John Shelley spends an evening on the banks of the River Robe, and discovers more than trout for his time
Country Sights and sounds
John Shelley
These long evenings are a charm. I had gone to the River Robe close to Hollymount, ostensibly for a walk, but just happened to have my trout rod in hand, which meant that walking would be only as far as the first feeding fish. Following the river downstream in the direction of Ballinrobe, I kept my eyes and ears on the water and, sure enough, it wasn’t many minutes before I found one.
It is no easy matter to take a decent trout from the Robe nowadays. The channel has become badly silted throughout much of its length and tall, dark green bulrushes form a dense barrier between the angler and his quarry. Not easy – but not impossible either.
An important part of the angler’s armoury (and the part I am appreciating more and more as time goes by) is watching and waiting. Some say too much patience is needed and turn away. Anybody of that opinion should get themselves a fly rod and go out to hunt a large and wary wild trout in its natural environment. Determination and dexterity with the rod are far more important elements than that much derided patience. Over and again I am reminded of the ancient oriental artists who might spend days observing their subject, becoming familiar with character and habit, before producing their work with a flourish of ink.
So I found myself a rock with an aged and crooked hawthorn tree at my back and fell to wondering: Was it nature that had providently situated the thorn together with this rude limestone block? Or had some farsighted farmhand placed the two carefully, perhaps to give himself a vantage point from where he might watch the pool below and figure how to winkle out an ancestor of the trout that I watched now? How old was the tree – a hundred years or more? (And reaching the end of its life no doubt, with lower branches dying back and upper growth sparse.) When it finally dies, who will plant another?
I could see the path my trout was taking as it fed on floating flies along the fringe of bulrush. Three or four times it broke the surface on its way up through the pool. Then the fish would disappear as it swam back to where the water spread and slowed, to explore its own personal smorgasbord once more. There was one small space where it might be vulnerable, at the highest point in the pool where it consistently turned back for higher water…
It was nearly eleven at night when I made my move. I wasn’t halfway to the water before I heard a high pitched chatter, followed by a slower ‘chak, chak, chak’ of a similar tone; the urgent warning call of a mother otter.
Trout or otter cubs? There was no contest. I turned to follow the sound. Now I had more reason to curse the bulrushes, for they formed a dense blind through which it was impossible to see. I heard the otter bitch roll in the water a hundred yards off, and then the plaintive whistling of two or more cubs still afraid of having to swim. A moment later came another ‘chak chak’ alarm call. Although I walked the bank slowly and quietly that was the last I was to hear of them that night.
With my trout quite forgotten I went back to the bridge to find where the otter family had been feeding. Like us, they have their favourite picnic spots: a flat rock in a hidden corner; the footing under the arch of the bridge; a gravel bank where the evening sun warms the stones.
In places such as these I discovered the carapace and bony claws of freshwater crayfish, one of the otter’s favourite foods.
Crayfish still abound in the Robe, as in several other of our limestone rivers. Mink hunt them too, and kill them by the score. So how could I be certain this was where otters feed?
The answer lies in the droppings, or spraints, these animals leave behind. Mink spraint is black and frequently tarry with a strong smell, while that left by an otter is much lighter in colour with a scent that only the most sensitive nose would find objectionable.
With a family of otters hanging around the bridge I shall have to go back. With that fat trout cruising up and down his home pool I shall have to go back again.
