brewery in Dublin. At dawn when the trout are active we are nowhere to be seen.

Breakfast is eaten at O´Connors just down the road from Mark´s place in Westport where we can steal a little internet and spend a little while in civilized company. This is where we are now. There is a toasted sausage sandwich in front of each of us, and a coffee to help kickstart the day. O´Connors is where we talk strategy and decide on a venue for the day´s fishing.

Yesterday we decided to fish the east of vast Lough Corrib in the hope of picking up a decent trout or two and we fished drift after drift in search of one. I had a single fish on a dry sedge but it was only a tiddler. Sean did better taking a fish of around one pound on a black pennel on our first drift and a fish about twice as heavy on a stimulator later. Unfortunately the photos of the second fish were not saved to the camera´s memory card and I will not be able to extract them until later.

It is very hard to get a boat and engine on Lough Mask these days. The lough is riddled with unseen hazards. But Corrib seemed to have treacherous intentions also and several times we met unmarked shallow rocks well offshore.

Today the wind is going to be strong and this might rule out Mask and Corrib. For the next half hour or so we will debate the alternatives over a couple of mugs of coffee.

Corrib is vast. We spent a day in only one “small” bay

Here Sean and I are fishing the last drift. We were getting pretty chilled and thoughts of a pint were not far away.

Mark and myself about to embark.

This handsome trout was taken by Sean. He had another about twice as heavy. All the fish were returned.