A lyrical account of local fishing in the 1880s
FROM THE ARCHIVES...
This account of a fishing expedition on Lough Ennell 140 years ago shows clearly the reputation the town had as a haven for anglers even as early as the 1880s.
Published in the Westmeath Examiner of November 8, 1884, the article was a reprint of an item carried originally in what the Examiner described as “an interesting book published for the Midland Great Western Railway Company” entitled Through Connemara and the West of Ireland.
The author, who was unnamed, was, it appeared, one of a party of English tourists who, after seeing all they could at the time at their disposal, then decided to set out from Broadstone for Galway.
The report read: “We had hardly left the city half a mile behind us when the professor and Jack were deeply engaged in a discussion as to whether it would be advisable to spend a day or two on the Westmeath Lakes. Jack was doubtful: it was July; the dapping season was over. He had heard of a second rise of the fly but that would not occur till the middle of August. No one that he knew ever fished the Westmeath Lakes in July.
“The professor was logical. Trout were in the lakes, admitted fact number one. Trout did not fast through the month of July, admitted fact number two. Ergo, trout could be caught if anglers knew what to fish for them with.
“’But we don’t know what to fish for them with,’ argued Jack.
“’We will find out what to fish for them with,’” replied the professor, with all the ardour of an explorer into the hidden mysteries of science.
“The discussion lasted until Mullingar station was reached, and then the professor terminated it by exclaiming, ‘We stop here. Our tickets permit us to break the journey at Mullingar.’
“He had taken a leaf out of Jack’s book, and that gentleman yielded at discretion, but although persuaded against his will, he became more enthusiastic on the subject than the professor himself. He had ‘boots’, stable boys, and odd hangers-on of the Greville Arms scouring the town in search of boatmen, two of the best outside-cars selected and drawn up at the hotel door, lunch packed in the wells, and rods, reels, and fly-books collected. When the two boatmen arrived panting, he put them on the car with himself and the professor with the ladies on the other, shouting directions to the drivers, and were soon bowling along the long straight road which leads to Lake Belvedere, or Ennell, as it is known on the ordinance maps.
“Beautiful Belvedere well merited its title that July day. Soft, fleecy clouds moved slowly across the deep blue sky, now tempering the bright sunshine and bringing out wonderful opal tints on the waters of the lake, and then sailing away towards the horizon where the sun’s rays were reflecting in burning silver on the dancing waves which the slight west wind had raised. The emerald green setting of the sloping shores with here and there the darker tints of the splendid woods which clothed the landscape on all sides – in some places coming down to the margin and stretching leafy branches over the water, in others retreating in solid masses to the background disclosing lawn-like slopes stretching in to the fine mansions which seemed to nestle in the thick woods, made a beautiful contrast.
“Tiny islets, too, covered with foliage and barely rising from the surface, diversified the vast expanse of sparkling waters and gave a character to the scene. Beautiful Belvedere, certainly, but its beauty was rich and luxurious, not wild and stern.
“’I am afeard, sir, it’s a bit too bright yet to do much good,’ said the eldest of our boatmen, in grave tones, shading his eyes with his big broad hand, which was as wrinkled and sunburnt as his kindly intelligent face.
“’The evenin’ will be darker an’ it’s thin the trout will be rising,’ O’Beirne said after a long scrutiny of the sky.
“’Oh, come along and let us get afloat, we may as well be doing something,’ cried Jack impatiently. So the boat’s painters were unfastened and were soon floating on the translucent bosom of Belvedere the Beautiful. Jack and his wife and the younger professional in one craft, the professor Miss Menton and old O’Beirne in the other. We rowed up against the wind, side by side, for the purpose of what professionals call ‘taking a fall’, that is, to allow the boat to drift broadside to the waves. On the way up, Jack had his rod out over the thwart, trailing a phantom minnow. Soon he was in a great state of excitement. He had got a pull, he declared. ‘Yes, no, mistake about it, I’ve got hold of something,’ he shouted. ‘It isn’t much, he don’t fight hard – confound it – only a perch.’
“The perch was nice for a perch, but as a trout was expected, the visitor was very coldly received, and though a Thames angler would have considered him a prize, as he was nearly two pounds in weight, Jack’s boatman would not condescend to knock him on the head, but strung him contemptuously into the well of the boat.
In a few moments the top of Jack’s rod was dragged underwater, but the tension lasted only a moment or two, then straightened and the line came in limp but minus the phantom.
“’Pike,’ was the laconic remark of the boatman.
“Never mind Jack,’ shouted the professor, ‘Even a pike would find a phantom and three triangles unpalatable.’ But Jack would not be consoled and muttered strong language as he rigged up another bait.”
The fishing apparently continued and the professor succeeded in catching a trout which weighed almost four pounds. Afterwards the party landed on a little island “big enough for a colony of fairies to inhabit” and they set about picnicking.
“Sticks were collected, the younger boatman was dispatched to beg, borrow or steal an armful of turf and in a few minutes we had everything ready for lunch after consigning the newly caught trout to an impromptu grill.
“Jack was the only member of the party who seemed disposed for work after lunch. The rest of our party lounged or sat under the shade of a hawthorn tree and drank deep of the loveliness that spread around us on all sides.
“Emerald green meadows seemed to melt into the opal-tinted waters. The varying shades of clustering groves of beech, elm and pine contrasted with clear blue skies decked with fleecy clouds. Cattle stood here and there, knee-deep in the water, perfect embodiments of lazy, sensuous contents. A cuckoo in the woods nearest was ‘telling his name to all the hills’. A shell drake and his mate came circling round our island and the lapping of the wavelets and the incessant hum of the insect life seemed like the drone of a thousand fairy bagpipes.
“Jack was doing a great deal of work with very little result, a plump little trout of about a pound and a half weight was the only product of his labours, but he declared that when the sun was sinking to rest great deeds might be accomplished, whereupon the professor protested on behalf of the rest of the party that pleasure was the only thing to be thought of in such excursions, and that if Jack wished to labour till nightfall he should do so alone. Then he transferred O’Beirne into the other boat, grasped the paddles himself, and after a cruise around part of the northern shore, landed his passengers, fastened the boat, and lending the support of an arm to each lady, sauntered back to Mullingar. The lake is not much further than two miles from the town, and after being cramped in the boat all day, the walk was pleasant.
“’When the sun sank behind the woods, the trout rose splendidly,’ he said, ‘and how they fought! It was worth travelling two hundred miles to have a tussle with that big fellow, and many a one has made a long pilgrimage to enjoy a bit of fishing on these same lakes of Westmeath.’ The sport is best at the end of May and the beginning of June, when the fly rises from the bottom of the lake to the surface of the water, where, casting off its case and spreading its yellowing green wings in the air, it becomes the green drake. This process is known as the rise, and is the signal for the commencement of operations against the trout. As the fly does not rise on all the lakes at the same time, the angler with the blow line has the opportunity of getting the cream of the sport from each lake in turn. Belvedere inaugurates the sport, then Derravaragh follows, Lough Sheelin is a little later, and Lough Owel is usually the latest. The arrangement is most convenient, and the succession is so marked that the one set of boatmen are common to both lakes, Belvedere and Owel, which are about equidistant from Mullingar.
“When the trout are glutted with the fly on Belvedere, a procession of boats on donkey cars moves from this lake to Lough Owel, where a fresh campaign is then opened. The blowline, as its name implies, is a method of fishing in which the wind is brought into requisition. The mode of using it is simplicity itself. A skein of floss silk is joined to the ordinary reel line and a small hook attached to a couple of feet of gut is fastened to the latter. The rod is long and slight and the whole art consists in letting drakes swim on the surface of water as they sit in their natural condition, and if the angler can, under a steady breeze, manage to keep the rest of his tackle out of water, he has mastered the art.
“The following morning, as fishing in bright sunshine and dead calm was likely to be unproductive, ‘Westward ho!’ was once more our rallying cry.
“On the journey we passed the magnificent River Shannon with its massive viaduct, getting a glimpse of Lough Ree to the north and of the weirs and to the castle southward, beyond which are the famed ruins of Clonmacnoise.”