All over

Returning from a lovely trip to Sligo, we found the kitchen awash due to a burst water pipe under the floor. Splashing into the dining room only brought further misery as the water had destroyed the wooden floor in there too. The insurance assessor shook his head while scribbling furiously in a small black notepad when he came along to survey the wreckage and so we have a few weeks of limited showers and cooking facilities to face up to. For now, our neighbours must think I have converted to Islam as I pop out into the street with a little mat to kneel on as I open/close the mains water valve to the house. This commonplace misfortune will take time to sort out, effectively ending my game fishing for 2024. To be brutally honest, I was not missing much.

The summer was especially tough. With virtually no salmon left and small runs of sea trout, anglers turned to brownies but they proved to be hard to catch most days. The weather did not help of course, high winds from the east and north predominated and fly life was non-existent. A dry summer shrunk the rivers and loughs until thin trickles ran between algae covers stones and luxuriant weed. We collectively prayed for rain, perhaps as it turned out a bit too hard. August brought day after day of heavy precipitation, forcing the water levels ever upwards. Rivers rose and rose, spreading out over the green fields which bordered them. Soon the lakes too were on the rise, causing mayhem on the sheltered bays where the boats lay tethered. Locals were quick to move their craft to higher ground but many anglers who live a long way away came belatedly to the loughs only to find their bot sunk of floating out in the bay. I have seen the loughs higher during the winter, but this was by a long way the highest I have ever seen them in summer.

We figured this was a good thing. The lethargic fish would get some life saving oxygen in the cold, fresh water and the full rivers would provide easy access for the migratory fish stranded in the tidal pools waiting to run. Surely this was going to be the salvation of the 2024 season? Gradually, the water dropped until by mid September, although still high, the loughs were fishable once again. Rods were dusted down and eager anglers sallied forth with hope in their breast. Surely this was going to be the salvation of the season? An August spate, the stuff dreams are made of.

The semi-retired status of my job did not protect me from a deluge of tasks which required me to work extra days, thus limiting my own angling over the past weeks. I didn’t fish much, just the odd day guiding or going out myself for a couple of hours. On every trip though, the loughs felt totally dead. It was not just me who was experiencing this lack of sport, everyone I talked too had the same story. Fly fishers and trollers alike – nobody was seeing, let alone catching fish. No signs of fly life, no trout rising, no salmon pitching. Come to think of it, even the coarse fish were pretty unresponsive. I caught some perch and my boat partner on one of the days, Frank who owns the tackle shop in Castlebar, had a lively pike, but they were few and far between. And so, while ripping up floorboards and sloshing through the sad remains of a kitchen are not my idea of fun I doubt if the fishing would have lifted my mood much.

It is hard to know what has gone wrong. A big spate after a dry spell is what we game anglers all want, it gets the salmon running and freshens up the trout, at least it used to! What we witnessed lately appears to go totally against this view and has perplexed the fishing community here in the west. One issue could be run off from the land. Normally, a spate is dirty at the beginning then clears as the water level drops. Yet hear we are weeks after the last significant rain and the loughs are still filthy. Why have the suspended solids not dropped out yet? Is the overload of slurry to blame? Another theory is the water was unseasonably cold for the time of year due to all that rain. Again, trout and salmon thrive on cold water so why should they switch off this time?

The near total absence of fly life can be part of the problem for the trout. I saw a few sedges when I was out on the water but nothing else and those few sedges would not have been enough to bring on a rise. A couple of buddies and I fished the Callow loughs last weekend (that is Richard on the oars negotiating the gap in the photo above). Now the three of us know what we are at and we fished hard all day, trying both loughs, using wets dries, floating lines, sinking lines and generally chucking the proverbial kitchen sink at them. The two lads had one fish each and I blanked. There were no insects, only one natural rise and apart from the two trout boated we only had a couple of pulls. Both loughs felt utterly lifeless. Even if we accept that low numbers of flies is an issue, surely the lads trolling rapalas, tassies and the like would have been picking up the odd trout as the fish feasted on fry. But no, trolling was every bit as depressing as wafting flies from a drifting boat.

When it comes to salmon, the fish were just not there. The runs of salmon have dwindled to near extinction levels here in Ireland and the survival of that iconic species is in the balance. I was out on the lakes and rivers a fair bit earlier in the year and I did not see a single salmon until one showed on my last day out (I was not fishing for them but you see them jumping on Conn if they are there). I know skilled anglers who have fished hard all season and only met a couple of salmon. That big fish kill in the Ballysodare river in Sligo earlier this year is another odd one. The enquiry into this disaster is blaming the crowded conditions in the lower river due to the blocking of the river to hold fish below the falls. OK, I can buy that but the same shutting of the sluice gate has happened for many years without the salmon dying, so what was so different this year? Who knows what next season will bring!

And so, as I wrestle with insurance claim forms and overly committed tradesmen, my game fishing has petered out with a whimper and not a bang. Some of my mates will partake of their annual trips over to fish Sheelin next week (it closes a week or later than our local loughs) to try for one or two of the spotted monsters who lurk into the mossy green waters there. I used to fish it many decades ago and loved the place, but it succumbed to pollution from the pig slurry, only to rise again, phoenix like and gave some fantastic fishing. I’ll head there next season and reacquaint myself with the old drifts, but I’ll pass on chasing the October fry bashers for now.

I’m planning on doing a small bit of coarse fishing over the coming weeks and maybe try off the rocks for a fat pollock, but my attention will now pivot to fly tying for the winter months. My fly boxes are a mess again after a season of ghillieing, a near permanent state of affairs for me. Only salmon flies proliferate and I’ll sell most of them just to have a clear out. While I am apprehensive about 2025 I have to try and remain hopeful the angling will pick up again after a number of poor seasons. Surely, at some point the angling has to pick up again?