Harry Abbott and I organised a rendezvous at the river the other day. It took us a little while to meet up. We both arrived at our chosen spot on the river at different times and Harry wandered off upstream and I ventured downstream!
Eventually, though Harry made his way down to join me. Despite seeing a figure walk up to me on the river bank I did not know who the hell he was until he spoke to me. This is because he was wearing some strange ninja head dress thing which concealed most of his face. He tells me that this kind of stuff makes it easier to creep up on spooky fish. I will just have to take his word for it. I will stick to my conventional fishing attire!
Harry certainly managed to sneak up on some nice fish, whether this is due to his unconventional costume or not remains uncertain. We both managed to catch and release a few fish but the best of the lot fell to “the ninja” who estimated it to be about four pounds.
This fish was taken in bright conditions in the middle of the afternoon on a shallow glide. It took a little foam ant dry fly and immediately headed upstream on a searing run into a long pool before eventually being beached. It was interesting to see that the barbel were happy to take dries. My own fish were all caught on little nymphs.
It was great to have a chance to meet up with Harry again. We were too busy chasing fish to catch up on news initially but made up for this in the bar in Villafranco on the way home. We even decided to trade a couple of watercolour paintings for a float tube. We are both above dirtying our hands with money!
Harry has managed an outing or two since the weekend we fished together and has sent some pictures of some of his barbel. Below I have included a picture of Harry “Ninja” Abbott and some of the fish he has taken recently.
Ninja
The big one
Me sneaking around. Once the valley falls into shade it is a little more difficult to spot fish.
Here´s another barbel
And another…
And another!
fishydreams 