

WHITE-TROUTING IN CONNEMARA 



white trout ; but we knew these game fish were already 

 running, and brown trout might always be relied upon 

 to help out the making of a decent basket. The river 

 was of no great size, perhaps twenty-five or thirty yards 

 across at its widest stretches. Near the sea it fell gently 

 through a rocky valley, well bushed in parts, with a 

 belt of copse and small timber to get through before the 

 falls were reached. On its banks the Osmunda regalis 

 grew in a profusion that I never saw excelled elsewhere. 

 There was a moderate breeze from the north-west, 

 which served me for casting somewhat better than my 

 friend on the opposite bank. After taking two or three 

 decent brown trout, I was met in a smooth flat part of 

 the stream, just below what is known to the natives as 

 the " poteen " pool, with that boiling rise of a sea-trout 

 which the angler can never mistake. The rise was a 

 true one, and the fish firmly hooked, and in two or 

 three minutes a brilliant three-quarter-pound white 

 trout, not long from the sea, was in the landing-net. 

 A little further on, after I had taken another brown 

 trout or two, a far heavier fish of more than four 

 pounds' weight had risen, been hooked, and was fight- 

 ing, as only a strong grilse can fight, for his life. 

 Five minutes of hard tussling, and the fish was 

 beaten. 1 drew him towards the bank, where Peter, 

 who carried a gaff, on the chance of a salmon-peal 1 

 being hooked, was ready. But Peter, unhappily, was 

 not an expert with his instrument. Two wild lunges 

 through the thick Osmunda fern, here covering the 

 margin of the stream, resulted in the breaking of the 

 end of my cast, and the escape of the peal, which, 

 with a good fly and a foot or so of gut sticking in his 

 upper jaw, sailed away for safer depths. An English 

 expletive from myself, and some strange Erse oaths 



1 Grilse are always known as peal in the west of Ireland. 

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