Delphi, A Diverse Mix of Friends and World Class Fly Fishing

The Delphi Lodge & Fishery





The Dining Room

So another morning began with a delicious Irish breakfast. Ham, sausage, biscuits, cereal, porridge, and eggs (if you eat them). Then a walk around the grounds on what was turning out to be a beautful day. We met a couple of interesting characters right away outside the house. The first was a man with his knickers riding high and one of the goofiest looking dogs I ever seen (looked like a big ball of fur - he told us he was a Penkingnese). He was telling us that this dog (called Precious) just won 4th place in some dog show. I couldn't understand everything he said as he had a very thick English accent, but he then chuckled as he said "but my grandkids don't like him, because he is always biting there legs." I will never understand the faciation with people who have dogs who like to bite other people. He had another dog there that was a springer spanell. Almost at the same time he was talking with our fly fishing teacher how difficult it was to train Springer spaniels (although dog he and his wife brought with them to the lodge). David (our instructor said "Labs are are born half-trained and Spaniels die half-trained". After this, the older man blew a whistle around his necked, raised his hand his Spaniel stopped in his tracks and would not move. Keep in mind this was from about...50 feet. I thought that was quite impressive. He then told us the dog would not move until he blew the whisle again, or he walked to the dog and touched it. As we met David for a fishing lesson at 10:00 a.m., there were a few prep things to be done in the fishing room which was located off the side of the house. As we were getting our gear together, another interesting chap walked in - Mills (an 80 year old man with quite an active mind). We could not understand a word he said, but David felt the need to apologize for whatever it was he did say. Mills still runs around trying to catch the ladies and maybe he said something to that effect when he saw Angie. Anyway old man Mills is also quite a famous fisherman as we learned a few minutes later as David was teaching us about the different fly times that Mills has some of these flies named after him.

Fly fishing lesson with David







Following our lesson and lunch, we head about 9 km to our time to put our fishing lesson into practice at Peter's house. Peter has the best real estate we have ever seen and we spent the afternoon on the lake practicing fly fishing. Matthew caught all three of the fish (trout). Turns out since it was such a gorgeous day, it's not a good day for fishing for trout and salmon. The weather should actually be rainy and overcast.

Fly fishing practice with our gillie, Peter






After fishing we rested and then had another wonderful dinner of a full lobster and had another great evening of wonderful discussion with new friends. Matthew especially connected with several of the guys as they talked sports and Irish history and computers. He even played his first game of snooker (which is a type of billiards game). He was teamed up with the Scottish man nament Lament and played two Irish guys Padraigh (pronounced Poric) and Jerry. Matthew and Lament won the game with Matthew scoring almost all the points himself. The men were definitely impressed by this and then we all retreated back to the lounge. We talked lots more, listed to Lament play beautiful music on the piano (short clip included) and enjoyed reflecting our fishing adventure into the wee hours.

The Hangout room



Lament playing piano (video is very dark)