August 15-16, 2002. It was in the long, green twilight of an August Irish evening that I caught my first Atlantic salmon. High from the recent rains, a raging torrent was roaring, tea-colored, over the falls of the Owenriff. Salmon and trout were jumping high into the rushing foam as they moved upstream, pulled by the inexorable urge to spawn. We rigged up our 5-weight travel rods with Woolly Buggers and split shot to make them sink. I think Joyce hooked up first, but it wasn't until she had broken off 3 fish that we realized we needed to cut off the light tips of our tapered trout leaders, and she learned how to palm the reel to slow their strong runs.

Finally I landed a beautiful, silvery torpedo of about 20 inches and quickly released it back into the river. My next one was a darker fish, with a hooked jaw that indicated it was a male, but about the same size. Soon the action slowed, and since it was almost dark, I followed the advice of the locals and put on a worm to see what it might tempt from the river. Turned out to be a nice brown trout, about 15 inches long. The river at the base of the falls was packed full of migrating fish—you could feel them with your line as you pulled it through the hole. Occasionally they jumped high from the base of the falls, sometimes striking an exposed rock with a wet smack.

Out of nowhere, a man materialized from the gloom behind us. In a not-unpleasant manner, he inquired about the fishing, and we told him we had caught a few and released them all. After we had exchanged pleasantries, he asked to see our salmon permits. We had none...in fact, we had been told by the fellows at the hardware store that we didn't need a license if we were fishing for trout. Turned out he was the local bailiff, and we were busted. He was nice enough about it, and we stopped fishing until the morning, when we could go into town and buy our permits.

Next morning, the river level had gone down a bit, and the fish were off the bite. The sun was out, the river was sparkling like magic, and we had the pleasant company of a local lad who offered us his worms to use for bait, and kept his big net at the ready in case we hooked into the big one. Wasn't long before that's exactly what happened.

Joyce let out a cry as her Bugger found the hooked jaws of a feisty buck. Our friend David jumped into position with his net, but it took a while before the fish was ready to give in. Joyce carefully worked the fish downstream toward the gravel bar at the tailout, where I had landed my fish the evening before. The big fish ran up and down the hole and across to the far side, and jumped into the air, trying to shake then fly. When he almost ran downstream, where he would have surely been lost, I suggested that she give him line and allow him to go deep—a tactic that worked, and he ran back up into the deeper water. Finally, she had him up to shore, and it was almost over when her little trout rod snapped right near the base. Good thing the fish was spent, and I could jump in the river and get him in by hand.

He was a 30" buck that would have weighed about 6 pounds. We decided to keep this one fish, as a gift to our gracious hosts who had been so kind to us during our stay. After taking photos, we wanted to keep fishing, and to our amazement, David offered to run home and grab a fly rod for us to us, since one of ours was now broken. he was ready to run a mile away and back, for Americans he didn't know from Adam. I insisted that I drive him, and we ended up using his extra rod the rest of the morning. (To its credit, LL Bean later replaced our broken rod for free with no questions asked.)

We left Oughterard with a warm glow inside us, a glow that came more from the open generosity of her people than from the excellent fishing we experienced during our stay. To David, Kathleen, John, and the friendly bailiff, we only want to say this: thank you, and we'll be back!