The day I out-fished the All Irish Champion project

 

Greetings! It has been a lifetime ambition of mine to fish Lough Conn on the west coast of Ireland so when the chance came, it was the perfect excuse to duck out of a game of golf. Having fished the likes of Corrib and Mask, Conn was the one the gillies always said you really must try. I am not sure they ever really explained why, but the intonation was enough for it to become a thing with me. Conn, in the northwest county of Mayo, does not disappoint; it is a scene as old as Ireland itself, as beautiful as any Irish lough you might visit. The shore is a stony, wooded necklace, the 14,000 acres of water dotted with tiny islands as accompanying jewels watched over by Nephin Mór the Republic’s highest standalone mountain. Nephin is the bellwether of any fishing day; if the mountain is shrouded mist, don’t bother. If the mountain has snow on its peak, don’t bother until three days after the melt. On my day, the penultimate of the season, the mist cleared as the boat pushed off. Lough Conn

But Lough Conn is not as it seems for what we see and fish today is not as old as Ireland itself; it is the product of the massive government Moy Arterial Drainage Scheme of the 1960’s, that continues to this day, that lowered the water level by 6ft. Why? Well, it was not about the fishing for the plan when executed was a disaster for the lake ecology, sending into extinction the unique Arctic char population. The native brown trout were largely replaced by coarse fish and the spawning grounds for the Atlantic salmon, that ran up the River Moy and which itself was also massively reengineered, became dry land. Did anyone suspect this would happen? I think the chances are yes as it was fiercely opposed by local anglers and fishery workers at that time when the inland salmon industry was truly huge. In the local town of Ballina, through which the Moy flows, the annual salmon catch in the 1950’s weighed in at a quarter of a million pounds, somewhere in the region of 50,000 fish from just one short section of a 68- mile river. But County Mayo was, back in the 1960’s, as it is today, a predominately agricultural region and one of the poorest in Ireland. The Drainage Scheme certainly succeeded in preventing regular flooding to some 48,000 acres of farmland but the 1,000 acres or so of newly reclaimed land around Lough Conn, after thousands of years of submersion, remains today little more than unproductive scrubland. The bones of this past to Lough Conn were imparted to me by my gillie Gary- an Englishman implanted to this part of Ireland some three decades ago. It is fair to say we had a famously good day together; I do not do much drift fishing but sitting in a boat, yarning away, pushed along by the wind and casting speculatively over dark, choppy water that might contain the fish of a lifetime somewhere in the depths I find endlessly alluring.  Nephin Mór

But maybe the early morning mist over Nephin was a harbinger of what was to come. Despite the regular excitement of salmon leaping, the trout themselves were largely absent with rises counted on a single hand. There were just two other boats out, but one at least did contain the current All Ireland Champion, so we kept close company not that it did him or us any good. By the end of the day my score was a couple of takes and one fish on the line which was one better than the All Ireland Champion so at least I had that minor victory, but who was counting? Me, apparently. For all the lack of fish I am glad to have fished Conn; it is mysterious in a way that you feel there are secrets yet to be unlocked. But you do ask yourself how it must have been back in the day and though we rail mightily against all that is bad in our rivers today, it is worth reflecting that maybe the seeds of our current destruction were set in train long ago.

Do you want your salmon (or trout) chicken-fed? What follows is a true story. In the mid-1970’s a student, obsessed by all things trout, finagled a job at a local trout farm which primarily raised rainbow trout for the table. Fish farms he discovered were not a whole bundle of fun. Yes, you get to see a lot of fish but the work is largely repetitive revolving around feeding the fish and grading the fish, the latter involving sorting fish by size and condition as they grow plus preparing them for the table – i.e. killing and gutting them. Yes, it is not a summer job I look back on with much pleasure especially as I soon discovered fish farming’s dirty secret – chicken. The fish food stunk of chicken. The fish guts stunk of chicken. In fact, the whole place stunk of chicken because, back then, the primary ingredient of fish food was the parts of chicken not fit for human consumption. I have never eaten a farmed trout since.

It seems, from a report in The Times last week, that traditional fishmeal for feeding salmon, and no doubt it will be the same for trout, is to be replaced with cheaper poultry by-products such as chicken bones, organs and other poultry leftovers. It has to be emphasised that there is no health risk involved with this substitution, which is driven by cost but consumers have traditionally, like me, resiled at the thought of chicken-fed fish. But, on the plus side, it makes sense to reuse a waste product instead of harvesting the ocean for the wild fish that are currently used to make fishmeal. Something of a conundrum which brings me to the Slingshot anti-factory farming campaign fronted by Chris Packham amongst other celebrities with £4m of funding for adverts on the London underground, social media posts and stunts. You can be the judge ...... As we well know Packham is no friend of what many would regard as rural traditions but the campaign, that takes aim at poultry and salmon farming, in addition to pig slaughtering practices will have a certain resonance. All three intensive commercial rearing industries are, in different ways, contributing to the ecological degradation of the countryside or the inshore waters where they take place. Pig farms leach thousands of tonnes of s**t and p**s into groundwater that finds its way into rivers. The same happens with poultry farm waste spread on fields in the name of fertiliser. And where do we start with sea lice? A little bit of my heart is with Slingshot but I know, in the heart of that heart, that one day fishing as a pastime will be in the sights of, if not Slingshot, but a very similar campaigning group. PS The Times ran a poll alongside the article that asked the question, “Would you eat chicken-fed salmon?” 33% Yes. 67% No.

Diaries open for 2027 As regular Fishing Breaks clients will know in the past we have held back on opening bookings for the following season until just after Christmas. However, this year we are doing things a bit differently. Having spent the past month mostly in my Hi Lux I have criss-crossed the chalkstream counties talking with our river owners, estate managers and river keepers to get our respective ducks in a row for 2027. The result is that I am delighted to say that at least two thirds of our fishing is now online, available to book for next season. Here is the list; click on the blue headings to take you to the relevant web site section.

Day Rods & Small groups  Abbots Worthy (Itchen) Avon Springs (Avon) Breach Farm (Itchen) Coln St Aldwyns (Coln) Cottons Fishing Temple (Dove) Deans Court (Allen) Donnington Grove (Lambourn) Exton Manor Farm (Meon)

Hill Deverill (Wylye Ilsington (Frome) Longstock Kingfisher Lodge (Test) Upavon Farm (Avon) Upper Clatford (Anton) West Wycombe Park (Wye) Wimborne St Giles (Allen)

Fishing School & Special Events  John Bailey on the River Wye (Wye) Low Farm Lake with Charlie Clive (Yorkshire) Nether Wallop Mill (Courses & Private Tuition) Nether Wallop Mill (Family Days, Adult & Child and Kids Camps)

Lodges, Cottages & Shepherds Huts Deans Court (Allen) Fish Camp Fisherman’s Cottage & Copper Lodge (Taw) Hemsworth Shepherds Huts (Allen) Ilsington Lodge (Frome) Lock Keepers Cottage (Itchen) Toweridge Farmhouse (Buckinghamshire Wye)

Corporate & Group Days Albury Lakes - Surrey Bullington Manor - Hampshire Dever Springs – Hampshire Nether Wallop Mill – Hampshire Shawford Park - Hampshire Kimbridge - Hampshire If a beat or venue is not listed it means it is not online yet and, in all likelihood, will not be so until the end of the year. However, if you have a special request, save a date or general enquiry just ping me an email. Photo of the Week This is not a bad grayling double. Jonathan W, writes of his day on the River Frome with his pal last week, “Here we go, my 3lb 4oz from Ilsington. My friend had a 2lb 12oz fish from the same pool a few minutes earlier, so two fish of an average weight of 3lb!”

Ilsington (River Frome) 9th October 2027 3lb 4oz

Quiz The usual collection of questions based on the date today and random topics touched upon in this Newsletter. Good luck and the answers below. It is just for fun! 1)     What did Apple release on this day in 2001? 2)     In which year was the first commercial harvest of salmon in Scotland? A) 1931 B) 1951  C) 1971 3)  Why was daylight saving first introduced? A) To save energy  B) Help farmers C) Make roads safer

Have a good lie-in this weekend!  Best wishes,

Simon Cooper simon@fishingbreaks.co.uk Founder & Managing Directorwww.fishingbreaks.co.uk

1)     The iPod 2)     1971 3)     A) Germany first introduced the shift in 1916 to save coal and electricity

Brenda of Bristol should ride again

 

Greetings! I am beginning to feel a bit like Brenda from Bristol in 2017 who, reacting to the news that PM Theresa May had called for a snap general election, exclaimed, "You're joking - not another one!" In my particular case it is the fact that we have yet another Secretary of State at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affair (Defra), in Angela Eagle, the third since Labour took office two years ago and the tenth in the past ten years. It is hard to discern anything in Eagle’s CV that suggests a passion for water or the countryside representing, as she does, the seaside, suburban constituency of Wallasey, across the Mersey from Liverpool. I am guessing that her brief stint as a junior minster at Defra in 2025 was enough to gift her this poisoned chalice for there clearly are no easy or quick wins when it comes to water. Brenda of Bristol

It has felt to me, for a while, that plans to deal with the problems of the water industry are in something of a holding pattern, so the press and repeat appointment of a new minister will do little to speed things along. After the Cunliffe Report, commissioned by Keir Starmer, which recommended a rewiring of regulation not very much has happened aside from various hints about renationalisation and the apparently eternal game of chicken as to the future of debt-stricken Thames Water. Eagle has two choices but neither of them obviously good. The populist option is, of course, renationalisation but this is easy to say but hard to do. Realistically by the time she has put the legislation through parliament and fought a myriad of legal battles her time at Defra will be long past; indeed we will likely be into the next government and Eagle will be being measured for her ermine robes. To not nationalise will run counter to the Burnham mood music and is, I suspect, counter to Eagle’s Corbynite tendencies. However, my suspicion is that, once briefed by civil servants they will understand that the issues with the water industry are not about who owns it but rather management, regulation and massive infrastructure spending. Moving the latter onto the government debt ledger is something, with many other pressing needs for cash, this government could well do without so anticipate a ‘reimagined’ Cunliffe Report on steroids with more stick than carrot as far as the water companies are concerned. All this will be played out against the background of the Environment Agency’s (EA) latest six year data on the health of England's rivers, lakes, estuaries and groundwater published last week none of which is good. Nothing has improved since 2019, arguably things may be worse, with only 14.3% of England’s surface waters achieving good ecological status. Aside the EA’s continued whining about being forced to test to a higher standard than they would like (boo hoo!) it is interesting that they note comparable EU countries are recording far lower rates of good ecological status, including 8% in Germany and 1% in the Netherlands which exposes the fallacy that Europe, with a largely nationally owned water sector, has better river health than the UK. I know it is not a popular line of thought but making the water companies the bad guys and driving them to destruction whilst hoping what comes next will, with a mighty leap, cure our problems is for the birds. As the EA say, “Many factors can affect the quality of rivers and other bodies of water – from sewage spills and agricultural nutrients to urban and transport surface water run-off, which can include litter, petrol and garden pesticides.” Even if there is a certain amount of deflection and self-interest in the statement, the EA are making a fair point – pollution sources are manifest and, even if we solved the water company issues overnight, we would only be one third of the way to a solution. My hope is that the Water Ombudsman, proposed in the Cunliffe Report with little indication of exactly what its role might be, will be expanded with oversight of not just the water industry but everything that contributes to pollution from whoever or wherever it might originate..

Angela of Wallasey Fly of the Week This week it is the Callaway Chrome Tour X. Probably best fished by dropping on the far bank and then twitched onto the water. Not sure about tippet strength but no need to gink. Watch the video to see how best to present the Callaway Fly. The take is wicked!

PS This is probably the most exciting thing to ever happen on the LIV tour!

Tales from The Mill at The Mill - September coming soon! After the success of the book days to mark the publication of Tales from The Mill in June I am delighted to be hosting one final day here at The Mill next month. The event on Friday, September 11 runs from 11 - 2pm and tickets cost £25 which includes:  A special signed copy of Tales from The Mill The rare opportunity to tour parts of the historic mill and surrounding water meadows Chance to feed the fish Book readings and Q&As A glass of English sparkling and a light lunch served by the water Whether you’ve heard about the Mill, fished its pristine waters, or are discovering it for the very first time, come and enjoy the many tales to be told! Places are limited so book early to avoid disappointment. BOOK NOW!

Alternatively, you can also order a book from me, Amazon or Waterstones. Tales from The Mill, in addition to Life of a Chalkstream, The Otters' Tale and Frankel are also available in ebook or audio formats.

Order from Fishing Breaks

Order from Amazon

Order from Waterstones

The month the locals go fishing We like September – it is the month us locals go fishing which might just give you a clue as to when the best time of year might be. The reasons? Well, from a weather point of view it is usually a very settled month with few extremes allowing the fish to fall into a regular feeding pattern on a great variety of hatches. This is the month you should range far and wide across your fly box: sedges, olives, ants, daddy long legs, emergers and nymphs will all catch. You may have to deploy a certain amount of cunning; these are fish who have seen it all but, especially toward the latter part of September as the days begin to shorten, the imperative to feed ahead of winter will often trump the natural caution of the fish. Where to fish? Clearly this summer has been hard of the smaller streams and headwaters but you would be hard pressed to spot any difference on the middle to lower catchments of the major chalkstreams which brings into play beats such as Breach Farm, Kanara and Qing Ya Xi on the River Itchen, Ilsington on the River Frome and Kimbridge, Lower Brook, The Parsonage and Timsbury 5 on the River Test. If you fancy making a break of it Lock Keepers Cottage on the River Itchen is available for a 3 night stay with fishing for two included across September. There is a similar package for Ilsington Lodge on the River Frome. Prices from £1,630 for the weekend package of accommodation and fishing.  Lock Keeper's Cottage, River Itchen More Special Offers As ever our August special offers have proved a great success, so I am pleased to add to the list for Dunbridge on the River Dun, a Test tributary, with a 2-for-1 offer giving a saving of £195. Currently running are the following: Compton Chamberlayne (River Nadder)    2-for-1 with extra Rods half price Deans Court (River Allen)                           Half Price Donnington Grove (River Lambourn)          Half Price Dunbridge (River Dun)                                2-for-1 Ilsington (River Frome)                                2-for-1 Visit this page to see all the offers. Dunbridge (River Dun)

Total eclipse of a Victorian myth The eclipse on Wednesday prompted me to recall the last ‘big one’ back in 1999. I had read somewhere of Victorian anglers reporting feeding frenzies, the like of which had never been seen, occurring at the time of 19th century eclipses. Not wanting to pass up that opportunity I headed to the river in plenty of time. The last eclipse of the 20th century was scheduled for a late morning in summer and, as the moment approached the day rapidly turned to dusk in a matter of minutes which was freaky in itself, the temperature significantly dropping and a chill breeze getting up. And that was about it. Not a single fish rose. A myth busted.  So, this time around I did not bother to head for the river but, ever hopeful, I kept a close eye on the lake at The Mill and, hand on heart, I cannot say things were dramatically different to 1999. It was definitely warmer, but it did not get as dark and there was no wind to speak of. However, the eclipse did coincide was a massive hatch of all kinds of insects, and in particular a huge number of moths. Whether this was eclipse induced I know not but I really cannot ever recall seeing so many which prompted, as soon as the eclipse was over, the arrival of a huge flight, or a gulp as they are sometimes collectively known, of swallows who spent a good quarter of an hour jinking over the lake hoovering up this unexpected bounty. As for the fish, well they did go on a bit of a feeing frenzy themselves no doubt induced by the hatch as were the swallows. I suppose the question is, was the hatch caused by the eclipse ...... so maybe not a myth busted.

Quiz The usual random collection of questions this week inspired by the Newsletter topics. 1)     On this day in 1995 which two rivals Brit pop bands both released a single? 2)     In golf complete the sequence birdie, eagle, ……. and condor 3)     Who led the Labour Party in the 2017 General Election? The answers are below.

Have a good weekend.  Best wishes,

Check & book dates here

Simon Cooper simon@fishingbreaks.co.uk Founder & Managing Directorwww.fishingbreaks.co.uk

1)     Oasis (Roll with It) and Blur (Country House) 2)     Birdie 1 under par for a hole, eagle 2 under, albatross 3 under and condor 4 under 3)     Jeremy Corbyn