fishydreams

El Chorro is a group of three reservoirs which help to provide water to the City of Málaga and surrounding towns and, in addition, much of the irrigation water to the olive groves and citrus farms of the Guadalhorce river valley. All of the reservoirs are man-made but they have been around so long now that there must be few who can remember the mountain valleys which are now deep under water, and it is difficult to imagine that the steep sides of the reservoirs would, long ago, have been the faces of sheer cliffs.

I took the float tube there yesterday evening to see if I could fool a few black bass with a little pink popper. As usual, there were a few carp at the surface. They could be easily approached but didn´t want to have anything to with any fly I showed them. That is pretty much par for the course here. They routinely refuse everything I throw at them, sometimes even fleeing at the sight of my fly. I have learned to be philosophical about being snubbed in this way!

It is interesting to consider what these carp are up to out in the middle of the reservoir. The floor is far below, out of sight. They do not appear to be actively feeding, or, if they are, they are feeding on something very small trapped perhaps, in the surface film.

The bass proved a little more co-operative. They decided to feed for about an hour and a half before it started getting dark. Because the reservoir is so deep, the bottom cannot be seen from more than a few feet of the shoreline in most places. The standard approach is to fish pretty close to the shore and often to cast right up against it.

In the end I caught a few fish, mostly in a small inlet, and managed to see a fine sunset.

It´s easy to imagine a bass lurking around the branches.

The first bass of the evening.

The black bass is an introduced species from North America. This was my best of the evening but they grow much bigger than this!