A Testimonial from Mr Ian Forde
Nore Discovery
It started, as so many good things in Irish Salmon angling do, with Robert Gillespie. I had spent a supremely enjoyable summer in the company of Robert fishing every hidden nook-and-cranny of his beloved Moy, catching great draughts of Silvered visitors by all legal means. Not only does he know every run and lie, he also knows the fishes names, and their lineage! Towards the end of the summer, the fishing was getting harder, with fewer and fewer fresh fish in the river. For the past couple of weeks, as the runs got smaller & smaller, Robert had been suggesting I try some pastures new. I asked him where I should try, and without hesitation, he replied the Nore. He had being giving some casting lessons to the local club, the Thomastown anglers, over the past couple of years. When he spoke of the Nore, he grew animated, describing the beautiful pools & runs he had fished, and the Salmon themselves, big, broad, deep-shouldered fish, fish in the teens of pounds, and bigger, into the Twenties, and Thirties, and rumours of Leviathans of which men spoke of in whispers, the like of which hadn’t been seen for scores of years….
They talk of infectious diseases, but none have the power to grip like Salmon-fever. Within days, Robert had spoken to his good friend Jim Brown, and arranged for me to spend the day as Jim’s guest on the Nore. Late summer saw me wending my way down to Inishtoge, like a youngster on Christmas eve. Few things in this life still give me those delicious butterflies in my stomach, but I think if the prospect of fishing a brand-new water didn’t elicit that response, I’d take up golf. I met with Jim at his picture-postcard home overlooking the Nore valley, and met with his lovely wife and family. Tea and sandwiches were forced on me, photos of fish dug out, tackle examined, flies proffered for each others perusal. Jim told me his story, of how he had fished in his native Scotland since a wee child, how he fell in love with fly-fishing for Salmon, and his joy at discovering the quality of the Nore fish when he arrived to work in the area nearly 30 years ago, which has kept him here ever since. To hear a man speak of the river the way Jim does, to understand his passion, is to long for that connection to the water yourself.
We parked at the old graveyard outside Inishtoge, the five minute car journey full of recent catches, and fish seen and fish lost. Waders donned, rods assembled, we crossed the water-meadow and I caught my first sight of the river. First impressions are everything, as they say you don’t get a second chance to make one…. And this took my breath away. The river turned and bulged through Oak and Chestnut, Willow and Alder, as Jim pointed out lies, streams, holding pools, taking pools. To my eyes, all of it just screamed fish, with fast, streamy runs, islands breaking up swift currents only to rejoin below, slabs of rocks both above and below the surface creating vortices and back-eddies, in short just the most perfect fly-water you could imagine. Gin-clear is such an over-used cliché, but if there is a standard for it, then this was it. Pebbles only the size of diamonds could be seen easily in 8’ of water, with the same glint as their more precious relative. How easy for a Salmon to see a fly, I thought…
We started at the top of the reach, in a beautiful pool not 30 yards across, riffly water at it’s head below a half-sunken weir, with a push of water on the far bank of about 5’ deep, shallowing to mere inches at our feet. Large boulders necklaced the bottom of the pool 40 yards below, and a side-stream entering on our bank completed the scene. I made to approach the pool where the stream entered, only to be cautioned by Jim to hold back. “There’s often a fish to be had right at the mouth of the brook” Jim whispered in my ear “cast from the bank here on your knees, just get the fly a couple of feet out in the stream, and let it swing”. Thank God I didn’t get a pull, for by this stage I was like a coiled spring, and probably would have pulled the fly out of a fishes mouth such was my excitement!
We fished the pool down a couple of times each, getting into the rhythm of cast, fish and retrieve. When the pull did come, I was relaxed enough to let the line pull tight against the rod. A take on the fly from a Salmon is a wondrous thing, and although we are fishing to get the take, and a part of us expects it, when it happens, when this Atlantic traveller takes your hook of feathers, it is such an unexpected thrill. The hook bit home, and I saw a flash of white belly below the surface, before the fish exploded from the water in a shower of spray “good fish, good fish” Jim laughed crazily, Salmon-crazy. We both laughed, both happy, on a beautiful river, catching a beautiful fish…..
That fish weighed 11 pounds, a beautiful Silver fish. Like all it’s Nore brethren, it was caught on a single barbless fly, and released again to fight another day. I visited the Nore again in late summer, and lost a fish, a fish the size of which has had me waking up in a cold sweat on many a winter’s night. So when this spring arrives, I shall again be on the banks of the Nore, with spirits renewed.
But none of this has happened by accident. It has come about through the tireless hard work of men like Jim Brown and Bobby Wimms , who worked so hard to end drift-netting of Salmon, not for self-glory, or for reward or recognition, but because it was simply the right thing to do, and so their children, and grand-children, could enjoy this beautiful past-time. In a world that pays so much lip-service to “Green” issues, and so loves buzz-words like “eco” this and “climate-change” that here are real heroes, people who actually do make a difference. And clubs like Thomastown anglers, who maintain and nurture this beautiful stretch of river, and then, instead of keeping it to themselves as might be expected, actively encourage both local and visiting anglers to fish, as part of their ethos, again simply because they consider it the right thing to do. Perhaps it is the benign nature of this mighty River, but it does seem to bring the best out of people… Go and enjoy!!
Ian Forde
Copyright Ian Forde 05.03.2008
