Worm versus fly
Country sights and sounds
John Shelley
That crisp breeze had already done its best to keep me at home, and now it was trying to turn us back from the river, blowing fresh and crisp across the open moor and on it more than a hint of distant, cold Atlantic. We trudged, up to our ankles in soft mud, from pool to pool, with snipe springing to life just a footfall ahead, their short, sharp cries of alarm tearing the air and alerting their friends of the danger we posed, even though we meant them no harm. How could we?
No bigger than the thrush that watched us pass by its cream-covered blackthorn perch, these are splendid little birds – if only we could ever get to see them properly. They blend in so well with the short bog grass among which they live their lives they are all but invisible. On a day such as this they sit tight, reluctant to rise at all until the foot falls nearly upon them, then away they go, launched immediately into jinking flight, marking their departure to the far side of the marsh with that crazy little screech.
‘As wary as a trout.’ said James.
‘What would you call them in these parts?’ I asked shortly, hoping for a snippet rather than the etymological lecture such inquiries often lead to.
‘That’s a snipe.’ he told me.
That much I knew. ‘Goat of the Air. The male makes a noise like a goat during its courtship flight, by vibrating his tail feathers.’
‘Meath gabhar in my tongue,’ James explained. ‘Meath – that’s the poor ground we’re walking over, and gabhar, gabhar’s a goat. The snipe, that’s the goat of the poor land. Nobody bothers with that now, though.’
That is true. So few even know the snipe exists, apart from the gun man, who fills it with lead, and the occasional ornithologist, who listens to the ethereal, late night bleating of the male at work.
But it was trout that we had come here for, I with the fly rod and James with a worm impaled on an ancient iron hook attached to a line that resembled a hawser. We had spent a good few of winter’s long hours arguing the efficacy of our chosen methods. ‘The fly will outfish the worm’; that was my opinion, and given enough time and the varying conditions of an entire season, I firmly believe it to be true.
‘If the trout will take anything at all, the worm will find him out.’ That was James’s view.
There was only one thing for it, and on this we were agreed. We should put the matter to the test.
So there we were, on the appointed day. I had been hoping for a breeze from the south with sunshine and cloud and fish sipping flies from the top of the water. Instead it was so cold that every trout would be hidden in the depths and reluctant to move, out of reach of the fly, where only half an ounce of lead and a big bait stood any chance at all.
There was one long, slow moving pool that we both wanted to fish. James cast first, into dark water where the current ate into the bank. His tackle splashed like a cormorant and I told him so. ‘Of course,’ he replied with a sniff. ‘You have to do that. Now every trout in the pool knows there’s food to be had.’
There was no sense in arguing. I moved up to the head of the pool, where the water was thinner and more lively. But I just knew what would happen and, sure enough, within a minute James had set his iron to the jaw of a lusty trout. He gave a shout of triumph and hauled his catch onto the bank where it flapped for a few short moments.
While I watched, the wind blew my fly into a bush. I gave a tug and my fine line parted like cotton. A thin rain began to fall. I was suddenly cold. The car was the best part of a mile and a full score of snipe distant.
We made it eventually, James swinging his trout from his fist all the way and describing its capture to the smallest detail, embellishing the account with each step he took, while my broken line twirled uselessly from the tip of my rod. The emphatic thud of that trout as it hit the grassy bank by the car said more than any number of words could. Worm – 1, fly – 0.
Back at home I walked by the lake with more snipe flying overhead, bleating goat-like at the tail of the day.
