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You are > Home > US physician's magical journey in quest of a Moy salmon
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Wednesday, September 17, 2003
US physician's magical journey in quest of a Moy salmon
By Dr. Eamon Flanagan
There are many reasons to visit Ballina. The town itself is historic and beautiful, and it's a great touring centre for the many other attractions of North Mayo and beyond, including the Céide Fields in Ballycastle, the Seaweed Baths in Enniscrone near the championship golf course, and Yeats country in Sligo.
I went there for the fishing. The River Moy runs right through Ballina in its final passage to Killala Bay and the Atlantic. And the Moy is no ordinary stream. It is one of the finest salmon rivers in the world and a beacon for lovers of fly-fishing.
My wife, Sheila, and I headed to Ballina on a beautiful summer's day. Fuchsia, goldenrod, and Queen Anne's lace graced the hedgerows as we drove in from Foxford.
We were not without connections. Our good friend Joe Mullarkey, back in Connecticut, had smoothed our paths, so we walked into the friendly protection of his many friends in his old hometown. We stayed at Pat Murphy-Curham's superb guesthouse, San Remo. We had dinners at Murphy Bros. Bar and Restaurant nearby, and John McDonagh signed on as gillie (guide), teacher, and friend for my upcoming battle with the wily salmon of the Moy.
It is not easy to get to fish on the better stretches of the river. The Moy is rationed out by The North Western Regional Fisheries Board, and there are ten applicants for every rod allowed. I had applied very early, and although I was denied a rod on the much coveted Ridge Pool, I did get two separate half-days on the Cathedral Stretch.
One might assume that having been granted the right to fish this carefully regulated river, one is almost guaranteed to catch fish. Nothing could be further from the truth. The salmon are there (you can see them jumping), but many a good fisherman has been chastened by spending hours and even days working the beats - and has still ended up with an empty creel. The best fisherpeople in the world come here, but the king of all fish is a worthy opponent.
A word about those creels: Successful anglers really do keep their catch here; fishing is so carefully restricted that there's no need for rigid catch-and-release regulations. Americans often have their salmon smoked so they can bring it home).
The next morning I put on my waders, walked into the water on the Cathedral Stretch, and began to cast. John watched me for a few minutes, made a couple of suggestions, and then left to help his other clients. There were six of us on the beat, and all morning we plied the water, moving along the river in a set pattern that ensured that we walked the whole 600 yards beat every hour.
Behind us were the steps of the cathedral, and opposite was the family home of Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Upriver loomed the rocky eminence of Nephin Mountain.
Townspeople went about their daily business and occasionally looked the scene over. What we were doing was enjoyable work, and John returned at regular intervals to encourage me. But we had no luck. The Moy salmon survived for another day.
When my time was up, Sheila joined John and me at Boozy O'Brien's pub for lunch. John was full of excuses for me: The weather was too bright, the river was too high, and nobody else had caught anything.
Fly-fishing
At 'Boozy's' fishing is the central fact of life. When they talk of fish there they mean salmon and when they talk of fishing they mean fly-fishing. The use of bait or lures is only permitted at certain times on the Moy, and it's always frowned upon.
The salmon has a huge place in Irish mythology. It occurs in all forms of stories and legends, almost always as the bearer of health and knowledge; the Irish invoke the Bradán Feasa ("salmon of knowledge") in many tales. Even in modern Ireland the most common toast is "Sláinte An Bhradáin" ("The health of the salmon"). It is not surprising that the coat of arms for the town of Ballina includes a salmon.
I had a few days off before I returned to the river. We went to Ballycastle to see the Céide Fields, the ruins of a Stone Age community. At least 13 feet of bog covers four square miles of farmland that have been buried for 50 centuries and are now being excavated. Nearby, the Atlantic washes its fury against the Céide cliffs, exposing the history of the earth's past 300 million years.
On our way back to Ballina we visited the Humbert landing site at Killala. There, in 1798, the French landed 1,000 men to help the United Irishmen with the insurrection.
The next day we drove to Enniscrone. The hedgerows and wildflowers were in full bloom; blackberries abounded. We rode through Killanley, with its stunning Gothic church; past the championship links at Enniscrone; and on to the seaweed baths. There it's customary to take a steam bath in a cedarwood cabinet that leaves only one's head exposed, followed by a warm seaweed bath in an old-fashioned iron tub. Sheila took the waters while I walked on the near-by beach, a spectacularly wide, hard-packed expanse.
On another excursion we visited Jackie Clarke, (since deceased) a local businessman who smokes fish. He does not use any farm fish, and he has a large clientele worldwide who won't eat anyone else's smoked salmon.
Jackie is a walking encyclopaedia on the region. Talking about the Irish Famine, he told us that in 1841, the Ballina area had a population of 52,000. By 1851 it was down to 33,000. Some 19,000 people had disappeared. Maybe half had died and the other half had emigrated. Today, 150 years later, the famine is still close to the surface in the folk memory here.
Boozy's
Back at Boozy's we were caught up in the camaraderie of the fishing. An international roster of people were in town; many Irish, quite a few Britons and Americans, and a smattering of Germans, Frenchmen, and Dutch. The conversation was about salmon, salmon rods, salmon flies. We all discussed the relative advantages of each rod, from Orvis to Sage, Winston to Daiwa. The flies we expounded upon were even more numerous, not to mention exotic; the Stoat Tail, Hairy Mary, Thunder and Lightning, Garry Dog and more.
Every salmon that someone had caught launched a story - what rod he'd used, which fly was responsible. I was struck by the fact that these anglers discussed each salmon's weight in approximations: "4 to 5 pounds," "at least 11 pounds," and "close to 20". I asked John about this, and he was very clear: "There was no shortage of accurate scales in town"
After a few evenings in Boozy's, we abandoned much of this talk. After all, we were all here to relax. John was tactful enough not to accuse us of going native.
It was finally my time to battle the salmon again. The weather was threatening that day, but I concentrated and worked the beat with great intensity.
Suddenly I was into one. The fish gave me a nice fight, but it was easy to land after about 15 minutes of play. My salmon was somewhere between three and four pounds. This was not quite what I'd had in mind, but it would do.
With the fish safely in the box, I returned to work. I cast for another three hours but never did catch another salmon. Eventually the tide came in and I had to quit.
John and I retired to Boozy's. There I was treated with new respect. No one wanted to hear about the fish's small size. I had caught a salmon and was now a member of a very exclusive club!
When Sheila joined us in the celebration, I assured her that my fish wasn't very big. John, however, would have none of it, exclaiming, "It was as big a grilse as I have seen this year".
What a friend! What he didn't tell her was that grilse are young salmon that are returning to their own river for the first time after spending about a year off Greenland.
On our last night in Ballina we had an excellent dinner at Murphy's of roast lamb with new potatoes and new peas. It was a beautiful moonlit night, and before we went home we walked down to the Ham Bridge across the river. On one side was the Ridge Pool and on the other was Cathedral Stretch.
From all sides came sounds of revelry from cafés and restaurants. The Irish use the word craic to describe the mix of music, singing, storytelling, and laughter that characterises a night on the town. Looking downstream, I thought about the terrible hardships once endured by this place: the insurrections, the famine, the emigration, and the poverty.
A lone salmon jumped and broke our reverie: more evidence that the salmon are back - despite pollution, poaching, and netting at sea. Indeed, the whole area is coming back.
Next year I, too, would be back to renew my battle with the Atlantic salmon in the generous embrace of Ballina.
* Courtesy of
'Diversion' - For Physicians at Leisure
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