At the end of the yachting season there are hundreds of boats to be bought at a very moderate figure, sometimes almost for nothing. For the purpose I have named, you want no wedge-like racing craft, but a boat with a good floor, good beam, and light draft of water, with summer and winter sails, in fact, a nice roomy seaworthy boat.
But in buying you must be cautious, and have some one with you who thoroughly understands the business, otherwise you may invest in a craft whose timbers are rotten, and the planking no stronger than brown paper; there is nothing that one who does not thoroughly understand the matter is easier taken in with than boats.
Having now told you how shooting, &c., may be got on moderate means, perhaps a short account of my little yacht I had on Lough Corrib, Galway, and what I did, may not be uninteresting.
After I had been a short time in Galway—that is, a couple of miles from the town—I found a very nice boat of about ten tons that was to be sold. I made enquiries, and discovered she was nearly new, and that more than a hundred pounds had been spent on her in making a cabin and fitting her out. I bought her for eight pounds, spent twenty more on her, and had the most complete little fishing and shooting craft I ever saw. I had a rack for my guns and rods, and lockers for all my things; there were places to put away game, provisions, and liquor, and a good stove, of modern contrivance, for cooking. This last was in my cabin, for she was too small to have a forecastle. In summer we cooked on shore, on the stones or what not. She was only partly decked—what is called a welled boat. Over this well at night there was a perfectly water-tight tarpaulin, which was fastened down by rings. In this well, which was a large one, my captain slept, and the other man nestled in the sail-room, which was right astern. I bought a brand-new dingy for thirty shillings, and was all complete; the whole affair costing me thirty pounds. As I was living on the banks of Lough Corrib, the boat was moored close to my house, and from my window I could see her.
In this boat I used to go to all parts of the lake, which is forty-eight miles long, and ten wide in one place. There were several rivers I could get up, and innumerable little bays, and places where one could anchor for the night. On Lough Corrib, there are no end of islands, some of them large; it is said there is an island for every day in the year, viz., 365. There was capital shooting on some of these islands, and on many parts of the marshes, on the banks of the lake, I had leave to shoot. One marsh or bog was seventeen miles long, and three or four wide. Most of this country was undrained, and snipe were in thousands. It makes my mouth water to think of the snipe and duck shooting I sometimes had there, as well as wild geese; but I got ague and rheumatism again; lost one of my children, and the life was too lonely for my better half. We were away from home and friends, and as I was some three or four years over forty, I gave it up, reluctantly, I must say, and returned to the old land.
Lough Corrib is difficult to navigate, and you must have a man with you who knows it thoroughly, otherwise you will come to grief. My captain knew it well, and was a good sportsman into the bargain. My old sailor, who had been all his life about those wild, desolate, and God-forgotten islands, "the Arran," was a rare fisherman. He always managed the night lines, and when we have been anchored at the mouth of the Clare Galway river for the night, of a morning the lines have been loaded with eels, some of four and even five pounds in weight. If we baited for them, sometimes we had large catches of pike and trout.
I think cross-line fishing, or an otter, is still allowed on the lake; but I never went in for this, you require a licence for it.
Of a night, at flight time in July, the young ducks—they were more than "flappers"—used to come up from the lake and marshy grounds in numbers to the cornfields, and we generally gave it to them hot, morning and evening; and in parts of the lake we used to get "flapper" shooting. It was endless amusement to me, roaming about on the different islands knocking over a few rabbits, or sometimes a duck or snipe. I always carried a ten-bore gun with me, shooting four drachms of powder and two ounces of shot. I never knew what was going to get up; occasionally I had a crack at an otter asleep on the stones. Sometimes a duck would spring when I least expected it; there was no knowing. In winter we were obliged to be very careful, for the wind comes off the mountains in gusts and is very treacherous, and accidents soon happen unless you have your weather eye open.
There is some capital snipe and duck shooting on Lord Clanmorris's property, on the banks of the Clare Galway river. I do not know if it is yet let, or leave now given; but I think it is not let. The white trout fishing is first rate in Connemara, but what a wild desolate place it is! The salmon fishing is said to be very good in the Clare Galway river, but though I have seen plenty of fishermen on it, and there are no end of fish, I never saw very much done; it is a sluggish river, and wants a good curl on the water to get a rise.
As I have said, I have had some of the best duck and snipe shooting at Killaloe I ever enjoyed; but snipe and woodcock shooting depend a great deal on the season. Some years there are any quantity, another season comparatively few; it is the same everywhere.