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.