Even if you've never fished before, a ghillie can guide you through your flies, casting and technique. Rosita Boland puts her rod to the test in Connemara
Every job carries its own occupational hazards, but the job of a ghillie has one uniquely nasty hazard: getting a fishing hook stuck into you somewhere, thanks to the person you are out fishing with.
"I got one in the mouth last week," Cyril Biggins, one of Ballynahinch Castle's five ghillies says, matter-of-factly. When I hear this, I make Cyril stand on my left at all times when I am (right-handedly) casting a line. Whatever about trying to catch a salmon or a trout, I definitely do not want to hook a human. Since the kindest thing anyone could say about my casting is that it is erratic, I don't trust myself not to add to Cyril's injuries. After all, he's a far bigger and less mobile target than a fish.
Ghillies are extremely experienced fly-fishers, and are traditionally associated with hotels and lodges that have fishing rights to rivers on their land.
Ballynahinch, not far from Recess in Connemara, is a very beautiful old hotel, set on the shore of its own ridiculously picturesque river. The hotel has fishing rights to four miles of the river, which goes out into the sea near Roundstone. The sea, of course, brings salmon and sea-trout up-river, both highly-prized fish for fly-fishers.
A ghillie does a number of jobs. He teaches the novices, he guides the experienced and he acts as kind of surveyor of the depths. A ghillie can look at a stretch of moving water and know what's going on underneath the surface. He can read the water in all weather and seasons, as easily as if it were a newspaper. He knows the beats on his river - every fishing river is divided into stretches called beats - and he knows where the fish are in them. He also knows a lot about the psychology of fish, because, as I soon learn, fish have minds of their own.
At Ballynahinch the salmon season runs from February 1st to September 30th, and during this time, you can avail of the services of a ghillie. Few salmon are caught before May, and during the entire season, only one fish per person per day may be kept. The sea trout season is shorter, running through the summer from mid-May. All sea trout are caught on a "catch and release" basis. They have become so scarce in recent years that stocks would be decimated if they were taken from the water. The sea trout population would certainly have taken a hit if removed from the water last week by the American man whom Cyril took fishing: he caught 10 of them, plus four brown trout.
"And he missed at least another 10," Cyril reports. "He was kind of handy with a rod all right."
I am not very handy with my own rod. The lesson starts, as it does for all novices, on the lawn of the large walled garden. Here Cyril shows me how to cast. Casting is the single most important element in fly-fishing. If you can't get the line in the water properly, it's going nowhere, you're going nowhere, and the fish can stick their heads out of the water right under your nose and wink at you, cheeky as anything, because they know they're safe.
The other quality a ghillie has to have is patience. Over and over again, Cyril demonstrates the cast: a lovely fluent whip-like movement over his head with rod and line, when the line then sails down onto the grass to lie there, arrow-straight.
"Think of the rod as an extension to your arm," Cyril instructs. "Bring it straight up, nice and lively, give it a kick at 10 to 1 on the clock, and then bring it down. Don't flick your wrist. Don't bring the rod too far back. Don't force the line down."
I do all of the things I am not meant to do. My line comes down on the grass, looking, as Cyril observes correctly, "like spaghetti".
It's astonishingly difficult to co-ordinate a few simple movements. And I can't stop my wrist from flicking the rod out. I'm like the man in the Bible, whose left hand doesn't know what the right is doing. Try as I might to keep my forearm and hand like a hinge as instructed, my wrist keeps disobeying my brain and flicking, making pasta of my line.
We eventually move onto the river, to beat No 1, which is overhung with trees.
Cyril immediately starts explaining the geography of the water. "See the way the water is moving over there, in the middle? They'll be out there, lying on the stones. And see the overhang up there, with the stones near it? They like that spot too. They like the movement of water, it's lively and has oxygen in it. That's why rain is good when you're fishing. It puts oxygen in the water." Right on cue, a salmon jumps in the middle of the river, exactly where Cyril has indicated. Some 350 salmon are caught in Ballynahinch each season.
I'm surprised that experienced fly-fishers hire ghillies. Why? "It's like anything else, we know the beats. And we can advise on what flies to use for the conditions." The heavier the fly you use, the deeper and faster the water is. Today, we're using a fly called (horribly) a Silver Rat, a fly you use for salmon.
"Trout will dart at a fly. They're a quick take, Salmon are different, they come at it nice and slow." Cyril casts and recasts, the line falling straight and lightly onto the water. "If you force the line down, it'll scare the fish off."
Which is what I do. When my line isn't coming down in a useless squiggle, it slaps the surface of the water, warning all fish to clear off pronto. As it turns out, the nearest I personally get to a fish is when I demolish a bowl of seafood chowder later that day.
But even though only two of every 10 of my hopeful casts land correctly in the water, the whole experience is hugely enjoyable. I'm outdoors, with the glorious Connemara scenery as a backdrop, I'm on the water, I'm doing something visceral, and I'm learning a lot from Cyril's 30 years experience of fishing. And unlike some people, I manage not to injure my ghillie with a stray fish-hook.
Fishing costs
Salmon fishing, Feb-May, €60 per beat per day, max two rods. June-Sept, €85 per day
Sea trout and brown trout, May-Sept, €50
Evening fishing on river, €40
One-day government licence, €17
Rod hire €7
Ghillie per day, €80
www.ballynahinch-castle.com