They laughed all the way to the bank. The river bank, that is.
For, while the week now ending to many people was the week of Valentines, to others it stood for one thing above all The opening day of the trout season in their particular part of the country. And the opening day is one of great significance. A sort of pagan event, if you will.
Spring comes with it. Energy flows in. Hope springs. Time was when a promise could be made that there would be at least a fish or two for the evening meal. No more. The river runs in a steady channel, thanks to arterial drainage. Off to the sea with the water as fast as possible. Who wants water?
Huh. But a river has a mind of its own. Here and there, reported one who had forged his way down a couple of miles of it, here and there the old pools are reforming. Banks of shingle are being re moulded. It may soon be a real river again. Not just a conduit to the sea. And its early days to expect much of a bag.
So you purposefully work up and down the banks, ready to admit at the end that you don't care too much if you get fish or not.
Mendacity or just romanticism?
The former.
There is nothing like the first trout. Only an hour or two out of the river. So you rely on memories. Do you remember the big fish John got here. Or was it Jim? And later in the year you recall a night in June or July when the pool was alive and hopping with fish. When you had your quota, you just sat on the banks and watched the swallows cream off the flies while the trout went on sucking them down. You could hear the glug made by the fish. That's the sort of Ireland the tourist people write about. It's not as rich as it used to be in wild life, but it exists.
There was one difference from many other first days. No hail. No snow. And the river was well down from a recent brutal series of floods. Clear enough to see the inviting shingle. No contact at all with trout? One mentioned a few pulls. Another had a fish of eight inches and dutifully and most carefully, not to say reverently, put it back.
Don't complain. You had a day's activity in the open, with sun most of the time. You were hopping from one tuft to another.
You had to bend under low hanging branches, stretch up a bank here and there. Slide down a bank. Man, it was better than what is called a work out in a gym. And the wind on the heath, or rather the big open fields.
All agreed that the conditions on the next day, Friday (yesterday) would be ideal. But you can't mitch twice in one week two learned friends, a money man and scribe.