Dan O’Neill reports from a fishing trip on the river Barrow neat St Mullins:
Starting as most fishing trips do this one was no different, a call from my friend Nick asking what I was at, all of a sudden I’m looking in my rear view mirror lining up to reverse down the boat slip. Mixing 2 hefty sized buckets of groundbait and adding plenty of particles to them we pulled the cord on the trusty Evinrude and were on our way. On the journey to our fishing spot it was almost like being part of a wildlife documentary, small fry everywhere, fly hatches all long the river, it’s a total different world; being on the boat traveling down the river makes you almost feel alien in a world that truly never stops.
After the beautiful trip to our location it was time to get down to business, studying the river carefully with its various runs and currents we picked an area, throwing in some groundbait and a couple handfuls of free offerings. We allowed the disturbance to settle and had our first casts, the first couple of runs surprisingly resulted in no bites, that soon changed when the float dipped under and the unmistakable noise of the monofilament slurping up off the surface resulted in our first catch -a nice sized roach was number one and in pristine condition. A few more roach followed with a scattering of dace throughout, given the temperatures we decided against a keep net and let the fish straight back in with no delay.
For a few minutes things went quiet which generally means Mr Pike has come to see what all the fuss is about. Instead of Mr Pike we were met with some nice bream; Nick having the first one and it gave him a good run for his money, wrapping the top of the Abu rod to the point where you know it’s a better fish. After some worrying moments with weed and some lily pads we got the net under the fish, a beautiful fish it was too and In fabulous condition.
After a few bream they backed off slightly and the dace moved in with the odd nice roach showing up. We reeled in our rods and decided to take our time on the wonderful journey home, feeling as if there was no one else in the world and feeling extremely lucky to be anglers and being able to appreciate the beauty of wildlife and aquatic life at its finest, another truly memorable trip on the Barrow.
