It looks like the weatherman was right. Outside the heavens have opened. The French have an expression for weather like this:
“Il pleut comme une vache qui pisse”
It was because this weather was due that I was particularly keen to get to the river on Saturday before the rains bring the water up and colour the river.
In winter time the fish are a little harder to spot. The sun does not rise as high in the sky and to see fish it may be necessary to approach them more closely than they are happy to tolerate.
The barbel were holding in the fast water at the head of pools and of the three fish I hooked two were unseen and their interest was registered by a tremor of the little foam indicator. I landed two of the barbel and the third threw the hook after chasing off downstream for 15 yards or so. The fish were lovely, particularly the first, and fought with characteristic energy.
Unfortunately I discovered my camera had no charge when I tried to photograph the first fish and so I have no pictures to show. “No pasa nada,” as they say around here.
On the way home, while driving over a rough track before joining the dual carriageway I came a cross a hare. This is the first good sighting of a hare I have had in Spain. It ran onto the road in front of the car and bounded along for some time before thinking better of trying to outrun me and dipping beneath a gap in the roadside fence and disappearing.
The Granada Hare or Iberian Hare is the found here on the Iberian Peninsula and the animal I saw is likely to belong to a sub species, Lepus granatensis granatensis, which is the most common in Andalucia.
Here is a lovely picture of an Iberian Hare which I obtained from the following site:
fishydreams 