Spring won't be the same this year for a group of friends. You'll find out why, later on. Sure enough. Nature seems to be keeping to a decent schedule. Daffodils now, as well as snowdrops in the gardens. Honeysuckle around the front door, which in past years has held the nest of flycatchers, is greening well. Flowering current bushes have grown to gross proportions in spite of being annually clipped. They are showing the buds opening. The damned, non-productive quinces are exhibiting green, too. Every year promises to be their last: dig them out, you say, but keep on hoping. There are lovely white catkins on red branches, much in demand for decorating the living rooms.
But it won't be the same for the friends, because this Sunday should see the opening of the trout season on the Boyne system. The Ministry in its wisdom has postponed the opening from the time-honoured February 15th to March 1st. This urge to uniformity may be a disease we are catching from Brussels. There's no great sweat in holding back for March 1st, but why this levelling out with the Dodder, say, or any other river, almost, you may care to fling a wet fly at? In compensation we are offered an extension of the close of the season: September 30th instead of September 15th. A tidying up for a sport, diversion or food-gathering known as angling. Maybe art is a better word.
This won't do a thing for that part of the river where the devastating fire at Mullagh led to the extinction of much of the life in the river variously known as Borora, Moynalty or Owenroe. A 10-mile stretch including the Blackwater, into which it flows, was affected.
The father of the river, Gerry Farrell, hopes that there will not be a policy of re-stocking. He, as a long-time observer, would like to watch the river heal itself. Entirely laudable and probably, long-term, the most effective cure. Nature works in her own way. However, to be sure, the Eastern Fisheries Board has put in 30,000 fry in the lower river; Boyne stock. A big question is: will there be enough to eat for the young, hatching salmon, for this small river was always a great spawning ground for salar?
Anyway, a ritual which some of the group swear goes back 40 years, is no more. Their blessing of the opening, as they saw it, is held off. Y