I was saddened by the death of Ray Webb.He was one of anglings true characters,his eccentricity fine tuned by a life of some self neglect, exacerbated by the Irish sojourns he so loved. He was, above all, a real dirt under the fingernails angler, who simply loved to fish, no challenge was too great, or effort too much.
He loved the vastness of the Irish waters, and it was there I met him, year after year, not a close friend, but part of the fabric of the scene that was Ireland in the late sixties and seventies.
Lanesborough he helped to put on the map, long before it was fashionable, and it was
there I watched him cooking his meal one evening, on the wooden floor of his jerry built boat,'Tinca', until, inevitably, it caught fire...... His caravan went the same way, at least once, sometime later.
His tackle was rustic, his patience infinite.Weather was irrelevant, he simply fished, mostly alone, with a depth of understanding and feeling for the water that few anglers can ever hope to attain.Hw was the very antithesis of todays cultish
anglers. God bless him.