Neglecting this blog has been an unintentional but very real feature of 2023 for me. With very minimal actual fishing being done by this poor, hard working individual there has been precious little to write about. ’23 started off poorly and has gone steadily downhill from there. Even my normally near weekly trips to the local midlands canals dried up recently and I have not wet a line for three weeks. It happens to most of us I guess, work simply takes over our lives, leaving the burnt out husk of an angler. With no sign of an improvement in the foreseeable future, I will need to find some other source of content for these pages.
On the fly tying front I am starting to list what I want to make over the rapidly approaching winter. I will have long dark evenings to fill and numerous fly boxes too. My mayflies are in poor order and the same goes for the box of sea trout flies. I never did get around to re-stocking the rainbow trout fly boxes after I chucked scores of ancient, rusty ones in the bin last winter. All-in-all I can see a busy spell of tying ahead on me which is no harm. Oh, and I have commenced a small side project as a mate needs some river flies so I am dropping a few spiders, nymphs and dries into a wee box which will gradually fill over the winter and be full for the opening of the trout season next spring. Sufficient material for a number of posts on this site!
There is still a bit of fishing to be done this year of course. I may try a few hours on Lough Ree in September for example. That mighty lake holds some great fish but I am clueless about where to try or what to use. Luckily, I know a local angler who has all the knowledge required and is happy to take my out for a few hours, weather permitting. That could be the rub though, as high winds have plagued this land all year, leading to many cancelled days afloat.
In other news, that old wreck of a Renault which I have been driving for a while failed the NCT test this weekend and a quick glance at the fail sheet showed it is beyond economic repair. So off to the scrapyard it will go just a soon as I have found a replacement. I can’t say that I’m too upset about this apparently disturbing turn of events. The Scenic was a hard car to love, what with its non-functioning electrics and dodgy handling. I can’t complaint, it got me down and back to work in the midlands efficiently for a few months and at very low cost. The big question of what to buy next is weighing heavy on my mind but there is a plan (of sorts) forming in my tiny brain. For now, I am just emptying the odds and ends of fishing tackle which have been carelessly cast asunder in every nook and cranny. A number of flies have been retrieved from the parcel shelf where I habitually stick them when breaking down my tackle after a days fishing. Three feeders which I have no recollection of using were discovered in a compartment under the rear seat and a 7 foot fly rod was lurking in the boot. All have been safely gathered in and will no doubt be simply transferred to my next rusting chariot.
Helen is starting up her own business which is another distraction for me as I help out as best I can. Traction is slowly building and there is a steady increase in sales of her wonderful pet portraits (see below an example of her work). While all of this is going on, I am scribbling away at a new book. With 60k words down on paper already it is ticking along quite nicely but I still have an awful lot of work to put into it. As you can imagine, trying to find time to actually go fishing is a tough ask.
All of the above sounds like just a litany of excuses, the procrastination of someone who is simply disorganised. While there is an element of that, I am genuinely tired and drained both physically and mentally these days. The straight forward 3 month contract I took on nearly a year ago morphed into a substantive and complex role which requires the deployment of all my technical knowledge. It would tax the energies of a man half my age. That being said, I will try harder to post more often here. Look out for something more interesting in my next post!
For example, the photo at the top of this post is of the River Inny, a large tributary of the Shannon which flows from lough Sheelin to lough Ree. Once a good river for game fish it has been mauled and distorted by endless drainage schemes which have driven off or killed the trout and salmon. In their place, coarse fish moved in and I am planning on trying for roach and maybe pike over the coming months on different stretches of the Inny. Perhaps it is time for me to seriously try pike fishing after all. At the moment I would rather catch a ten ounce roach or a ten inch trout than a ten pound pike. I live in country where pike abound so I’ll mull over my current disregard for Essox and raise them from ‘unwanted by-catch when trolling’ to ‘sporting challenge’.
Looking further forward, I’m still wrestling with what to do about salmon fishing next year. The runs of fish in 2023 have been alarmingly poor with hardly any salmon in the local systems. Do I fish for salmon in 2024? I deliberately did not this season, feeling every fish was precious and me disturbing them felt like the wrong thing to do. Do I stick to that next year or will I relent and pick up the heavy rods once again? I have time to mull this over but I’d say the odds are against me salmon fishing in 2024.
Claretbumbler 