Feb. 19, 1910.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
301 
The Angler in Ireland. 
In volume of water the Shannon is the largest 
river in the British Isles, while even in length 
the Severn alone exceeds it, and that merely by 
a few miles. As a salmon angling river it occu¬ 
pies the foremost place, for while a few rivers 
show a greater number of fish killed, in none is 
the average weight so high nor, in proportion to 
the annual catch, is any fishing let at so high a 
figure. The total bag seldom exceeds 300 spring 
salmon all told, but the fish sometimes touch an 
average not far short of thirty pounds, while 
one forty-pounder at least may be expected in 
every dozen fi^h killed, and even a fifty-pounder 
has been landed more than once within living 
memory. But the whole of the salmon angling 
of the Shannon is practically confined to two 
short reaches of the river eight or ten miles 
apart, each about two miles in extent, the lower 
being at Castleconnell, eight 
miles above the city of Lim¬ 
erick; the other at Killaloe, 
higher up. This river flows 
out of Lough Allen in the 
north — a fine, navigable 
stream—and after a course 
of more than 100 miles, dur¬ 
ing which it forms the two 
lakes of Ree and Derg, 
reaches Limerick, where it 
becomes tidal. There is still 
fifty miles of estuary to go 
before the Atlantic itself is 
reached, but rod fishing is 
here unknown, this being 
the place where the great 
annual salmon harvest of 
the sea is made by the nets- 
men on both shores as the 
fish advance toward fresh 
water. 
From Limerick to Lough 
Allen is thus the angling ex¬ 
tent of the river, but though 
salmon abound in every part 
on the opening day of the 
season, Feb. 1, they give 
very little sport indeed, except at the two spots 
mentioned. For the Shannon is just such a 
sporting river as it looks, wide, deep and slug¬ 
gish. It creeps through a flat and rather dreary 
moorland between low banks, its placid surface 
unbroken by a ripple anywhere, and of uniform 
depth from one reed-fringed bank to the other. 
Even national partiality can find nothing pic¬ 
turesque in the river, if mere volume of water 
will not arouse admiration, but yet even here, 
to give it its due, the unexpected happens in 
one or two cases, and that too in a manner to 
delight the spectator as well as astonish him. 
The two lakes, especially Derg, redeem the river 
from tameness, the bold and wooded shores and 
pleasant islands both forming a very noble pic¬ 
ture, but the crowning glory of the Shannon is 
the loveliness of Castleconnell. Suddenly at this 
spot the slow and sluggish stream springs into 
laughing, rushing, boisterous and everchanging 
life. It is now a mere giant brook, babbling 
over sand and boulder, gliding into still, deep 
pools for a short space and again bursting out 
into stickles and shallows, terminating often in 
cascade and whirling eddies which in high water 
try the mettle of boatmen and angler who ven¬ 
ture near them. Sloping wooded lawns with 
some fine private residences embowered in them 
margin the river here, and the eye of the angler 
and the artist are equally delighted by the ever- 
changing panorama. Killaloe is also a very 
pretty reach of the same character, the water 
equally fishy looking. These pieces of water 
sometimes fish as well as they look. When 
Castleconnell is passed the Shannon becomes it¬ 
self again, but Castleconnell is never to be for¬ 
gotten by one who has seen it. 
The Shannon belongs to that class of salmon 
rivers in these islands which have three dis¬ 
tinct seasonal migrations of fish. These early 
rivers are all heavy waters and there are from 
twenty to thirty of them in these islands. The 
late rivers, which are to be counted by the hun¬ 
dreds, are small, and salmon do not appear in 
them till July. But though thus differing in the 
time of their appearance in the rivers, the fish 
are all of the same species. We have but one 
Atlantic salmon. These spring fish begin to run 
in from the sea about the opening of the year 
or even a little earlier, so that in most early 
rivers they are found well distributed on Feb. 
x, the general opening date. The migration con¬ 
tinues from two to three months at intervals. 
The fishing falls off in May, the fish remaining 
down and sulky in the deeps, giving no further 
sign of their presence till the close of the year, 
when they ascend the smaller streams to spawn. 
With all their excellence one great reproach 
is to be brought against these early fish—they 
very seldom take a fly. For the first few 
months of the season at least, trolled baits, 
natural and artificial, must be relied on. Some 
men scorn to fish with anything but the fly, but 
these purists are not to hope for any sport with 
Shannon springers. 
Within those limits, too, early British fish ex¬ 
hibit striking diversity of taste. On Loch Tay, 
in Scotland, for instance, is some excellent spring 
trolling, the fish taking a phantom, brown or 
blue, and of varying sizes, according to the 
state of the water and weather. But they will 
have nothing to do with a natural trolled bait. 
The Shannon fish on the contrary will scarcely 
ever take a phantom or devon, nine fish out of 
ten falling to the gudgeon, loach or other small 
fish trolled. Both fish, however, are equally in¬ 
different to the fly. 
The Castleconnell angler fishes from a cot, 
which is a roomy, flat-bottomed boat fitted with 
a long projecting prow which enables one to go 
aboard or come ashore dry shod. So shallow 
is the water in parts and so slightly does the 
river bed shoal inward that otherwise one would 
have to wade ankle deep to or from the cot. 
Two men handle the cot, one propelling for¬ 
ward with an iron shod pole, the other guiding 
with a paddle from the stern. These men are 
very dexterous and well trained and no serious 
accident has ever been known to befall them, 
though in high water they sometimes seem to 
be running great risks. But they are very cau¬ 
tious with an untried angler aboard or one whose 
coolness they are doubtful 
about, and it is interesting 
to watch a pair of them 
feeling the nerves of a 
novice bit by bit to see how 
far he can be depended on. 
For if the angler suddenly 
gave way to panic, he might 
manage to drown all three. 
It reminds one not a little 
of an Alpine guide casually 
testing the nerve and foot¬ 
ing of an untried climber in 
the earlier portions of an 
ascent, and doing it as if 
there was nothing further 
from his thoughts than any 
deliberate intention of do¬ 
ing any such thing. 
Seated on the stern seat 
of the cot the angler mounts 
a bait on each of his two 
rods, securing variety at the 
outset either by trying dif¬ 
ferent baits or similar baits 
differently mounted. The 
stone loach, known on the 
river as a collough (Cel. old 
woman) and the gudgeon are the favorite baits, 
and both are found in many streams in Ire¬ 
land, but many anglers use preserved baits. 
Much difference of opinion prevails as to the 
comparative attractiveness of the two classes of 
bait, but there can be no question about the 
latter being by far the most convenient to use. 
The manner of mounting the bait also involves 
another matter of controversy, and one by no 
means local only. It is, in fact, debated more 
or less all over the world where men spin or 
troll a little fish as bait. Shall the bait wobble 
or have direct spin ? Up to twenty years ago 
all Shannon anglers fished a wobbling bait, and 
not a few continue to do so to this day. To 
mount a wobbler a double hook whipped to the 
end of a looped link of salmon gut, a baiting 
needle and a few inches of fine red silk were 
required. The needle point entered the medial 
line between dorsal fin and vent and out through 
the mouth, and when the link was then attached 
to the spinning trace, the angler carefully pro¬ 
ceeded to tune up his bait to the true wobbling 
point. The double hook was first pulled home 
and then strained till a tail bend was given to 
the fish which satisfied the angler, who then tied 
SALMON FISHING ON THE SHANNON RIVER AT CASTLECONNELL. 
