Trout & Salmon - March 2020

The River Nire may look
small and ordinary, but
its fish are anything but.
D o y o u
h av e
w h a t i t
takes?
Andrew Flitcroft must answer the question
on the River Nire in Co Waterford
Photography: Peter Gathercole
››
18 | month 2019 month 2019 | 19

Trout in County WATERFOrD
above
First dibs
at a fish, but
Andrew cracks
off as the
trout takes.
LeFT
Andrew Ryan
points to the
huge fish
above the
old ford.
BELOW
Not the
monster, but
a beautiful
2lb Nire trout
taken on
a size 14
Perdigon
nymph.
It was milking time at Glasha
Farm. Dairyman Oliver O’Gorman was driving
his Friesians over the 17th Century
Fourmilewater Bridge. We pulled up on the verge
to wait, waders on and rods strapped to the
bonnet. It was a poignant and heart-warming
reminder of Irish country life — everything at a cow’s pace.
When the clopping of hooves had subsided, we needed the
studs in our felts to negotiate the ruminants’ remnants and
get our first glimpse of the river from the bridge’s parapet.
“This is the Nire,” said Andrew Ryan, as we took in the
heady smell. It looked like any other river to me. Nothing
special, about ten yards wide and mostly tree-lined.
Sunlight pierced a slight peat stain and lit up the shallow
tail above the bridge, revealing sporadic boulders and
bedrock; upstream there was enough stain to render the
deeper bits dark and seemingly empty. Most concerning
was the lack of pace. Despite its pool-and-run formation, the
Nire had a canal-like stillness — of the sort that makes a flyfisher
worry. But Andrew didn’t seem at all perturbed.
I’d heard great things about the owner of Clonanav Fly
Fishing and the guiding operation he’s built over the past
20 years. His shop, bursting with hand-picked goodies from
around the world, was almost visible from the bridge. He’s
got casting credentials that span the Atlantic and I could tell
by his confidence and professionalism that he meant
business. Or was it that he couldn’t wait to put me to the test
on this notoriously difficult stream?
The River Nire in Co Waterford flows from lakes in the
Comeragh Mountains. Nearly 12 miles long, it is one of the
River Suir’s main spawning tributaries. Andrew controls
six miles; he could have more, but the rest is overgrown,
rocky and the fishing is not very good. What he has, he’s
guarded closely. With a strict catch-and-release and barblesshook
policy introduced two decades ago, clients are now
reaping the rewards. Stretches are also rested to reduce
pressure and maintenance is in keeping with a wild stream.
Great for trout and testing if you’re after them.
We headed upstream, while Rob and Myles tried the
bridge pool, above which the odd trout sent rings across the
glassy surface and then quickly headed back to the depths.
The rises were sporadic and rarely from the same fish.
Hatches on the Nire can be prolific. September usually
brings sedges, BWOs, spurwings and smaller olives, but
there was little sign of them — they must have heard the
English were coming. Dry-flies were therefore forgotten,
replaced by a duo, or “dry-dropper” as the locals call it. If
trout aren’t on the fin, this is the preferred method, one that
many locals have embraced and mastered. Lighter rods are
favoured, too. Andrew handed me an 8ft 9in four-weight
Hardy Ultralight. At the business end, a Perdigon nymph
was suspended below a brightly posted Klinkhamer. Small,
tungsten-beaded Perdigons are liked here. They’re slim and
sink quickly in the Nire’s deeper gullies and pots. I also put
up Andrew’s 8ft 8in three-weight Ultralite, with a dry-fly,
just in case. I would fall in love with this rod and must
confess I’ve since bought one (my wife still doesn’t know).
My first cast was in a shallow glide. I needed to crawl
across the open bank on my hands and knees without
spooking a pod of fish near the opposite bank. The odd trout
was rising and after a dozen speculative drifts my nymph
was snatched. I lifted but cracked off amid a flurry of bowwaves.
It was a good fish, a couple of pounds, and possibly
one of the few chances I was likely to get on a river that is
testing in good times, let alone in low water. After a start
like that, you need to wipe the slate clean.
Apologies over and having regained my composure,
I started wading while Andrew methodically pointed out
where to cast and the bits to ignore. He knew every nook.
We’d soon fished another run and then crossed the river
at the remains of an ancient ford. Before the Bridge at
Fourmilewater was built, the ford was an important
river crossing that linked Clonmel, Dungarvan, Lismore
and Cork. It was guarded by a Caisleán; a clan McGrath
castle built on high ground.
Size 16 black-and-red nymphs
were favoured by the trout.
The Perdigon is on the left.
Fishing at distance is
the key on this river,
especially when it's low.
The Nire had a reputation then as a river with a bad
temper, becoming violent in flood. Those wanting to cross
the ford could be delayed for days before it was passable.
It was following one such flood that Lord Cork’s driver
thought it was safe to cross. Disaster struck and the carriage
flipped, decanting its passengers into the Nire. Lord Cork’s
son, Robert, was swept away but, happily, pulled from the
river alive. The Earl then paid for a wooden bridge to be
built, but it fell foul of the floods, too, and so before his death
in 1643 the Earl appointed Roger McGrath to build a bridge.
The stone Fourmilewater Bridge stands to this day. The
castle is no longer there, but its ruin upstream of the ford
was converted to a lime kiln that was used to build
St Laurence’s Church in Fourmilewater.
›
“The rises were sporadic and
rarely from the same fish”
Above
One on the silver
bead nymph.
RIGHT
The pool below
Fourmilewater Bridge
and Lonergan's Bar.
20 | march 2020 march 2020 | 21

Trout in County WATERFOrD
RIGHT
It's Andrew
Ryan's turn
and it doesn't
take long
before another
Nire fish is in
the net. Time
for a pint.
Andrew was sneaking up the bank opposite the lime kiln.
You can tell a good pool by how a guide reacts. Slowly, with
hands blocking light, he paused at what looked like a
shallow and seemingly featureless glide.
“Three fish,” he said. “Come here… slowly… see?”
I couldn’t see a lot, frankly. Andrew is 6ft 4in — he could
see Tower Bridge from Putney. Only when a fish peeled
off and swam downstream did I spot a shape against
the ochre bottom.
“Wait, there’s a huge fish… just upstream… six, maybe
seven pounds!” he said.
“Is it a salmon?” I whispered.
“No, a trout.”
Bloody hell, I thought, and slipped into the water a
little downstream, tearing line of the reel and waiting
for instructions, all the time thinking how on earth I
would land it if I hooked it. It was a longish cast with a duo,
probably nearly 20 yards. How the flies would land above
a pod of fish in shallow water was in the lap of the gods. I
got away with it the first time, but on the second attempt the
pod stirred — which Andrew told me in no uncertain terms.
“Andrew’s dog Riley had
chewed a hole in the net
the previous day”
He was instructing me towards the monster, but after I’d
made numerous attempts it rumbled me and melted away.
I hooked another, smaller fish — a beauty of 2lb — which
Andrew netted, but before we could take a picture, it slipped
through the mesh. Andrew’s dog Riley had chewed a hole
in the net the previous day. I felt we were even with the river,
but still fishless.
Not for long. Despite the glide being disturbed I landed
another fat and buttery 2½-pounder minutes later.
A wild trout of such size and beauty would normally crown
a day but knowing there were much bigger fish had
made me greedy.
We yomped across a few more fields by the river, which if
anything was faster and shallower than before. I saw a fish
that stopped me in my tracks. Six, maybe seven pounds.
Andrew hardly turned his head, as if it were the norm.
“It’s almost uncatchable, especially in that water,” he said.
I just wanted to stare at it through the brambles and
vowed to take another peak when we returned. But by
then it had gone.
The decision to move downstream was made. We jumped
into Andrew’s Land Rover, crossed another ford and hurtled
to the corner of a field. The river here was in a tunnel of
trees and accessed by a ladder down a high, steep bank.
Once the ladder was found and disentangled from
undergrowth it became obvious that no one had fished this
stretch for a while. Despite the river being low, it was getting
close to my chest wader’s pocket and its contents. Like Lord
Cork’s young son Robert, I felt I was about to succumb to the
Nire. Did I mention that Robert Boyle went on to become the
father of modern chemistry? The internet tells me that
Boyle’s Law describes how the pressure of a gas tends to
increase as the volume of a container decreases.
A clever chap, then. Maybe he could have calculated better
than me how to cast a pendulous dry-dropper a long way
when you are up to your nipples in the Nire under a tunnel
of trees. It’s not something I often do, and I found it tricky.
LEFT
A smaller fish goes back to
the shrunken river, which
fishes best after rainfall.
When I handed Andrew the rod, I was given a masterclass in
casting in a confined space — possibly the finest in practical
fishing terms I’ve ever witnessed.
Feeling a little inadequate but back in the driving seat
I soldiered on up the tunnel of trees, Andrew urging me to
keep my distance from the trout. It’s how you must fish the
Nire. We cast under and around boughs, the Klink would
dip, and I’d hit it. Nothing. “That was a fish,” said Andrew
on a number of occasions.
With the end of the tunnel and broken water in sight,
the river was becoming shallower and easier to fish. In a
bobbling run next to tangled tree roots the Klink dipped
again. This time I lifted into something much more solid.
It shot downstream towards us, shook its head a few times
and then shot back upstream. This was the fish I wanted and
finally I had him. With that thought, the line went slack.
Photographer Peter, who was following us on the high
bank, saw the fish shoot past him.
“It’s a good fish. A four-pounder,” he said.
“It’s off,” I shouted back, before we all fell silent again. The
Nire does that to you. The river is hard but is home to truly
big trout. To even hook one, never mind land one, seems an
accomplishment. We took a fish apiece in our last pool of the
day, both to the dry-dropper, fished far off, this time to
activity on the outside of a bend.
We’d been promised a pint at Lonergan’s Bar, a truly Irish
drinking pub next to Fourmilewater Bridge. And so, with a
packet of crisps and a glass of the black stuff expertly
prepared by James Lonergan at much slower than cow’s
pace, we sat in the pub garden overlooking one of the most
intriguing and captivating streams I’d never heard of
before that day. T&S
A Klinkhamer
from Caledonia
Fly Company,
used to suspend
the Perdigon.
Season: March 17-September 30.
Nire hatches: March-April: large dark olive
(LDO), March brown, hawthorn, and small
olive. May: blue-winged olive (BWO), LDO,
hawthorn, alder and some stonefly.
June: BWO, some sedge, spurwing, black
gnat. July-September: sedge, BWO,
spurwing and smaller olive.
Tickets: Some Nire beats can be fished
Top to bottom
Worth the wait:
A creamy and
full-bodied pint at
Lonergan's Bar,
whose garden
overlooks
the river.
Eat, sleep, fish
on a day-ticket, but not all. Some
are guided-only and are rested
on certain days during the week.
Visit Clonanav Fly Fishing’s new website
for all fishing package information
(accommodation, guides and prices).
Web: irishflyfishingguides.com
Tel: 00 353 5261 36765. Address: Nire Valley,
Ballymacarbry, Clonmel, Co Waterford.
22 | march 2020 march 2020 | 23