Its starting soon for me, another season of bass guiding on the Irish coast, in 15 days time in fact. Its an early start for me April 02 with Myles, but we’re chasing some trout on the fly in the sea and possibly light lure if we need to.
There’s something about trout fishing in the sea that really does it for me, in ways similar but often very different than bass on the fly. More later.
I’m looking forward to getting started and its not very
long after April begins, that I’m down to the Dungarvan area to guide Daniel from the UK and his two pals for three days. This is a combination workshop/guiding trip for me and I really like these kind of days,this is rapidly followed with another six day series in Kerry in Mid month and then some fly fishing workshops.
That brings me almost to the end of April and the 3-Day Saltwater Fly Fishing Primer kicks into place. This is a big adventure for us, with 7 of 9 places filled its slowly but nicely falling into place. I guess having a world champion fly caster / instructor, an incredible fly tier and a very experienced bass fishing guide in the one place at the one time at The Bella Vista Hotel provides a good solution and opportunity to fish, learn and have a bit of fun too. I’m really looking forward to these few fishing days.
That’s my April fishing days for 2014, and its really after the 09th when I will have finished my degree that I will feel true relief and freedom from the shackles of study, its been a quick and at times tough three and a half years but I have no doubt it has already helped me make valuable decisions about the business and the way I will move forward and develop with it. I have met and worked closely in teams of some amazing people over these years, people I can trust and network with on a genuine basis.
Accommodation providers on the west coast, salmon fishers on the great river Blackwater, angling providers in the North West, photographers and travel writers and many more, and now I have access to all of their unique strengths, knowledge, facilities and friendships too. I intend to fully utilise all these services and new found opportunities over the next few years.
The strength of any future successful bass fishing development will always be greater than one person or organisation, it is of course largely a creation and action question of ‘networked’ openess and trust’, a shared belief facilitating a range of sustainable partnerships whilst recognising other peoples skills, resource inputs and concerns too.
After ten years of bass guiding in Ireland I know what the job comprises of, ALL the aspects of the job and I know too the keen financial pressure it can place on a guide and his or her family. I have always believed that to make it work you needed to be a ‘Velcro’ type of person in as much that for winter you can attach yourself to a means of income that you could un-attach from again in spring – not an easy task at all! Because without some financial momentum the whole thing stalls and slows to a treacle. All of this of course is relevant to personal circumstances and what it is you want from life.
What I want and what I want to do is to continue to saltwater fly fish for bass and seatrout when ever I can for the rest of my life, simple.
I have grown beyond the delights of the Wexford coast and now having worked along the further coast I can travel confidently to many regions to not only guide but to also do what I have been missing – personal fishing and adventure.
I have through hard work made my own luck, secure in a contract that’s both flexible and demanding. I look forward to a busy and different 2014, my reduced days are booked with interesting people from France, UK, Italy, Denmark and Holland. My gear is almost ready, when is it ever? And the changed and different coastline lies like a new challenge before me.
With time to think and grow who knows what may happen!
//player.vimeo.com/video/89065941
Sorry about all the videos as of late – just simply to busy to get here in any great detail – all will change around mid April as I get space at last. Looking forward to a good and different season for 2014.
The flies that have proven themselves over countless hours fly fishing for Irish bass are undoubtedly three
The classic deceiver
The bucktail deceiver
with Hollow fleye variants
The clouser minnow
Tying saltwater flies that are easy to learn quick to tie, and probably equally as important, easy to cast and fish is what the fly tying workshops are all about during our Season 2014 primer.
Brian, during his first workshops, will take you, in is normally relaxed fashion, through the thought processes of both Lefty Kreh and Bob Popovics designs and functions especially when tying with natural materials.
Learn about sparcity, density, profile,shape and size plus on the water crossover techniques for both seatrout and bass
Because of the successes we have experienced in using both the BTD and the HF we have decided to dedicate one of your workshops almost exclusively to these two flies.
The Hollow Fleye is an expansion of Popovics’ Bucktail Deceiver. Rhode Island fly tier Kenney Abrames was impressed with the Bucktail Deceiver, and he urged Bob to continue developing this pattern. Popovics decided to find a construction method that used less material to build a fly with a large profile.
He soon discovered a new technique that allowed him greater control over bucktail than he previously thought possible. He found that by tying the bucktail on the hook in reverse and then propping it rearward with a wall of thread, he had infinite control over the angle of the bucktail. This technique allows him to sculpt baitfish patterns using varying lengths and angles of bucktail. When tied in this manner, the cone of bucktail forms an outer layer that gives the fly its hollow appearance and name.
Watch and build with Brian as he unfolds Bob Popovics and Lefty Krehs patterns for you – all will be revealed!
See you at the Bella Vista (April 28th, 29th and 30th) – Jim
At last, next week, it looks like a beginning –
get out there!
Director Wes Anderson said of the scene:
“There were some people who didn’t like the wolf scene. In particular one very important person. And he said, I don’t understand what this scene is doing in the movie. And I would always say to him, I’m not cutting it. That scene is why I’m making the movie.”
“I was investing more belief and time in the impossibility of getting it done the further I stayed away and avoided the challenge of finding the new fishing. I did this because I began to convince myself, of the many crazy reasons I conjured up, that I didn’t need to stretch myself again, I wasn’t good enough to do it for myself, I was getting lazy. But there was something else too, something deeper that ran differently.
I had thought I was avoiding the complications around trying to understand the fishing, getting there and back, finding accommodation, the costs, weather, tides, the usual challenges and countless, thankless hours of trying something new in a new place far from home, trying to figure it all out, fish, no fish, timings, patterns rhythms if any.
This is a guide learning to do his job, normal stuff.
But that was only the first part – trying to achieve this and then to present it responsibly as a marketable option to the world on a fishing guide’s budget, well that was just another challenge.
The main difficulty was the scope of the learning challenge on a new coast. I had to do this of course for myself.
I had always worked out my own fishing, and always will. I thought – “To hell with it this!”
The simple fact was I was avoiding myself and the truth, and when both were confronted, I realised that I didn’t feel like doing it at all. It took me another incredibly difficult season(2012) to realise I was tired in my fishing soul, my spirit was lagging, energy gone. This was a new and emerging challenge for me. Had I reached an end of something?
And then somehow through the gathering debris and dust of many months of false excuses, diminishing hope, lost patience and confidence, I managed to shake off the building creeping inertia and clear a path to the endgame.
After more and more exploration and fishing and testing and re-testing I got it done. At last for myself and by myself. New fishing finally found.”
What it means to be a fishing guide working in Ireland in order to develop something like THIS and more can be found throughout this site.
THIRTYARDS 
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