Home thoughts from abroad BY SEÁN BYRNE
FLY FISHERMEN IN GENERAL ARE A PATIENT BREED. EVERY YEAR THEY WORK DILIGENTLY FOR ELEVEN AND A HALF MONTHS, THEN COUNT THE DAYS AND FINALLY THE HOURS TO THEIR ANNUAL FISHING TRIP. My trip each year is to the Warren River, in the Southwest corner of Western Australia, where the hot sun and the encroaching bush make for a difficult fishing environment, and a scarcity of fish. Last year’s trip was a complete disaster. The drive from Perth in late September was slow due to a storm. The rain beat unrelentingly on the windshield of my car. The wipers were unable to cope with the deluge and several times I pulled into a lay-by to allow the worst of it to pass. When I arrived at my cottage the rain had eased, but the overflowing river covered the paddock at the back of the house. As I unpacked my car a duck and her brood sailed towards me, exploring their new-found playground and quack quacked a greeting as they passed. 42 | THE IRISH SCENE
There was a gentle rain that first evening and I sat on the veranda in the fading evening light, tying flies and dreaming of fishing trips past. I especially remembered those fish caught in ice-cold mountain streams in the West of Ireland. The small, speckled trout that danced on the water in anger when hooked and swam away with a derisive wave of the tail, like a two-fingered salute, when released. And big trout from the Midland Lakes, fine Lough Owel trout that never showed on the surface until it was time for the net. Powerful fish that could pull a large boat around the lake with ease. But most of all, those wonderful trout from the River Boyne, with bellies the colour of fresh butter, like pirouetting rainbows they leaped against the setting sun. What I wouldn’t give to be sitting on the banks of that great river now, just below Bective Bridge. To sit with my back to the Great house with its sombre grey-stone exterior and to face the skeletal ruins of that ancient abbey where 800-year-old ghosts guard its naked walls. I would sit for hours in the spot below the bridge, light up a cigarette and gaze longingly into my fly box while listening to the water as it bubbled
