Doctor David Whitren - what an Angler!

Doc Farrell · 03-07-2009 4:22pm #1

I got a lesson from a gentleman by the name of Dave Whitren and I want to write about it because the day on the Boyne fishery was for me as close to a religious epiphany as I've experienced in many years. All from standing in a stream waving a stick, to quote John Gierach.

(great fishing writer and great writer and a 'Trout Bum')

David Whitren is 87 this month. We started the lesson at 2pm. He had been there a few hours. I took a break at 4pm. David went on to give more lessons. He allowed me to fish his fishery until it got dark for no extra charge. At 10.30 he was still there. He scampered across an iron girder no wider than a foot across explaining to me how the 700 year old salmon traps built by the monks had once worked. It was all to do with water pressure. I followed him onto the stoneworks. I was terrified.

Dr. Whitren is Canadian by birth. He moved to South England when he was 16. By the time he was 17 he was in the RAF. He flew Spitfires in the 2nd World War. He survived the Battle Of Britain, unlike over 70% of his fellow pilots. In the fifties he drove Aston Martins in formula one races.

He still organises fly fishing tours to Vancouver (July), Argentina in March, Iceland in September and the Kola Penninsula. That is in the Russian Artic, David has been going there since it was the USSR. I didn't ask how or why he was there when it was militarised but I intend to find out! Did I mention that he is 86/87.

None of the facts above were told to me by Dr. Whitren. A couple of surgeons who were getting lessons from him told me.

His fishery is called Ballinacrab and is located along the stretch of the Boyne which you can see if you are standing at the entrance to Newgrange. There is a large Neolithic burial chamber, half the size of Newgrange, in the flood field on his fishery. It is not named on the OSI maps but it is marked. This burial chamber has not been, as far as i know, investigated. It is magnificent. There are a number of other neolithic secrets on the fishery that I don't think I'm supposed to mention.

I am writing all of this because here is a man in great health, with perfect manners who has lived and continues to enjoy a life that seems lifted from an Ian Fleming novel. The 2 hour lesson cost me 60 euro and was brilliant. The rest of day's fishing was free. David will be back in the country at the end of July and I'm hoping to get some more lessons then, that's if he's not in his fishing school in Berkshire or at his spot on the Corrib. I kid you not.

I want to thank Phil in Baumanns in Stillorgan for giving me his number and if you want to try to get an hour of his time you can pm me and i'll send it to you.

As for the religious epiphany, well, it's simply this, I'm actually starting to properly flyfish. I suspect that this will be an addiction that I won't want to lose.