fishydreams

An odd thing happened this afternoon. I spent a couple of hours on the Río Grande seeing if I could catch a barbel and did catch one in the end in a rather unexpected way.

There is a deepish pool which is pretty well known and, I suspect, the most heavily fished section of the river. A friend of mine had a monumental catch there one time when the river was swollen following heavy rain and I have found it to deliver a fish or two on most visits. Today I saw a couple of fish from a pretty elevated position and rather optimistically pitched a nymph at them although they were little more than blurs moving a couple of feet down. When I lifted I connected with one of these fish but it was off a couple of seconds later. Just as I was pulling in the slack I realised I had a fish on. It was the last thing I was expecting and the surprises didn´t stop there. When I finally brought the fish to the surface I realised that I had not hooked the fish at all but a swim feeder to which the fish was attached by a short length of line. A hook, attached to the swim feeder, was lodged in the fish´s gill cover.

Soon enough I had the fish relieved of all encumbrances and he swam away unharmed and I was very pleased to have had a chance to provide this service. Apart from this fish I caught nothing at all.

Once again there were dramatic skies on the way home. I did not stop to photograph them as I have done in the past but was reminded of a couple of lovely photographs taken by my friend Norman Smith and I have attached one of the below.

Here is the fish and, on the right, the swim feeder to which it was attached by a short length of line.

One of Norman´s skies.