Chris McCully

Fishing - Nullus magnus malus piscis

Arctic grayling fishing Over the past five years I've made angling visits to Sweden, Denmark and the UK to fish for grayling. In Sweden, up in the far north, I've stayed at Lainio, where there's river fishing for grayling, trout and pike together with some splendid stillwater pike fishing. In Denmark, particularly in the Jutland streams, there's some top-class grayling fishing to be had during the autumn, when the fish will respond to hatches of olive duns and appropriate artificial representations. In England I've been lucky enough to fish during recent autumns on the southern chalkstreams (Test, Itchen and Avon) as well as on the great Yorkshire Dales rivers and elsewhere. I love grayling fishing.

A small Currane sea-trout Ireland.... In the past three years I've fly-fished in Leitrim and elsewhere for pike and travelled to Connemara, Donegal, Kerry, Cork and south Mayo in search of salmon and sea-trout. The sea-trout work has acquired a radical new impetus of late, since in 2009, and to my delight, we - Ken Whelan, James Sadler and I - were contracted by the Medlar Press to produce a new book, Irish Sea-trout: Nomads of the Tides, which will examine Irish sea-trout fishing past and present.

Other sea-trout fishing I've enjoyed over the past decade and more has been the saltwater fly-fishing available along many of the Danish coasts. Fishing the Baltic has, for me, been remarkably challenging, but I keep going back, usually twice a year (spring and autumn), and have invariably admired the sheer angling prowess of Danish friends and others who specialise in fishing for coastal sea-trout.

I think if I were obliged, God forbid, to fish just for one fish for the rest of my life I would fairly unhesitatingly choose sea-trout...though pike and grayling would run them close.

Carrowmore sea-trout In 2007, together with the angler and photographer Rod Calbrade, I made a week-long trip to the Irish west in search of salmon and sea-trout. The trip eventually emerged as four linked feature articles in Trout and Salmon. That seemed to set a wonderful precedent, and in 2008 and 2009 I made further trips to different parts of the Irish west and south in order to attempt to catch that most wonderful of fish, the sea-trout. The shot shows Markus Muller about to return a sea-trout taken from Carrowmore Lake (Mayo) in July 2008. A 'white-trout', indeed.

Zander on the fly The other form of fishing which occupies large parts of the year (October- end February) is pike fishing in the Netherlands and elsewhere. I thoroughly enjoy my pike fishing, and although my default strategy these days seems to be casting big streamers on the fly-rod at pike I also relish all the changes of method pike fishing includes: plugs, soft-baits, jerkbaits, spinners, spoons.... I always learn from that variety, and have come to have a great respect for the pike over the years.

I've also loved fishing some the of Irish loughs for pike. Fly-fishing for Irish pike from a boat or float-tube is one of life's great experiences, and I've hooked (though not landed) some improbably massive fish in Ireland on the fly-rods. I lost one absolute giant of a pike on the fly on a small lough in Leitrim - I had it on for a good ten minutes, and saw it just before the barbless hook pulled away - and that dwarfed my largest pike to date (118cm). The lost fish was quite a handful, even on a 10-weight. I'll always remember it. I've written about this pike in Fishing and Pike Lures (2009) and about another magnificent fish lost on Lough Derg in 'The pike of the storm', which appeared in Waterlog and was reproduced in Sketches with Fishing Rods (2008).

Photo: Wilf Williams, 2009

No Text By a happy fluke, I discovered several Dutch waters in 2007 where it was possible to catch zander fairly readily on the fly-rods. Typically I use 8- or 9-weight gear and big Flash Flies fished on an intermediate line to try and get them. The problem, always, is locating the shoal(s). The shot shows a fish of 80cm taken one November dusk. Since the fish was safely returned I don't know how much it weighed, but suspect it would go at least 9lb. and was maybe even heavier.... (Or perhaps I'd just like to think that I once got a double-figure zander on the fly-rod!) Whatever its weight, it was a cracking fish.

Photo: Benno Rozestraten, 2009.

Contact me on chris.mccully@inbox.com

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