The weather people said that on Sunday the rain would appear. That´s good news. The reservoirs are low for this time of the year and need some winter rain now to top them up before the long summer arrives. So Saturday seemed like a good time to take a look at the river before the change in weather shakes things up. If the rains are sustained and heavy it can knock the river out of kilter for a while.
There is a very nice stretch of water that my friend Norman Smith introduced me to and I thought it might be nice to take a look at it again. The last time I was there it seemed that it had been recently polluted and I was told a goat herder had seen a lot of dead fish during the week between my visits. I was curious to see if things had improved.
I tied up a couple of little nymphs before heading out. They are very similar to the ones I have been using recently but I increased the size of the gold bead and tied in heavier wire to help them fish a little deeper.
The odd barbel seems to be happy to take a nymph which is run through promising water and I drifted my new heavyweight pink nymphs through the water at the head of a long pool and took a couple of lovely strong fish.
Back at the car, as I was getting out of my chest waders, a local man walked past. I had seen him earlier working in the neighbouring orange groves and his jack russel had growled at me until he told it to back off.
Anyway, we got to talking and he told me that there were once a large number of big eels, as thick as your arm, right up against the weir. He said he had not seen any in recent times and it occurred to me that I had never seen eels in the river. He said that they were plentiful until 1995 when the river dried up.
That was interesting. I must remember to talk to Norman about this when we next meet up.
These were tied a little heavier than usual.
This fish was unhooked in the water.
Just before release
The second fish
Both fish were taken where the current slackened here.
fishydreams 