When Irish (Fl)eyes Are Smiling – In Georgia
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UNI Products Fly Tiers Corner
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July 2024
By Steve Hudson
I am fishing in Ireland, and I don’t want to go home.
We had talked about Ireland almost from our beginning, she and I had. Along the way, I had taught her to flyfish. I’d married her too. And so there we were, in Ireland, on a lough (Irish for lake) throwing a cast of three flies on what seemed to me a ridiculously long leader. But that’s the way it’s done in Ireland, I’d learned. We were getting the hang of it. And we were catching Irish brown trout.
Looking across the water, I watched her release another fish. Like the one before it, that one had taken a wet fly known as a Bibio.
Photo by Steve Hudson.
Those Irish trout seemed happy, and so were we.
Our mentor on our two-week Irish fishing adventure had been Derek Mulcahy, Irish fly fisher extraordinaire. Derek, a veteran of the Irish national fly fishing team and secretary of the Beara Trout Anglers fishing club, knows trout fishing well. He cheerfully shared his knowledge, too, giving invaluable assistance and pointing us toward promising water. The memories and friendships made will last a long time. I’m sure of that. Yes, those days fishing Ireland had been good.
But inevitably it was time to go home.
We drove to the airport at Cork, turned in the rental car, and a day worth of hours later we was back home in northern Georgia. Ireland was in our rearview mirror.
Or was it? The little box of flies in front of me, a gift from Derek, kept pulling me back. And after a while I began to wonder:
Could a guy from North Georgia find fulfillment fishing with Irish lake flies in Southern Appalachian trout streams?
Idly, I sifted through the flies one more time. I kept coming back to the Bibio, a time-honored Irish wet fly developed for fishing in Irish loughs. The classic version has a black-and-red seal’s fur body, a black palmered hackle, and a rib of silver tinsel or wire which is counter-wound over the hackle to hold it in place. It sometimes has jungle cock cheeks and even knotted pheasant tail fiber legs.
It was definitely a good-looking fly. But would it play in the southeast?
Determined to find out right away, I picked up my 4-weight and tied on the Bibio and made the five-minute drive to my favorite warmwater stream. Five minutes more and I was on the water, and just a couple of casts after that I was into a nice Georgia sunfish – on an Irish brown trout fly! It was the first of a dozen or so in a half-hour of fishing. This was definitely putting Ireland back on my mind!
Clearly, those local warmwater fish were enthusiastic about the Bibio. But the big question remained. Would it work on trout too?
A day or two later, on a favorite blueline in North Carolina, I had a chance to find out. On the very first cast, I had a strike. On the second, I had a fish – one of several wild brookies I’d bring to hand that afternoon on the exquisite little Irish fly.
After a while, and several trout later, it was time to head back to the car. Before I left the stream, I clipped off the Bibio and put it safely into my box. I’d use it again, I knew, and I’d think of Ireland when I did.
The world seemed somehow smaller on the drive back home, and I was glad.
