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