Who Needs Bermuda?
- Details
- Published on Sunday, 07 November 2010 10:13
- Written by Joe Whoriskey
I've fished some amazing places over the years, and had some weird and wonderful experiences as a result of my inability to pass either a fisherman or interesting piece of water without some investigation.
I've spent a day sitting at the very place where one of the feet of the famed colossus of Rhodes would have stood as it straddled Mandraki harbour, fishing for small sardine like fish in the company of a non English speaking octogenarian who kindly loaned me his spare rod, in turn my catch went into his bucket for the table.
I've used bird seed as bait to catch large carp as they cruised by the Willamette river houseboat used as Madonna’s home in the film Body of Evidence, and breakfasted on bass caught from the same river while watching the ospreys, nesting above me on the houseboat anchorage structure, catch their own breakfast.
But do we need to search the world for fishing experiences? I've watched a white tailed eagle fish over my local lough as I ate bacon sandwiches and drank tea from a flask, shared night time pools with an otter and fished for trout as the rainbow flash of kingfishers skimmed the water. But more than any of these, on a beautiful sunny day in early September passed, I chose to pay a visit to a high lough not fished by myself before. I’d had varied reviews from a couple of elder statesmen on its merits, but though they disagreed on the quality of the fishing all agreed that it was a particularly beautiful location.
A slight navigation error on my part meant I gave myself a longer than expected walk as, rounding the base of a small rock topped hillock, I found not water, but just a further expanse of heather. A clamber to the top of the hillock however showed me my mistake, there behind me and at the base of a very similar looking hillock to the one I stood on, I could see the distinct figure of eight shape glinting in the sun. Effectively there were two almost completely circular loughs joined by a narrow channel. The area around the lough was boulder strewn with some of the rocks as large and flat as double beds, on getting closer I could see the nearer of the two circles was almost completely choked by mats of bright green weed.
I sat on a large rock, stripped off my sweat soaked shirt leaving it spread out to dry, while I rigged up my rod. The day regardless of the state of the lough was glorious, sun shone from a cloudless sky and the only sounds were of insects and birds. As I sat I could see trout dimpling the surface in every clear patch between the weeds, although even as I tied up a cast I knew there was no way to fish this particular part of the lough.
After rigging up I sat enjoying the sun until my shirt was dry then started off to walk around the lough toward the adjoining channel. As I got closer I could see the channel had dried up and now consisted of a series of stagnant pools unconnected to each other or to either lough. However the view of the second lough was a much more promising sight. It appeared totally weed free and already I could see rising trout.
The second lough contained the clearest water I have ever seen in a hill lough over a bottom of honey coloured sand, and about half of the lough shore consisted of golden sandy beach running down to the water's edge. Leave out the hills and heather in the background and the scene could have come from a Caribbean holiday brochure.
Again I sat for a while by the shore simply enjoying the view, but the regular bulges in the surface film as trout fed soon had me by the water's edge stripping line and getting my flies on the water. I had to wade quite a bit from shore to cover the trout that were showing but as the water never rose much above the knee and the bottom was clean firm and sandy this provided no problem.
Soon the first trout came to a size 14 Bibio, 6 or 7 ounces of pale silver tinged gold glinting like precious metal in the sunshine, perfect in every detail. Then something caught my eye about 5 yards to my left a trout cruised just below the surface, and as I watched, it gently sipped a small black something from the surface and glided past within a yard of my legs. Now I started to see more trout some individuals but more often two or three trout swimming together.
I changed to a small black well greased Klinkhammer and started to target individual trout, placing the fly just in front of them as they cruised, experiencing the incredible feeling of success when one would suck it in with confidence. Surprisingly even the playing and releasing of a trout would only cause them to scatter briefly and within a few minutes they would be back cruising within sight and reach.
As I continued to target individual trout trying to place my little black Klink in exactly the right position along their line of travel, experiencing the rush of adrenalin as a trout would turn to investigate the fly, and on those occasions when the trout would succumb to temptation the sudden powerful run and feel of line slipping through my fingers. I thought, blue skies, sunshine, golden beach, wet wading , sight fishing for strong wild fish in gin clear water, what makes fishing for bonefish in exotic surroundings any better than this?
It's a true saying that far off fields look greener, sometimes we need to look closer to home and appreciate what's on our respective door steps. My virtual bone fishing adventure cost me the price of less than a gallon of diesel, and believe me on a small three weight a full finned wild brownie of a pound is as good as a bonefish. Who needs Bermuda?
Joe Whoriskey ,a keen Irish fly fisher, is fifty years of age and has been fishing for more than forty of those. His main passion is wild trout in river or lough, although he also fishes for salmon occasionally. Joe firmly believes that any day spent fishing is a good day, trout caught are an added bonus and should never be used to measure success or failure.
When not fishing he works as an electrical engineer to pay for licences, permits, and to fund occasional overseas fishing trips.