FROM THE ARCHIVES:IN HIS Off the Reel column, George Burrows described fishing the river Slaney in a hurricane on the opening day of the salmon season. - JOE JOYCE
At 7.20 a.m. I cast into deep water held up by a rock barrier. I was using a three-inch brown and gold devon that I thought was oversized for the water.
But no, it was grabbed with enthusiasm and there was I in communication with a 14 lb. fish that fought hard.
In the rocky Slaney these fish have to be held hard and this one was kept in the still water near the bank, with occasional bursts into the heavy stream in the middle of the river.
I had a gaff, but my companion, higher upstream, had a tailer, a sweeter job for taking out a fish.
But he failed to hear my yells for quite a while; then he heard and came with the instrument that soon had the fish on the bank.
At that time an angler on the opposite bank was also playing a fish but he put it back – it was a kelt, a spawned fish going back to the sea. It warms the heart to have the first fish on the bank. I was glowing.
The hurricane started to come out of the south after that, first, gently, then growing like a temper.
It tore upstream, whipping the crests off the wavelets and carrying them upwards until there was a cloud over the river.
It made the power cable spanning the river sing like a violin string.
Twigs were cast into the water, the cock pheasants in the woods crowed in alarm, great trees swayed and the anglers on the opposite bank, taking the full force of the gale, found fishing difficult.
It was tough going from 9 a.m. onwards. The river began slowly to change colour as the little streams failed and raced down.
Debris began to travel and the rain was blown down with a force that was remarkable and punishing.
Soon we needed a great wood fire to dry and cheer us in a fearful day. It was evident that soon the river was going into spate.
Salmon do strange things in such unsettled and unexpected conditions. This hurricane was something abnormal and it could happen, I thought, that a fish, before starting to “run,” might take a bait.
It was noonday when the bait was cast into the neck of the Oak Pool. The pull of the salmon was as fierce as the gale itself. The fish bolted downstream for about 20 yards, almost to the lip of a waterfall.
It came back to me under hanging branches that might have snagged the line.
I fought the fish for about eight minutes in the fast water and then “walked it” into the slack deep at the side of the fast run.
There the fish was easily seen, a great powerful fish, full of fight, but held on a strong line.
Soon it was on the bank, 18 lb. of gleaming fresh-run salmon.
Two fine fish on opening day! And one of them a hurricane fish. Wonders will never cease!
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