You may have come across a couple of posts here about the town of Reinosa, through which the Río Ebro flows. This town, in the northern province of Cantabria, has become the focus of attention for Catriona and me because we have established a little base here where we can come to stay. After a few short visits we are beginning to get a feel for the place and the countryside surrounding it. It is a good bit cooler up here than back home in Málaga and it will make a fine place to retreat to when the heat of the Andalucían summer really begins to kick in.

Of course for me personally, you will not be surprised to learn, one big draw is the trout fishing and, while I have yet to wet a line, I have been using the last couple of days to explore the river Ebro both upstream and downstream of the town and have developed at least a cursory familiarity of the stretch leading from the river´s “official” source at Fontibre and the point that it flows into the “Embalse del Ebro” which is one of the many large reservoirs along its long course. The town itself lies roughly halfway between these places as the river flows predominantly eastwards.

Today´s amble took me to a little place called Villafría which is on the edge of the reservoir and from which I think I should be able to scramble across a few fields with my fly rod on a future visit. The road to Villafría runs through rich grazing countryside and all around were the low sounds of bells around the necks of fat Cantabrian cattle. The countryside is very pretty here and the sounds and smells took me back in my mind to the countryside in Ireland from which it is not dissimilar. In a minute of recording I picked up the songs of seven songbirds and a kestrel and saw a white stork searching out food among wading birds lining the reservoir.

I don´t suppose it took more than an hour to get to Villafría from our apartment in the town but, in the process, I had to cross no fewer than three rivers. First was the Ebro itself in which we had seen rainbow trout spawning only seven or so weeks ago. And then came the two tributary rivers that join the Ebro just below the town. The first and larger of these is the Río Híjar and then there was the Izarilla. All the rivers are close together and will merge a very short distance downstream, the Híjar and Izarilla losing their individual identities as they are subsumed into the growing Ebro.

This is a horse. It doesn´t have any particular relevance to anything but it´s a nice-looking horse so I thought I would show you!

This is not a horse. It is the view of the Embalse del Ebro from Villafría
This is not a horse either. It is the view of the Ebro as it makes its way into the Embalse. In the distance on the left of the picture is Reinosa, the start of the journey.
Here is the Embalse a little further along. There has been a lot of rain and snow recently and the level is probably relatively high. It certainly looks pretty though.
The weather is beautiful but the rivers are running cold. They are fed by some snow melt from the mountains in the distance. A fisherman in the town told me that the fish are a little lethargic and are not likely to to be rising to surface flies for another month or so. I met him as he was tackling up and he was selecting from a box of weighted nymphs.
It is beautiful country here
What did you expect?