Archive for June, 2024


Bambi and other horses

Filed under: Natural history, Other bits and bobs — 5 Comments
June 30, 2024

I spent last week with a group of school kids and a few colleagues in Doñana which, if you are not familiar with it, is an important National Park in Huelva Province on Spain´s southern Atlantic coast. Doñana is particularly famous for the population of Iberian Lynx which thrive there and a breeding centre located here has been instrumental in bringing these endangered felines back from the brink of extinction.

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Swimming at Pippa´s rock

Filed under: Fish and fishing, Fishing reports, Folks I know, Natural history, Other bits and bobs — Leave a comment
June 24, 2024

A couple of weeks ago I had a day off and my wife Catriona was away for her work. So it occurred to me that I could do a lot worse than head off fishing in the Conde del Guadalhorce reservoir at El Chorro and have a crack at the carp that occasionally venture into the shallow margins.

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Tying under the influence

Filed under: Published fishing writing — Leave a comment
June 11, 2024

Mark Bowler, the editor of Fly Fishing and Fly Tying, has published a good few articles that I penned over the years. These are located in the “Last Cast” feature at the end of the magazine and they tend to be a little quirky and whimsical in nature. (I don´t consider myself in any way enough of an expert to offer anything else!) He asks that I refrain from posting the articles he publishes here on the blog until a few months after they are printed in the magazine for copyright reasons and I am happy to comply. While rummaging on my computer, I spotted three articles that whose respective statutes of limitations have expired and so I thought I might post one of them now and the others will follow soon enough. These are the versions I sent to the magazine and they may have been subjected to further editing.

Here goes the first which was published in October 2022. I hope you enjoy it!

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A carp from the margin

Filed under: Fish and fishing, Fishing reports, Natural history, Other bits and bobs — 2 Comments
June 3, 2024

Yesterday morning I took my little trio of newly-tied carp flies to the reservoir at El Chorro to see whether I might come across a carp to tell me whether or not they were up to scratch. As mentioned previously, the carp here may or may not put in an appearance. They´re kind of moody.

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It takes two to tango

Filed under: Fish and fishing, Flies and fly tying, Other bits and bobs — 3 Comments
June 1, 2024

I just went and tied up three ridiculous flies and have hatched a plan to catch a carp on one tomorrow morning before the rest of the household have stirred from their slumbers. I have a poor record in the reservoir I will visit which is only partly down to my own ineptitude. The carp themselves are not blameless in this unfortunate state of affairs since they truth is that they cannot be relied on to show up and, without them putting in an appearance, all will come to nothing.

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