Circles

I want to go over an old dry fly pattern today but this takes us on a bit of circuitous journey, in many ways. Let me begin.

Derek falls inhabits that strange land between client and friend. I met him years ago and he hired me to bring him out on lough Conn, initially for one day. We both enjoyed the day so much I quickly became one of his regular boatmen. A big man, in every sense of the word, he is an expert fly fisher and a wealth of angling knowledge, both here in Ireland and across the globe. We have shared many days afloat, caught bags of trout, lost monsters and laughed over pints at the end of the day. He and his wife were over here for a flying visit last week and he called me up to see if I was free on the Thursday. There were some small jobs to be taken care of and would be driving around the area, so did I want to meet up and spend a few hours chatting and seeing what was happening across Mayo? I did, and so arrangements were hastily made.

Come Thursday morning I met Derek and his wife at eight am in the dining room of his accommodation, Carra House B&B. This being the west of Ireland there are connections through Helen to this fine establishment. Dessie and Oonagh run Carra house and Helen was in the same class as Oonagh at school. Dessie saw me coming and opened the door wide as I sauntered across the car park. I sat down and got into conversation with Derek and Julia while Dessie came and insisted I have a spot of breakfast with them. Derek had asked me to bring along some of my flies as Dessie wanted to have a look in my boxes. He is also a highly skilled angler who has landed some of the most impressive trout you can imagine. His preferred method is to fish dry fly from a float tube around the margins of the loughs, and if the wind is right he even daps from the tube. After we had eaten, Dessie sat with us and I handed him a couple of large fly boxers to examine. Talk flowed about patterns and methods of fishing then he spotted a fly in the corner of a wooden box. It was a reversed katie, a good wee fly I use sometimes later in the season. He held it up to the light, turned it in his fingers and pronounced it was a nice looking fly, so I told him to hang on to it. He then told us about how his father, a legendary local fly fisher, used a dry fly which looked something like the reversed katie, almost to the exclusion of anything else after the mayfly.

What he was describing was a fly designed by William Lunn, that great waterkeeper and dry fly exponent on the river Test. It was called the Caperer and it imitated a large caddis which hatches out from August onwards. I know how to tie a Caperer but have not done so for many’s the long year. As Dessie pointed out, the intriguing part of the fly was the circle of yellow in the middle of the body. ‘I will tie some of those up for you’ I said, at the same time thinking I need a few for my own box if they are that good! I recall tying this fly when I was very young but I had not even seen one for decades.

Derek, Julia and I set off in the hire car, stopping off to check out the boats moored in Balligarry on the Mask. From there we passed through the bustling Ballinrobe which is the centre of a media frenzy due to a dubious float at the Paddy’s day parade. From there it was on to the pretty village of Cong (made famous by the old John Wayne film ‘the quiet man’), where we met Steve Lydon for a chat and a coffee in the Puddleducks Cafe. Off next to see if Larry McCarthy was at home, but he was out on the Corrib with clients. The sun shone and in a cloudless blue sky and you could be forgiven for thinking this was July, not March. Lunchtime was rapidly approaching, so an executive decision was made (by me) to head for Clonbur and the comfort of Burkes pub. Surprisingly, Derek had never been there before, and we enjoyed a bowl of soup before taking to the tarmac once again, this time heading for Ferry bridge. Dereks grandfather used to fish out of this part of lough Mask and he was looking to connect with a local descendant of his grandfathers boatman. A comedy of errors ensued involving Derek forgetting the boatman’s family name, an obliging local who stopped and helped us out, and a pleasant stroll along the bank, taking in the glorious scenery. I guess it is only in Ireland that you can flag down a passing motorist and spend the next 20 minutes chatting about this and that like you were long lost friends.

That detour over, we drove up the western side of the lough, taking in views of picture postcard Ireland and completing a full circumnavigation of lough Mask. The original plan would have seen me back home by 2pm but another couple of hours had elapsed before Derek dropped me off. He will be back for the mayfly and days will be spent drifting the shallows of Mask or the back of the islands on the Corrib. Like I say client or friend? Both I guess.

All of that has finally led me to the dressing of the Caperer. Hook sizes are 12 generally but you could go one size bigger or smaller. For tying silk I prefer black, 8/0, but the original specified Pearsall’s Gossamer, red, shade no.13. The body if made from 4 or 5 dark turkey tail herls with a small circle in the middle made from swan herl dyed yellow. Not in the original tying, but I added a rib of finest gold wire to give the weak turkey and swan some protection. There are two hackles, the first is a red game cock and in front of that you wind a black cock hackle. If desired, you can add a wing made from dark brown hen slips tied over the back of the fly before the hackles are wound.

I am itching to get out fishing but my old car is currently off the road with a nagging issue in the ABS system which is proving to be hard to fix. Added to that, my boat requires a new keel and so it too is laid up for now. I should have attended to both problems earlier but it has been a difficult start to the year with a close family bereavement and then my step son was home from Australia for six weeks. Having only talked on the phone or video calls for two years we had a lot of catching up to do, so everything else went on to the back burner for that month and a half. Now, I’m frantically playing catch up as the season bursts into life.