fishydreams

Every now and then my brother Sean and Mark McCann manage to get a few days of fishing and head off into the hinterlands with fly rods thrown into the back of their cars and their heads swimming with dreams of trout and Guinness, both of which essential to the success of such ventures. Very occasionally I get to join them but it is increasingly hard to do because I live a long way away and the best times for fishing in Ireland tend to coincide with my busiest times at work.

If fishing does nothing else, with all the curve balls it can throw at you, it teaches you to take the rough with the smooth and to accept that things won´t always go your way. And so I am prepared to be philosophical about missing out on the adventures of our two heroes when they contrived  to bunk off for a few days about a week ago. Sean duly sent me a report, the more or less unabridged version of which follows:

Pablo,

Day 1 – Moher lake in reasonably good form – we caught about 25 trout (I’ve already forgotten) 4 or 5 decent ones – biggest 3lb caught by Mr. McCann with consummate skill.

Day 2 – Lough Corrib – out of Clonbur. We have found a most excellent contact who has boats on both the Corrib and the Mask (us locals put a ‘the’ before lough). Lovely part of the lough (most northerly part), lots of islands, features etc. Wind didn’t play ball at all and rain did so we ended up struggling. Wet, becalmed and uninspired. When despair had reached a zenith and the light was fading we agreed to call it a day. Lo and behold didn’t a trout take my fly (dry chocolate drop sedge) at the last possible nano-second and to our utter disbelief we landed a 2.5 lb trout. Possibly  the flukiest fish I ever caught. Was paying no attention whatsoever. I’d say the trout might have been looking at the fly (and was probably going to reject it) when the movement of it being reeled in triggered a take. But we will take what luck we are given. We did find a very nice reefy area in the last few minutes and that is where we caught the trout.

Day 3 – more rain and no wind – so we shelved plans for Mask and went on a wild goose chase in search of fishable parts of the Robe river. Apparently they exist but we sure as hell couldn’t find them. So we relocated to Moher where the trout are easy and we feel good about ourselves. As it happened they weren’t that easy but we caught a few anyway.

Day 4 – The Mask – out of Clonbur. Conditions were perfect – lovely breeze , warm, partially cloudy, lovely looking part of the lough (not nearly as hairy as the reef-festooned areas of the eastern shore). Couldn’t have been better…and we caught not a sausage. We flogged the place for about 5 hours non-stop, covered some lovely water, did everything right (as far as we know) and blanked. I got one pull and that was it. We had to come off around 3.30 to go back into captivity.

But a damn fine trip was had. Usual mixture of pints, pot noodles, Tayto and sundry other things bad for the health.

To be repeated. Piccies to follow.

Here´s Sean with a nice brown.

This is Mr McCann. Despite his success as a fishermen I have no photos of him cradling trout from his recent adventure. So here is one of him cradling a pint.

If you have fished in Ireland you will know what this photo encapsulates. The Kelly kettle is about to boil and the pot noodles are waiting. I don´t know where the boys pulled up in this particular photo but a pit stop like this which offers a chance to have a wee and grab a hot drink can do wonders in recharging the batteries.