Reinosa is the closest town to the source of the Ebro river and it is a short distance upstream of one of the largest reservoirs that the river passes through on journey eastwards to the Mediterranean. Right in the centre of the town you can see Ebro trout and I have spent quite a lot of time doing just that.
Through much of the centre of the town river is bordered by a wall and its flow is punctuated by a series of small weirs that serve to create turbulent pools where the fish can find greater depth and cover. These weirs appear to be artificial structures and the fish seem to have no trouble passing over them to access the river immediately upstream.
When Catriona and I were there at for a few days last week I could not resist staring into the pools to see if the trout were still around but it was Catriona who was the first to spot them. Good fish they were too. To my surprise they were not seeking out the cover of the deeper “pools” but were lying very visibly in the quickening water that was immediately upstream of a weir.
I was also surprised to see that these were not the expected native brown trout but were rainbow trout and it became clear that the rainbows had been gathering in this part of the river to spawn as the brown trout had already done back in December. Rainbows, of course, are not native to Europe and these fish must have been stocked into the river or reservoirs at some point and it seems that they are now reproducing successfully here, which is unusual and interesting. These were big fish and had migrated upstream from reservoir. Having spawning on their minds they were much less susceptible to their normal instincts towards caution and were holding in water that they would normally avoid, at least during the middle of the day.
It would seem that the brown trout of the upper Ebro are of three separate genetic strains, which correspond to the separate drainages. There are the “native” trout from the Ebro drainage and a strain from rivers flowing into the Atlantic in the Cantabrian sea off the North coast of Spain and another Atlantic strain from the catchment that drains into Duero river that goes on to meets the sea in Portugal. The two “Atlantic” strains are the result of stocking efforts many years ago.
I find these fish endlessly fascinating to look at and I am looking forward to Easter when we hope to return to Reinosa. I will bring my fly rod and, if I am lucky enough, I hope to catch (and release) some of these beautiful trout.
fishydreams 