I don´t know if a watercolour painting is ever really finished or whether you just reach a point at which continuing with it might do more harm than good. The other day I showed Catriona the picture of the trout I had been painting and she said that it looked fine to her and that maybe I ought to leave it alone.
She is probably right. Making a watercolour painting is like building a house of cards. If you go for an extra level it might all crash down. Continue reading
Every now and then you feel as though you are invited by nature to observe an event or a behaviour which normally goes unobserved and it invariably comes as an unexpected treat. This happened to me on the river about three weeks ago when the gypsy barbel were so preoccupied with feeding in broad daylight that, when silently approached, I was permitted to see them from very close. I made a film of them but for reasons I do not fully understand, I am unable to load it up on to the blog. Continue reading
Remember in “A River Runs Through It” when Brad Pitt hooks that big trout? It´s a long time since I saw the film but I do remember this sequence vividly. Pitt plays the character Paul MacLean and, in the scene in question, he manages to hook this leviathan trout in a river in Montana. In the ensuing battle he ends up being washed down river attached to the mighty fish. At times you can only see his hat and his elevated rod connecting him to the rainbow as he bobs and weaves among boulders as the rapids carry him downstream. Continue reading
Every now and then I get a real hankering to get out and catch a carp. There are a few in my local river and, in the warmer months, I catch them pretty regularly. So far this year I have seen very few and caught none. Continue reading
Brian Jones keeps a fishing diary and he was kind enough to show me what he had written about our fishing last Saturday. I thought it was very interesting, detailed and well-written and so I twisted his arm and asked him if I could reproduce it here. Being the gentleman that he is he gave me the thumbs up and so, without further ado, here it is: Continue reading
fishydreams 