I read a story one time about a fly fisherman in Africa who inadvertently hooked a hippopotamus. He had been boat fishing in a river swarming with catfish and tigerfish. Naturally, he presumed he had just hooked a massive fish and his fishing companions, fed up with his interminable battle, told him to get out of the boat and finish playing the fish from a mud island, so that they themselves could get back to their own fishing.
It was only when he gained some line that he saw the hippo emerge from the water and start charging towards him. So the guy does what any thinking angler would do: he drops his gear and legs it into some rushes. Hippos are notoriously bad tempered and dangerous things and, having had a fly stuck in its snout, this one was in a particularly foul mood and proceeded to jump up and down on the abandoned fishing tackle smashing the rod into a million pieces, although his reel, miraculously, survived undamaged. The reel manufacturer, it turns out, used this event to market their product being able to claim that their gear was proven to be hippopotamus-proof!
Having a run in with bad tempered mammals is just one of the hazards of fly fishing. I remember a story told to me by Michael Roche, a terrific yarn spinner I knew in New Zealand, about a fisherman chased into the river by a bull, and I myself was fully prepared to leap into the Guadalhorce river one time when a wild boar and her half grown youngsters trotted up to within 10 metres or so to drink from the river. Thankfully, they took no notice of me.
I have become acquainted over the last few years with a fisherman called Norman Smith who is a veteran angler and who has fished throughout Spain, along with his wife Maureen. Norman is excellent company. He has a fine beard and a terrific store of fishing tales. He makes me think of Ernest Hemmingway, another guy with a beard who knows how to tell a story. Norman and I have never fished together, although we are planning to put that right shortly, and our encounters have been over a few beers at the local watering hole in Villafranco del Guadalhorce.
Norman told me a tale one time which goes something like this……….
One time himself and Maureen were fishing some reservoir somewhere which could only be reached by walking through country where fighting bulls were on the loose. You know what these things are like. They have been bred over the years to be mean, bad-tempered, sons of bitches and, if you come across one you better get the hell out of there. Fast.
Anyway, it just so happened that Norman wanted to get to the reservoir one morning at such an early hour that all was in darkness. He was about halfway from his car, where he had spent the night, when he became aware of the sound of a heavy animal nearby. He froze. This is one of those nightmare moments when the adrenalin kicks in and the mind is forced to work through the options. He realised that, even if he ran and jumped into the reservoir, he could not outpace the creature and had a pretty good chance of being gored to death. So he remained perfectly still in the vain hope that he might not draw attention to himself. He knew that bulls have poor eyesight. But even this strategy was doomed as the dawn was breaking and it was only a matter of minutes before he would be seen. And things turned out that way. As the light increased Norman, frozen in terror, emerged from the darkness and at the same time, only yards away the brooding presence itself came into sharp relief…….. a horse.
I like to show a photo or two on this blog thing if I can lay my hands on something suitable. Below there are three pictures. One of them shows Norman himself fly fishing on the Guadalhorce river. Norman is a coarse fisherman and is relatively new to fly fishing but I hope that fly fishing will grow on him.
There is also a picture of a horse, also taken on the Guadalhorce, where they are often tethered.
Finally, there is a picture of a pony. This is not my pony but I am getting pretty fond of it. It belongs to Juan, a builder who is doing some work on our place. He texted me the other day to ask if he could put his pony on our land to graze for a while.
Why not?
Norman fly fishing on the Guadalhorce
A horse chilling on the bank of the river
Juan´s pony
fishydreams 