Ice-fishing once popular on Mayo lake

By Tom Gillespie

SIXTY-one years ago this month (January 1963), ice-fishing for pike on Lough Carra was all the craze.

Residents in the area of the lake carried on an ancient sport of their own, that of ‘fishing’ on the ice-covered lake. A sport believed to be hundreds of years old, it had been kept alive by the succeeding generations up to the present day (1963).

Over two weeks (early January 1963), the heavy frost was greeted with joy as large crowds of people, young and old, were to be seen taking part in this unusual sport which required, if anything, much more skill that the orthodox method of fishing.

The reason why the sport was more peculiar to Lough Carra than other lakes was the fact that the lake has a clear marl bottom.

Equipped with spears, forks and other lethal weapons, they walked around on the ice (like those in the picture) on a selected bay, and when they spotted a pike they chased him around the lake, striking the ice every time the pike rested. This went on for some time until the fish eventually became exhausted or stunned.

The ice was then broken over him and, with expert skill, the fish was ‘landed’ with the spear or other such weapon.

During the week - January 12 to 19 - the Lough Cara pike fishing festival was at its height and in the still, frosty air, the strange sounds of tapping on ice could be heard for miles around. Large numbers of pike were killed and one of the monsters of the deep was captured by Mr. Michael Golden, Moorehall, who ‘landed’ a beautiful specimen pike weighing 30 lbs.

Local people were wondering if it was a record for ice fishing as according to stories of old, the biggest pike ever landed in history was captured a Moorehall man, who landed a pike so big that with the aid of neighbours, he had to get a horse cart to bring its home and it was the length of the kitchen table with a girth of a 40-gallon barrel.