But tickling the trout is the more curious method, and is a practice that has its origin doubtless in the character of the streams, which, run for the most part by low grass-grown banks, which, being undermined, shelve over on the edge of the current, or fall into it in great scraughs, or sods. Beneath these lurk the trout of all sizes, sallying out every now and then like sunbeams into the amber water to catch some luckless victim passing by. On such an overhanging bank the skilled Tipperary fisher lies at full length, with shirt sleeves rolled up, and hands thrust as far beneath the bank as he can reach. If his fingers touch a fish, away it flies, but only to return shortly and sidle up against his hand, and be again alarmed. Over and over again this is repeated, until the fish seems to lose all sense of fear, when the stealthy, tickling, stroking fingers steal about the gills, and with a sudden encircling clutch and murderous thrust of the thumb in the gullet, that too confiding fish's day is ended.
The Tipperary men catch fine fish, and plenty of them in this way. It is not a lofty style of angling, but it is a curious instance of the application of means to ends, the end being the fish, the motive hunger, and the means being confined to strong hands.
Many a fine catch of fish have I seen made by the fishermen of Tipperary, but the most extraordinary was that of my friend Paddy Ryan. Paddy had a way of his own, and it was better than snaring or tickling, and it made Paddy famous as a brave and original fisher.
Up these little tributary streams that flow into the Shannon the salmon come in the spawning season, ascending until the upper shallows are reached, when they deposit their eggs, and then work their way back to the ocean. Great fun it is, too, to watch these lordly fish at some point where they must leap clear over some small water-fall or mill-dam if they would pass further up. The water breaks with a mighty swish, and out comes the salmon, his back like black velvet, and all the rest of him like a flash of burnished silver, his tail uncurving from the strong blow that he has struck in his leap, and his fine force and vigor landing him in the top water, where one great whisk and splash carries him clean over and out of all danger. Sometimes he falls short, or can not strike fast enough to overcome the current, and so tumbles back; but he goes at it again, and, making note of his experience, finally succeeds.
Paddy Ryan was nine years old, and was a spectator while I cast flies for trout; and although I was very far up the river, it was not altogether above the spawning grounds that the salmon sought. I was sitting on the parapet of an old bridge, and about one hundred feet down the stream below me there crossed a rough stone dam that diverted some part of the stream to the little mill owned by Paddy's father. Under the dam was a deep pool; above it was another, and the water fell over the dam along its whole length. But just inside the dam, and running parallel with it for a short distance, was a bank of gravel, which the last heavy freshet had thrown up. Paddy walked out on this gravel, and stretched himself on it at full length in pure idleness and lazy enjoyment of my useless fly-fishing. The trout were not in the humor to rise, and I had about made up my mind to give up and go home, when all at once I heard a splash and saw a great salmon come up with a mighty curve over the dam, overleap it completely, and land in about three inches of water on the gravel bank within a foot or two of Paddy.
The water flew in every direction, and all over Paddy, who turned with a startled yell to see what had happened. In another instant he was on top of the salmon, clutching it with arms and legs, while the powerful fish struggled and kicked, and Paddy bawled and roared at the top of his voice. Over rolled Paddy, and over rolled the fish, the water splashing and the gravel flying so that you could not tell which had the best of it. Paddy's mother, hearing the commotion, ran out of the cottage up above the mill.
"Och, murther!" she screamed. "Dinnis! Dinnis! where are ye, Dinnis? an' a fish atin' me child! Dinnis! Dinnis!"
Paddy's father heard her frantic screams, and came running up from the mill.
"D'ye see yer child et up be a dirthy fish?" she yelled.
"Begorra!" said the astonished Denis, as he seized a pitchfork, cleared the mill-race at a bound, ran along the dam, fell into the stream, scrambled out on the gravel bank, and reached the scene of the conflict.