saltwater fly fishing in ireland

7/29/2019 Saltwater fly fishing in Ireland

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Gnal Ga Cas Sa Tackl

48 Irish Angler September 2013 49September 2013 Irish Angler

CoverSTory

The more he develops as a guide, the more Ji Hndick learns

to listen for that certain something in a client’s voice.

AT Home‘The more I do ThIs job The more I hear ThaT

speCIal ThIng.’




T here is a deep satisfaction in acquiring knowledge

of a place and the things t hat live there. You become

familiar with the stones that lie along the inner

estuary shore and the way they have been laid in

patterns by forces that you can’t gure, forces over

time that must have shaped those patterns. You become

reluctant to walk on those stones to avoid disturbing them. The

subtle nuances of late September light, the stark hardness of

a cool April north westerly blowing grey curtains of showers

across lilac skies whilst spring geese V their way home, the

uplifting sight of the rst swallow when shing for sea trout, the

silence after the last tern has gone, the smell of summer rain on

dry rocks and sweet sea pinks refreshed like some bejewelled

Italian ice-cream nodding their heads in a summer breeze tothe twinkling song of a skylark high in the sky. One-legged

oystercatchers limping along a mirrored strand take off and

land again and little waders run quickly in groups backwards

and forwards in the shallow waters. The curlew’s startled

cry as you walk back a late October estuary the sky already

darkening.

All th ese thin gs breed into your skin, i nto your person in to

what you are, into what you have become over years – north

winds, south winds, east winds, sunshine, frost, blue skies,

rain, salt and sand. The shape, the colour and the sound of the

sea the waves that break on the shore into white bass water

where you know it will happen, you can sense it, and you know

it instinctively.

All these things have bu ilt in me over many years – from

these countless repeated and yet different experiences and

messages I have a sense of where I am – I am home.

And in to thi s you must add the shing. What you know is

what you know because it has been forged in this instinct and

experience. You see the gulls struggle against a grey drizzly

sky and you get the heavy rod, the 10-wt, and your heart is

racing because it’s happening and you can be in the middle of

it and you move so quickly you hardly remember getting there

and you almost run to the location to get a cast off. This is

where I am happy, this is what I understand, have understood

for a long time.

The shing and the shing and the sh ing. You wait for spring

to come and you see the way the winter waves have bent the

sand and the sandbars, the new entrances the new exits the

different ow and where it was once safe is now dangerous oris now a new sh holding spot. Maybe this year the sh move

differently into different places at different times, maybe not.

And the familiar anxiet y and excitement around the arrival of a

new season begins.

Bringing people to this environment, to this place to catch

sh is what I do. That can be a dangerous thing of course and

I have learned to listen for something special in a customer’s

voice or in the way he or she writes an email. The more I do this

job the more I hear that special thing. Now don’t get me wrong,

I don’t have special powers of perception but I have learned to

listen better. Very often I hear a lot of noise and then I hear a

different sound and that’s the one I’m often most interested in.

Both John and Paul make that sound. Starkly different

people, they are both very strong in their own ways. Where

John is noisy Paul is quiet. Where John is a raconteur Paul


CoverSTory

‘maybe ThIs year The fIsh movedIfferenTly InTo dIfferenT plaCes

aT dIfferenT TImes, maybe noT.’



CoverSTory


is a listener, and where John can be found shing

Paul can often be seen sitting and staring, taking

his time.

Early during 2012 I got a plethora of emails from

John, one after the other in quick succession, more

questions in each. John wanted to y sh for bass in

Wexford. I liked the emails immediately. They were

like a torrent of excited questions from someone who

has just found an answer but doesn’t know quite

what to ask. Paul would lure sh whilst John was

strictly a y sherman. What lines, what ies, how

far, how big, is the wind strong, when can I come,

is there current, do you have any time in April? John

expressed a bubbling enthusiasm that emphasised

all the right things I liked to hear and I knew he would

be in Wexford shortly. He’s that kinda guy!

We had a tough time of it during 2012, that you

already know! John at 58 is tough and wiry and

resilient and demands a lot from himself, but there

was nothing we could do in the face of a miserable

summer on the y. He went home tired but far from

beaten. In fact – here’s the thing – he never lost any

enthusiasm in the face of the difculties we faced.

He expressed constant satisfaction about the

environment within which we shed, the challenges

which we faced at the time, the sights and the

sounds of where he was was something that he

enjoyed immensely whilst obviously challenged by

the possibilities of the shing. His end of day (in fact

end of three days) was shless but he tol d me he had

never stopped learning from me, from what he was

doing and how and where he was doing it.

And this is where it’s at in the guide/clientexperience – John doesn’t give a ddler’s about

who is using what y or line or rod or reel. He has

his equipment, which is very good, and in which he

has a lot of condence. He was shing with classic

deceivers, Clousers and atwings, all of which were

available in some basic colours – there were some

darker shades and some differences in sizes too –

one box only. Perfect.

This is what impressed me – whilst he had thought

about his gear and clothing carefully and his leaders

ies and knots were tied very well and he had

invested time here, all of this was just a small part of

the total experience. This stuff permitted both him

and me to engage in something far more valuable

than the anxiety and pseudo consequences of not

having the latest greatest thing. In other words, we

got on with the shing and what was involved at the

time. We both felt quite at home.


Then John came back with Paul in 2013. Paul is

not like John. He just shes when he can, which is

rarely. Paul is very relaxed and listens intently and

goes and does it as best he can. Last year Paul

caught some sh. In fact last year was the last time

that Paul had shed. So here we were again on the

water in Wexford under the sun in a tight head band

of summer heat not witnessed since the fabled ’76.

With a little tweaking every now and again Paul was

getting better and better. With a little slowing down

John was getting the pace to last in the 25 degree

temps – stop and start, easy does it.

In a day born from a light that makes everything

special, the sh came on. Crystal clear water ran

the estuary, sandeels tightened and hardened to

any structure they could, while from the surface

terns picked up eels lost in the rip of currents boiling

and bubbling over the tide. Skylarks hovered high

overhead almost invisible, their summer song

twinkling down to us and somewhere in the distance

was the drone of a paraglider. Paul had done exactly

what we had discussed earlier and the rst s h came

to the surface lure like train intent on destruction.

John took his sh moments later on a transparent

atwing.

It was a day of light and magic made special by

the sh, the company and feeling at home with great

people.

‘In a day born from a lIghT ThaT makes everyThIng speCIal,

The fIsh Came on.’

saltwater fly fishing in ireland

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