FROM THE ARCHIVES:George Burrows celebrated the mayfly season on the trout lakes of the Midlands in this evocative piece. – JOE JOYCE
THE GRAPEVINE starts working when night falls over the midland lakes and by some magical process not yet revealed to the Early Bird satellite, the angling catches of the day become known.
It is amazing how news of angling success gets around. Boats afloat are watched with a casual care that deceives the novice. The knowing watchers can tell over half a mile distance who is at that moment hooked into a trout and whether the fight ends in success or failure.
As boats pass each other, on the way to change drifts, the word is passed along – and there seems to be a community of interest. There are very few selfish anglers – men who know where fish are feeding and who will not tell the news to other anglers . . . I am writing this in Mullingar, news centre for the lakes.
Men who cannot escape from work go round apparently dazed by visions of massive trout. Those who have got away from offices and desks and counters, and there are hundreds of them, go around carrying fly boxes, things of light wood, metal gauze and folding tops with round holes.
They stalk through lakeside growth, picking off luscious mayflies that are pushed into captivity through the holes for use later on the water as floating bait to lure big fish. These men, all decent parents and fine characters, are at this time both abnormal and sub-normal.
They think only of fish and flies – they are the true addicts of angling . . . There can be no doubt that a good-looking trout is a passport and assurance that help sought by the questing angler will not be delayed. Example: I was fortunate enough to catch a 6 lb. trout on Derravaragh and the problem was to get it to Dublin with the least fuss about packing it – packing fish for travelling can be a messy business.
I took the valued fish to Mullingar railway station. It would be an exaggeration to say that the station stopped work,but in a few minutes I had men providing cardboard containers, wrapping paper, string and labels to encase and direct the fish.
Men stopped to tell about the big ones they once caught and, of course, the ones that got away – “when it took out 120 yards of line it went ping! and was gone.”
The station yard rang with stories while the serious business of preparing the trout for its last ride went on. Then the weighing and more stories. Then the last farewell – the great parting between fat Derrevaragh [sic] trout and overjoyed angler. Sorrow without tears.
Appetite grows on what it feeds on. No sooner is the obituaried trout on its way to Dublin than there comes an invitation to fish in Sheelin, Ennell, Derravarragh [sic], starting a new day of catching mayflies, boiling kettles under trees where the cuckoo is calling all the day, pushing out boats or pulling them in, stagnating in angling calms or jumping to action stations as trout swash at the wavecrests – this is the life of Ireland’s mayfly lakes to-day.