Change of seasons

Last Friday was a scorcher, 28 degrees when Helen and I were mooching around Galway city. The sun splitting the stones on Shop Street, traditional music flowing from the open doors of the pubs and throngs of visitors enjoying the spectacle of the sun beaming down on old Eire. I found a high stool in one of the city centre pubs and let herself off to scour the town for bargains while I savoured a creamy pint of the black stuff. The following day started of foggy but that soon burned off and so we headed west, ending up walking along the golden strands of Mulranney and looking across the restless turquoise expanse of Clew Bay to the reek. By evening the clouds marched across the sky and we knew the inevitable had happened, our summer was over for another year, all two days of it. Sunday was cold and windy, a portent for the coming rains of Monday.

Work over for the day, I motored from Clara to the village of Belmont in west Offaly. Just to the south of the crossroads in the middle of the village I crossed the old bridge over the river Brosna and only the length of a field further on did the same to the Grand canal. Pulling into a little car park, I decided to check out this stretch as it seemed to have a bit of character. Sunday’s cold wind had cooled even further and a thin mist swirled around me as I tackled up. The change in the seasons was palpable, leaves were pirouetting from the trees and that indescribable feeling it was Autumn permeated my senses.

I have never fished this part of the Grand canal before but my experiences of the rest of it suggested I was in for a tough session. I know other anglers heave out huge bags of prime roach, bream, tench and even the odd carp, but I habitually struggle on the Grand whereas the Royal, a few miles to the north, has usually been good to me. Now badly weeded, the Royal is no longer an option for me so I switched attention to the Grand and girded my loins for the upcoming battle. At least this section is interesting to look at, what with disused mills, big lock gates and charming cottages along the towpath.

A clutter of rod sections in the front seat of thew car required a bit of detective work to find pieces which fitted into each other, but I soon assembled an 11 foot float rod and a 12 foot leger rod, both with matching reels. That would do. I left my chair in the car as there was a low wall which I’d park my bum on just below the lock where the canal widened out a tad. Light rain fell as I tackled up but it eased off not long after my first few casts (it would return later). Of course, the wind blew strongly from the south west, meaning I was partially sheltered from the worst of it. A thick fleece under my waterproofs kept me mostly warm. The sky looked like it had been drawn in charcoal, clouds lowering to spill rain for a while only to lift and tease me it would dry up. Nobody who landed next to me on the edge of that lonely canal would have believed I was tormented by near thirty degree heat but two days previously. As they say here in Ireland, if you don’t like the weather, just hang around for an hour, it is sure to be different.

The fishing was crap. I’d like to dress this up as something more positive but no, it was crap. I toiled manfully for three hours but all I could manage was a small roach, a very small perch and a positively tiny rudd, all three falling to maggots under a crystal waggler fishing slightly over depth with a size 14 spade end snelled to 6 inches of double strength four pound. The roach dragged the float under, the perch was so small it swam off after swallowing the bait but lacked the weight to pull the float below the surface. The rudd inhaled my maggots on the drop. Maybe it is just the change in atmospheric conditions, but the place felt dead to me and I was not in the least surprised at the lack of action. As with many stretches of the grand canal, the water was very clear but there were no signs of fish swimming around.

The rain, which had never been far away, became heavier so I called stumps around 7.30pm. It’s a pity the angling was so poor as this is a lovely spot to whittle away an hour or two with a float rod. As I was leaving I met one of the chaps who work for Inland Waterways, the body who look after Ireland’s canals. Turns out he did a bit of fishing and he shared some of his favourite places on the canal. It sounded to me like just about everywhere was better than Belmont! He knew the river Moy up in Mayo where I fish and he enquired how this season had been for the salmon. He looked shocked when I explained the disastrous season endured around Foxford and Ballina where catches have been derisory. He departed in his dark blue jeep with dented wing, window wound down and still shouting out good spots to fish for roach or pike. ‘At the far end of the ten mile level there is a bridge…………’, then he was gone is a flurry of gravel and exhaust fumes.

All light had left the sky by the time I got back to my digs, just adding to the depressing feeling that summer has gone. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy many facets of the autumn, it is just the sense of time slipping away so quickly which is upsetting. No long, lazy days enjoying the warmth. No slaking a thirst with a cold beer on the patio. No more long, light evenings to fish in shirt sleeves. Now we are back to lighting the fire early and reminiscing about another all too short summer.

One positive from the session was my newly acquired Preston Innovations hard plastic hook length box proved to be a great addition to my coarse fishing gear. When I started out I bought fairly large rig wallets, thinking they would be perfect. Experience has shown me that while these wallets might be de-rigour for the carp fishing fraternity, they are a bit OTT for me and my roach/tench addiction. The wee grey Preston box can carry a huge number of pre-tied hook lengths, varying in size from tiny 2 inch ones up to 6 inchers. Another advantage, which I didn’t really see coming, is the new box forced me to concentrate on making hook lengths to exact sizes so they would sit on the wee hooks in the box. That in turn means if I swap a hook length during fishing I can exactly match the one I took off or broke. These boxes come in a two sizes, the smaller one I have and a bigger one for hook lengths from 6 to 12 inches.

Over the past couple of years I have yo-yoed between eyed and spade end hooks. Lately, I have figured out that spade ends are my preferred style for smaller hooks and the new hook length box is gradually filling with these hooks. My reasoning preference for spade ends is due to the way they align with the nylon which I feel is much more reliable than eyed ones. Snelling small hooks used to be right down there with cleaning of the cat’s litter tray when it came to things I enjoy doing, but I have grown to appreciate the detail of making a good hook length and the neat tying of the hook. Part of that shift is due to moving away for using tools. I had tied to master both a hook tyer and a loop tyer, but me being me, I’m happier using my fingers.

I still carry eyed hooks in a wide range of sizes with me when fishing so I can very quickly change a hook should I lose or break one or simple want a different size on the canal bank. I also use eyed patterns when fishing bigger sizes. Within the choice of spade ends, I am still experimenting with different hook designs, something of a never ending journey I guess.

The next couple of weeks are going to be busy for me so fishing opportunities will be limited. I am required at work for a couple of ‘extra’ days, meaning long drives and stressful hours chairing high level meetings which will leave me tired out. So for me the game fishing season will peter out at the end of the month. 2024 will go down as a season to forget for me and the rest of the trout and salmon fishers I know around here. Being anglers, we live in hope the next season will see an improvement, but it is becoming harder and harder to remain positive when each new season bring further disappointments. I think we have all kidded ourselves that the powers in charge would not let the Atlantic salmon go extinct, but that is exactly what we are facing in the very near future. Stocks have collapsed across Europe to a level which must border on sustainable. It is not just the salmon; brown trout, sea trout and all the coarse species are under similar pressure. What is so worrying is that nobody with any authority or responsibility gives a damn. Perhaps in the not too distant future an evening spent on a canal catching three small fish will be classed as a good session.