When the wind is from the east in Mayo, the fishes bite the least
COUNTRYFILE
WE had been drifting in a westerly direction, staring into the setting yet still blinding sun, squinting hard to watch for any sign of a trout.
That is the worst of an east wind, apart from the fact that when the wind is from the east the fishes bite the least. But do they?
According to my own experience, the fishes don't bite at all, not lately. They are still there, or so I am told, though I have come to doubt this optimistic assurance.
Last year was my worst ever in terms of catch results, and 2026 is on a miserly course to equal that record.
I was occupied fully with such gloomy thoughts and failed to see the rise when it did come. Before I knew it the line had drawn tight, the rod was set in a half-hoop and a fat trout was doing cartwheels in front of the boat.
And as trout go, this was a superb specimen. In size it was not extraordinary – 45cm is a good fish alright, but not a truly exceptional one. But it was fat.
A proper humpty-dumpty trout, he was, with silver sides and a liberal coating of black, off-round spots. Later, after a few minutes' work with the filleting knife, I found his flesh to be rose-pink with layers of fat throughout and perfect for the smoker!
I need not have felt quite so pleased with myself. This is May, after all, and if a man cannot catch his fish in May the chances of catching the rest of the year are slim enough. And so my small flush of success is tempered by that fact.
And now I find myself wondering what impact our greatly anticipated nature restoration laws will have on the ground – or in this case, in the water.
Seven-hundred million euro a year. That is the sum needed for the foreseeable future, according to some reports. There is obviously something about this that I fail to comprehend.
Seven-hundred million would buy about 100,000 acres of lower quality farmland. All we have to do is buy it and let it go wild, surely.
Insects, animals and birds would soon expand their own numbers to fill their new allotment, while we simply sit back and watch.
Inside a decade we would have a million extra acres of nature reserve – more than 5% of the land area we have at our collective disposal.
What would I do if I had the 700 million? Why, I'd concentrate on buying land along rivers and around lakes, to create a nutrient buffer zone.
This would have an immediate impact on water quality. In just a few years this country would move from being one of the most tardy in terms of nature protection to becoming one of the most advanced within Europe in this regard.
As it is, that paltry sum will be swallowed up by the drawing up of logical and obvious yet extremely expensive management plans, together with exorbitant legal costs.
The purpose of the Nature Restoration Plan will then become the secondary cause, and the wildlife we are supposed to be looking after will further enrich those schooled in books on scheming.
And while they are sorting everything out, our trout – my trout – will be harder and harder to find, so that even in the month of May I must buy a fish rather than catch one for myself.
The architects of the Nature Restoration Plan share a noble goal, one which we would love to see as more than some kind of pipedream.
Clear vision is needed so as not to miss our opportunity while squinting at the sun. Those are slippery sums.