Beara

This is an account of my first trip to Beara. This trip was made with two of my main angling companions, Phil and Kev Stuckey, this makes it sound as if I have many angling companions, I don't, I hate other people and will will walk many miles to avoid them, however Phil and Kev occasionally force me to go fishing with them. This was a great trip and there were many memorable moments, however a few high points for me were spinning for Pollock with Phil from a rocky shelf at a place called Fair Head (I think). We both took a fish first cast, then second, then third. The pressure built as we waited to see who would break the spell with a blank cast. These were Pollock up to five pounds, ripping line off light spinning reels loaded with 15lb braid. We got to eight casts a piece and Phil blew it when his lure (a dart sand eel) came back without a fish attached. I had one more and then it was over, some crucial point in the tide seemed to reached and after a few more casts all went quiet and we stopped for a cup of tea. A second memorable moment was fishing alone from some low reefs near Eyries. I was casting a fly (home tied sand eel imitation) across a gully, small Pollock kept hitting it without hooking up. I could see them throwing themselves at the fly as I lifted it over a kelp fringed reef about ten yards out. Finally one became attached and a fish of about a pound gave me a spirited fight before being landed. I briefly admired the fish feeling chuffed with my first Irish Pollock on a fly. I returned it and cast again hoping to contact another. Again just as I lifted the fly over the reef it was grabbed and solid contact with a fish was made, very solid contact, this fish was huge! It tore off boring deep for the safety of the reef. I knew I couldn’t give it much line, if you let these fish get into the weed its game over. The rod hooped into its full test curve as the fish ran to my right towards the shore end of the gully, somehow scrambling along the rocky outcrop I was fishing from I horsed the fish into a narrow gap in the reef and suddenly in was in front of me in shallow water. Keeping a tight line I managed a slow fairly undignified slide into the water next to the fish dumped the rod and grabbed it by the bottom lip. This fish was seven pounds, I know not huge by some standards but to catch it under these circumstances from a tiny gully, was without doubt one of the greatest thrills of my fishing life. I was tingling after returning the fish and for at least an hour afterwards. A third memorable feature of our week, certainly for Phil and Kev was my cooking. I cooked most evening meals, mostly because I am a control freak and hate washing up. I would describe my food as “very sustaining”, but I will leave it to them to confirm and expand upon the memorable nature of my culinary skills, Kev certainly often spent a lot of time in the toilet after dinner but I didn’t take it personally I just think he wanted some time alone. Mullet fishing was good though fishing from the little pier at Dursey was a bit scary when trying to land a fish. Slippery sharp rock about twenty meters above a tide race certainly concentrates the mind when leaning down on your belly with a long handled net trying to scoop a fish off the top of a swell. Great fun though and we had an excellent hectic couple of hours catching over a dozen fish up to about three pounds. It was only because of Kevs massive avons (Fnarr! Fnarr!) that we could fish there at all. These floats really are something, made out of an entire Balsa trunk, Thor Heyerdahl could probably have crossed the Pacific on one. They were the only thing that we could hold back in the tide to present a bait at the depth the fish were feeding at. They would also have come in handy if a ship had started sinking in Dursey Sound, the crew could have used one as a life raft. Berea was a beautiful wild place, the people we met were friendly and Castletown the main settlement is a great little place with everything you need. My only criticism is that though the pubs are good, Irish beer really is bad. All that rubbish about Guinness being different over there, no its not, its all made in the same massive factory as the stuff we drink at home, and its just as horrible over there as it is here, though that’s not a view I expressed whilst in the Pub in Eyries. The alternatives are Carling Black label or a foul brew called Smithwicks. Anyway beer aside I recommend Beara. Get your self over there for a week.