8/14/2019 Guides Diary June

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General Fly Coarse Sea Tackle

Hello Jim, this is Eric calling from Belgium. We are coming to sh with youon Monday afternoon in Wexford, myself and Michele, can you tell me how far it is

from Dublin airport? This took me by surprise somewhat. The

pleasantry almost led me to believe that Ericwas a long lost friend that I had forgottenabout, and his con dence convinced me thatsomehow I had made myself available to

sh with him and Michele (wife/girlfriend,male friend?) on Monday and then forgottenabout the arrangements.

He continued. How shall we contactyou when we arrive in Wexford to meetand sh? Normally I dont take calls whenIm up to my chest in estuarine water withcustomers. Too many fumbled and dropped

mobiles have convinced me to leave themin the car. And the ringing, it bothers peopletoo. Rather than continue the conversationin a confused manner I adopted a tone of complete calm and re-assurance as much

as if Eric and I had been nalising his Irish bass shing plans for the last six months.By the way, this was Saturday eveningon the last good tide of this cycle, so twomysterious Belgians arriving on Mondaywas going to prove particularly testing. Itold Eric I would ring him back. I liked himimmediately.

When I rang him back I determined thatthey had already booked their ights, would

be arriving in Dublin on Monday lunchtimeand wanted to spend a week y shingfor bass in Wexford with myself, whilststaying in my house. The momentum wasrelentless. Somewhere over the previousfew months they had neglected to tell meof these important details but re-assuredme that they were competent y shers

and were looking forward to their rst tripto Ireland, there would be no problems! Iadvised them that we were heading into aneap cycle and shing would deteriorateuntil possibly the last day of the week, this

was met with nonchalance, high spirits andsomething about wanting the experience.They would hire their own car and drivefrom the airport to Wexford easy streetfor me!

I expected them about four oclock onMonday and asked Eric to ring me when hearrived in Wexford so I could meet him and

bring him and the mysterious Michele to thecentre.

Four oclock on Monday afternoon cameand went, and at closer to six I nally gotthe call from Eric. He seemed calm and alittle tired after his journey and said he wasin the middle of Wexford outside a weddingshop called Berrys. Ive lived in Wexfordtown for a long time and wedding shopswere never high on my radar, so one called

Berrys was proving elusive to me. I askedhim to describe where he was and thingsstarted to become dif cult with the Flemishaccent. I decided to ask my wife Eileen toring Eric, to try to determine where he was,

Guides Diary After an inauspicious start,Jim Hendrick fnds a chancecustomer becomes anestablished client.

8/14/2019 Guides Diary June

2/231Irish Angler

she speaks uent French. She rang me back shortly. Eric was in Westport. I realisedwhy I had never heard of Berrys.

I think there used to be a road sign just before the old toll on the M50 heading south It read Westport blah de blah. It had takenEric six hours to get to Westport and as far away from Wexford as he probably could.He called me back and said they woulddrive to Wexford the next day and would

probably arrive mid-afternoon. A high- pressure system had been building over thecountry since Saturday the sea was mirror like, and, as Bertie would say, the neap tideswere getting neaper and I still hadnt metEric.

They both arrived on Tuesday evening,a little tired and came into the house to

chat, smoke and rest a bit. Michele, Inally determined, was male, the strongsilent type who spoke English very well

but preferred to watch myself and Eric battle things out over long periods of

hopeless misunderstandings. Only whenwe had exhausted every avenue includingdrawings might Michele contribute to theconversation. I explained to them howdif cult things would be and suggested wetrout sh on Wednesday and Thursday untilsome of the spring tide took at least a littlegrip on the sh. I showed them to the houseand said we would sh in the morning at theriver all day after we had got our licences.

About an hour later Eric called to thedoor and told me he had left his Simms G4

jacket in the B&B in Westport. I said dontworry, give me the name of the B&B and Iwould ring them to ask to send the jacket.Eric didnt know the name of the B&B. Hesaid he would ask Michele. Both of themreturned about 10 minutes later, neither of

them knew the name of the B&B. Haveyou got a card? I wondered. No. Any ideaof where the place was? No. Was it inWestport? No! Mmmmmmmmmmmmh!We never found the jacket.

We caught a pile of trout on the river without any mishap. It was Friday the lastday of the week and we were going bass

shing before the guys quit the country for Belgium.

The sky was blue, the water was clear and the sh were silver. Erics blood wasred! We were shing over the rising sunand as the tide pushed a few sh througha narrow channel we covered them with

big blue and white Deceivers. Eric hit anice sh of about 3kg, fought and landedhim successfully. We took some nice

photographs, returned the sh, shook handsand sighed contemplatively. He shouted atMichele Ouiii put his st in the air shook it, and then slipped off a rock, rippinghis expensive G4 waders, and his leg. Out

came the First Aid. Eric smiled, Michelestarted to laugh, and we fell around for about ve minutes and then went home. Ericand Michele have been back to WEXFORDthree times since 2004.

Michele, I fnally

determined, was

male