I have often been pleased to watch men fishing on The Seine as it flows through Paris – and on the canals that give Amsterdam its special character. I hope some day to see men fishing on The Liffey as it flows through Dublin's inner city and on The Camac as it flows from Clondalkin to Kilmainham.

The upper stretch of The Tolka is well populated by anglers but it loses its character as it comes into the city. The Grand Canal, as it flows along by Portobello Road, is fished by dedicated anglers – alas, it holds mainly coarse fish.

The Green Party faces a big challenge in this context; their first task is to make the waters clean. The Camac was once famous for brown trout – pollution devastated it. Over the past twenty years it has begun to recover but it is a slow process.

There was a time when almost every house in my home town had a fishing rod. Some had two or three. Sometime in the 1960s I founded The Castle Island Anglers Club. It was an example of extreme innocence. I invited every public representative in the county to attend our first meeting – TDs, Senators, County Councillors and Town Councillors – two came.

Our big aim was to keep our waters clean. We strove hard but got little co-operation from the public. We met mainly with indifference. When last I was at home about three years ago, The Maine was in a sorry state. A man cannot turn his back. Most clubs are the same. A few do the work – many do all the talking.

FAME

Alas – most of my old angling friends are no more. And this suggests a rather sad truth: if local fame is the only fame, then I will not be famous at all. In this context I remember a day long ago which brought the most pleasure of my career. The night had rained and the local rivers were in good flood but there was a lively cold wind – conditions were unpromising.

Most of my angling friends didn't go out that day: they deemed the wind and the cold unfriendly. They weren't far wrong: it was several hours before I got an answer. An answer was the local word for a bite. It was worth the wait: I landed the biggest brown trout of my life. It was in splendid condition, obviously just up from the estuary. That night in Hussey's pub in the heart of The Latin Quarter it was put on the scale and weighed three and three-quarter pounds.

Next morning as I went into first Mass, our sacristan Tommy Casey, a dedicated angler, shook my hand. “You got a big one, four and a half pounds”. I could only wonder what would the weight be by second Mass. There are only a few of us left now who remember that famous fish. Local fame is like a name carved on a tree destined for the sawmill.

Anglers, despite popular belief, are not liars. Such strange things happen on the water that if they told the truth, nobody would believe them. And so they tell lies in an attempt to capture the truth. Angling – or fishing if you like – can be an incurable passion. When you are smitten, usually it is for life. I knew a man who literally fell in love with fishing at first sight. He was about twenty when a friend took him fishing for the first time ever. After about an hour he caught a trout – and ran about half a mile back home to show it to his mother. Not all first ventures turn out so well, as I have cause to know.

APPRENTICE

Once upon a time a neighbour asked me to introduce her son to the noble occupation. Of course I consented. I was up at dawn and enjoyed the empty Irish breakfast – a mug of tea and a slice of bread and butter. I called for my neighbour – and waited for him while he finished a very hearty breakfast indeed. There was a nice flood on the river. The fishing was fairly good. I was glad for my apprentice.

Around midday I felt that he was getting restless – soon I found out why. He said: “When are we going to eat?” He probably thought that I had all kinds of goodies in my bag. I said: “When we go home tonight.” My apprentice's face turned white and he lay down on the sand. Eventually he got up and set off for home. He was a big lad of about fourteen – I knew he would get there.

Anglers are great men to theorise: every one of them has his own ideas about bait and tactics. You listen and you say to yourself what Izaak Walton said in his great book, The Compleat Angler. “If all the theories were correct, there wouldn't be a fish left in all of our lakes and rivers and streams.” Naturally I had my own theories but I also tended to believe that gold is where you find it. Occasionally it paid to fly in the face of theory – when I caught that famous trout, I shouldn't have been on the river at all.

Danny Horan was my closest friend in our local angling brotherhood. There was a big difference in our ages – but the generation gap was invented by American sociologists in search of doctorates. Danny had been through World War One; he had known the horror of the trenches. He hardly ever referred to that aspect; he preferred to talk about the beauty of French women. I didn't hold that against him. He was the best trout angler that I ever knew. He was both very skillful and very intelligent.

We had a mutual friend who had his special theory about fishing. It made him a legend. In a flood he stood all day at the same spot. He was a very big man and possibly a bit lazy.

He used to say: “If the fish are running, they must pass here.” It was a nice theory. Danny had a more subtle theory – and I remembered it on the day in London when I heard that he was no more. I went down to a pub near The Thames and drank his farewell. I felt a deep sadness.

His special theory would have delighted Izaak Walton: “You must always know what the fish are thinking.”

- Con Houlihan