The Magic of the Spent

Lough Ree. The second largest of the Shannon lakes, after lough Derg. A great mythical, and mystical lough rich in folklore and history. Like so many other of the great Irish loughs, Ree has suffered badly over the last half a century with pollution. Several years of algae infestation poor water quality and a demise in it’s trout stocks spelled a bleak picture for this mighty lough. The introduction of zebra mussels has somewhat reversed this decline, although we are yet to find out at what cost. Currently known best for the quality and size of it’s pike, the present day lough Ree boasts improved water quality, and a modest stock of brown trout. 

The Shannon genetic strains of trout – particularly on the Inny system, in combination with the rich feeding available to them, have real potential to reach specimen size. This is reflected in the fish caught throughout the loughs on the Inny system – lough Sheelin, lough Ree, and lough Derravaragh. The average size of fish caught is unheard of anywhere else in the country – a 2lbs fish is considered small on all of these loughs. This is difficult for someone like me to come to terms with, having been reared on the western loughs of Conn and Cullin, where a fish of 2lbs would be talked about for weeks! That said, don’t come to Ree expecting to roll up and bag a boot load of big fish. Big trout don’t get big without guile and cunning. These fish are wild as they come, and are very weary, spooking at the slightest of disturbances – an awry cast, or the slightest plunge of an oar will put a fish down for days 

These leviathans of Lough Ree are predatory fish (likely of ferox lineage). They take refuge in the darkest, peatiest depths of the lough packing on mass by gorging on the abundance of fodder fish – historically the native pollan, but now predominantly small roach, perch and hybrids. They are generally only taken by chance, by anglers trolling for pike, though some locals targeting the big trout specifically in this way. Comparatively small insects are simply not a contender on the menu for these giants of the deeps – the exception to this of course being on a handful of warm, balmy evenings in late May, with the advent of the mayfly. As the mayfly spinners return to the lough from the shelter of the land to lay their eggs and sow the seeds for the next generation of mayfly, the big trout move into the shallows. The hapless mayfly spinners spread eagle on the water in their thousands make a rare and worthwhile occasion for these leviathans to venture to the surface – giving us anglers the chance of a lifetime to tempt one of these monsters to a dry fly. 

The chance arises, as I say, on a mere handful of nights at one particular time of year. For a good fall of spent, conditions have to be right – the best conditions being a warm, balmy evening with a gentle or dropping wind. Though the shelter of an island or peninsula is often then best place to target, the dropping wind may also carves out long slicks in the otherwise riffled surface, acting as funnels for fly. The fish, when they come on the feed, will follow the slicks like cars on a motorway. The calm narrow of water is both friend and foe to the angler. It offers a favour in that it exposes the presence and trajectory of a surfacing fish. This all the same makes it very difficult to get near the fish as there is no wave to mask the presence of angler, boat and cast.  

The fish need to have gotten the taste for the fly. It usually takes a week or so of the flies hatching before the fish begin to rise to the spent. In many cases, there can come a good fall of spent, but no rise of fish. On a perfect evening, the window of opportunity is small – usually only about 45 minutes to an hour, where the big fish come on the feed, and this can happen at any stage in the evening from about 5pm onwards. Often, this occurs in the last hour before dusk, just as the sun sets and the light fades. 

The story henceforth, centers on a particularly memorable evening late in the month of May 2022. On this occasion, my first trip to Ree, a good friend of mine Rob Connor, who knows the midland lakes like the back of his hand, would be my ghillie for the night. A two hour drive from Mayo, I arrived at one of the many large bays along the Ree shoreline with the sun still high in the sky. A few white rafts of high cloud had masked its glare from time to time, though the heat of the day still warranted a t-shirt. In the time we spent readying our gear, a battalion of other boats and trailers clattered steadily over the cattle grid so that by the time we were on the lough and fishing, there were around a dozen other boats drifting in the area. A good omen, but a curse all the same. A lot of these fishers are Sheelin boatsmen, but owing to the poor season that lough had seen, had ventured further afield seeking their mayfly thrills.  

Although there were spent on the water already, we began fishing ‘blind’. A light breeze carried the boat along the shoreline where the spent were dancing. It was early to see fish actively feeding on the spent mayfly but it wasn’t long before the water broke below Rob’s point fly and he struck into a fish. The fish careered out of the water upon realising it was hooked, revealing itself to be about 2lbs or so. A fine fish in its own right and gave a good account of itself before it was subjected to the rigours of having the hook wrenched from its mouth and being slipped back into the water. “On that grey wullfe again?” I probed. “Yeah that same grey wullfe, its deadly” was the reply. That was enough for me, in came my cast and a quick chop and change later saw a size 10 grey wullfe fixed on the point. The largest I had in the box, being so accustomed to fishing for half pounders on conn. It was dwarved by the large spent on my dropper, and I could barely make it out on the water. Often this is the case when fishing small dries on a lough, but using the top fly as a marker I would be able to roughly gauge the position of the point fly. 

Rob with a two pounder

The majority of the boats had set up tight into the shoreline, drifting a line out from a point where a large amount of flies were gathered and dancing. We on the other hand, followed a slick out of the bay for about 2 hours or so. On that first long drift, we only saw two trout come up sipping spent. Both were big as a spring salmon, including one fish well into double figures head tailed infront of the boat a couple of times. The fish moved right to left across the slick and then came up some 20 yards to the left of the slick again. This sighting resulted in a bit of a half-hearted chase where Rob motored us upwind and to the left in the hope we might spot the fish rise again, but the sheer speed the beast was moving meant it highly unlikely we would spot the fish let alone cast to it. The spent continued to trickle out over our heads and onto the water all the time, though the slick to our frustration lay largely undisturbed and flat before us.  

Just as we contemplated a move to join the other boats at the point, a disturbance well down from the boat kept our attention. The fish was head tailing his way upwind, its presence again betrayed by a large, dark dorsal and tail which sliced silently through the surface. She came up several times in quick succession. A big trout like this is capable of sipping down well over 40 or 50 fly in one run up the slick. Once they start ‘mopping’ spent, they’ll continue to work up wind for hundreds of yards, breaking the surface each time. It’s purely a visual spectacle, you will rarely ever hear a head-tail rise, making this kind of fishing extra special. 

The witching hour

Perfect conditions for the spent – a dropping wind and a big slick!

We watched patiently as the fish and boat slowly converged with each other – the fish confidently ploughing its way upwind, taking spent after spent with it, we in the boat inched slowly down the slick, carried by the faintest of breezes. By the time the fish was within casting range it had already surfaced about a dozen times. The rise that spurred the first of our frantic casts suited my boat partner better as it was directly down from the stern end of the boat about 20 yards away. The fish looked to be moving in a straight line upwind – Rob covered it’s line, and I covered the water slightly to the right. Forward, back, forward, back. A well-rehearsed series of short whippy false casts to shake any excess moisture and give our dries the best chance of floating, preceded a more graceful final cast. Both casts unfurled in tandem and flies landed without a ripple on the water.  

Silence.  

Both of us set, waiting for the slightest disturbance around our flies, praying that the fish hadn’t spooked at line or boat. Surely between the 4 flies on the water, one of them had covered her. 5 seconds passed…….10 seconds. And then as if to mock us both, the fish, now only 10 yards from the boat and having changed course, veered across the slick, sipping another natural down, this time at the bough end of the boat. Another frantic bout of casting saw both casts land further to the right of the fish. Again we waited with baited breath.  

The water boiled aggresively infront of us. Coinciding with a sudden jerk on my line, I instinctively whipped my rod straight up to feel the resistance drop to nothing just as sharply as the pull had come on. The fish, which looked to be about eight or nine pounds in weight had nailed my point fly, and in the heat of the moment I had just whipped it straight out of its gaping mouth. 

Both hands and rod on my head in shock, line hanging slack in a heap in front of me, I looked across the boat in disbelief.  The fish had taken it. My cast was perfect, my fly was perfect, and I was so used to hitting half pound fish with fast whippy strikes on lough conn, that I had just not given the time necessary for the fish to roll properly over the fly. That was by a country mile the biggest brown trout I had ever risen on a fly and I had just bottled my chance.  

“We’ll get another chance, don’t worry” came the words of encouragement from the stern end. Not a hope was my initial thought. The evening up until this point had been quite dour – Spotting 3 fish and only getting a real chance at one in almost 3 hours fishing and the sun was almost touching the horizon. I had spurned what I surely felt was going to be my only rise of the evening. 

But Rob was right – no sooner had we moved back up to the top of the slick, we had spotted another fish about 80 yards downwind of the boat on the edge of the slick. Zig-zagging its way left to right and back again. Sometimes coming up on three or four flies consecutively, then disappearing for a period before surfacing again. An eternity seemed to pass as we waited for the fish to move from a position about 30 yards away on the stern side of the slick to within range of our traps. All of a sudden she was 10 yards out and moving quickly to the right. I was first to get infront of her as it was my side of the boat, but I dropped my cast too close to the rise, or so I thought. This fish was motoring away. Rob stood up and sent out a long line over my head to cover the water further to the right. I had a feeling Robs flies were better placed than mine and found my eyes wandering over to his, keen to witness the artificial disappear into a black shadow. The silence was deafening.

My attention flashed back to my own cast, drawn by the slightest break in the water. A dark nose had just vanished beneath as I searched frantically for my point fly. This was followed immediately by the appearance of a large dorsal. Having taken a split second to process what had just happened, I lifted my rod firmly. This time met with a solid resistance. I had successfully hooked the fish this time. And then she was off, or so I thought. But no, there was still something. I retrieved a little, and then some more, and then some. The fish had bolted straight towards the boat, and I had just about managed to keep in contact with her before she turned around and headed for the horizon. It took some help from Rob to sort out the mess of line at my feet and I was able to get it all back onto the reel.  

As if a switch was flicked, the slick came alive with fish – 2 different heads, then a third and then a fourth fish down wind of the boat, to the right of the boat. Not one looked to be less than 4 pounds. The big trout of lough Ree had come on the feed and in some style. My unfortunate boat partner couldn’t get a chance at any of them – what with me stamping on the floor to keep the trout from undercutting the boat, and the fish itself romping around like a black bull. With the 6 weight rod I was powerless against a fish of this size and was just going to have to ride out the fight.  

For half an hour I played that fish – behind the boat, in front of the boat, the bough side of the boat. She made several powerful runs and headshakes, and dogged around stubbornly below the boat in typical brown trout fashion. Arms aching and almost as tired as the fish, I had her net ready. But in a cruel twist, she buried herself deep in a bed of weeds. It took me a moment too long to realise in the fading light, and by the time I recognised my predicament, the boat had drifted on. Bobbing slowly further away on each passing ripple. The rod bent double towards the now distant shoreline, the reel sang out a steady, dreadful ode as to the west I watched the sun sink, and with it my heart plumetted too. What a horrible way to lose the fish of a lifetime. 

By the time we made our way back upwind, it was almost too dark to see what was going on. My line was still snagged deep in the weed bed and Rob, lying almost horizontally across the seat thrust the net as far down into the black depths as he could to retrieve the fly. Then there was a pause, and suddenly a cry – ‘I have him Rich….he’s still there!’. A frantic scramble ensued, culminating in a mass of weed being bundled into the boat. At the heart of the mess, a trout of six pounds weight lay exhausted after her battle. In the crook of her jaw I retrieved the size 10 grey wulffe, the hook shank almost straightened.  

A fabulous Ree fish on the spent gnat

So that is my spent story. A tale of the one that almost but didn’t get away. It took a few minutes to bring the fish around again, but it recovered well and swam off strongly. Ree is just one of a number of Irish loughs where anglers have the chance to experience the magic of the spent, and it may come as no surprise to anyone when I say I would highly recommend you try it. This is the cream of Irish dry fly fishing, and without doubt the pinnacle of the angling year. It won’t be long now until we can target these magnificent fish once again. Maybe, just maybe….