Today the weather was lovely and, having I a little time on my hands, I decided to pay my first visit of the year to the Río Guadalhorce to see if I could open my account with the gypsy barbel. The river was looking lovely and was running reasonably clear but after an overnight frost I figured things might be a little slow.
I walked a good stretch of the bank before I saw a fish. Unfortunately it had seen me too and drifted off to deeper water. There were a few fish around but they didn´t seem to have much time for me. You need thick skin for this business and I try not to take these things personally! A few turtles dropped into the water on the opposite bank, a task they accomplish do with remarkably little grace. Most things that live in water seem to be able to move into or through through this medium with some degree of elegance but this is not true of turtles. If you disturb them when they are sunning themselves on the bank they launch themselves into the river and invariably hit the water in a clumsy belly flop.
The first stretch of river produced nothing. I did show my nymph to a couple of fish but there were no takers and so I packed up and headed a little further upriver.
I was hoping to find a few barbel in a shallow run which has proven to be pretty reliable. Unfortunately they seemed to have abandoned the shallows but don´t appear to have wandered far. They were just downstream and I managed to catch a couple of lovely fish, around three pounds apiece. I did not see either fish but struck when the end of the fly line was pulled.
Interestingly, both fish were taken when the nymph was allowed to fish deep and without drag. These fish were just beautiful. Soon they were back swimming around in their old haunts and I was off to Villafranco for a celebratory pint.
These guys were asking where it would be shallow enough to cross the river. The truth is you can cross almost anywhere.
This is a long pool where you might normally expect to spot fish. Not today though! The fish were a little too deep.
In water only centimetres deep there were footprints of wading birds, maybe egrets.
Wild boar had made their way to the river recently.
My first fish of the year.
The fish could not be seen but were on the far side of this stretch.
The second fish
What a nice start to the New Year!
fishydreams 