Soon the iron bridge over the Guadalhorce river in the town of Estación de Cártama will be 100 years old. They started building the thing in 1927 and packed up their tools 4 years later. It seems like a pretty substantial bridge for what is, for the most part, a very modest river but there are times when the rains come and the river rises and the bridge needs to be robust enough to take everything that nature can throw at it.

I took a walk over the bridge on Sunday afternoon and was reminded of how the fortunes of the river have varied so much in recent years. In the spring it was bone dry and yet at the beginning of November the river made national and even international news when it was so heavily in flood and the locals were filming cars and vans being carried by floodwaters to the sea. This, you may recall, coincided with the awful flooding that had devastating effects, particularly in Valencia, with tragic loss of life.

While these events will not be forgotten here, Sunday was too beautiful a day to dwell on such grim matters. The sun was out and runners and walkers were crossing the beautiful old pedestrianised iron bridge while on the neighbouring road bridge traffic passed towards and away from Estación de Cártama. The bridge is a local landmark and the grounds around the river are popular with picnickers and families whenever the weather is good. Spanish people are gregarious and sociable but they tend to like to hang out close together and so, even during busy spells, it is not difficult to rig up a fly rod and a few minutes walking will take you to fish that have not been disturbed.

Fishermen, as you know, suffer from a variety of psychological conditions which, thankfully, are not considered serious enough for them all to be permanently institutionalised. Freud would have a field day if he ended up with a gathering of us. There is one particular affliction, which may not be formally recognised in the catalogue of derangements recognised by psychoanalysts, but that applies to just about every fisherman that I know. It doesn´t have a formal name so I´m going to give it one: Bridge Syndrome.

Those who suffer from BS (an unfortunate acronym!) cannot pass over a bridge without thinking “what the hell river is this?” They can become a danger to themselves and others by taking their eyes off the road if they are at the wheel and, if it is a trout river involved, they are particularly prone to parking up nearby and walking back to the bridge to examine the river, upstream and downstream for any signs of rising fish.

So why did I really take a trip to the Bridge at Estación de Cártama?

No prizes for guessing.

The iron bridge at Estación de Cártama
The view of the Guadalhorce from the bridge. In the past it has been possible to see gypsy barbel and carp feeding in the margins of the river but on Sunday they were nowhere to be seen. The river has yet to revert to form after very dry weather and heavy flooding events that have been destabilising over the last couple of years.