Thinking about it now, it seems very strange that it took me so long to discover the little stretch of river I fished yesterday. The river itself, the Río Turón, is not very far from home and apparently it has always been there! I guess the truth is, whenever I had been in that part of the world, I have been tempted into fishing the margins of the Conde del Guadalhorce reservoir and it is into reservoir that the Turón flows, ending its 40 kilometer journey from its source in the Sierra de Las Nieves.
I had little idea what the river would be like. Rivers in this part of the world are prone to drying out and can be hit pretty hard in times of drought. I wondered, in particular, about how it might have fared during the drought of 2023 from which my local river, the Guadalhorce, is only now beginning to recover.
Yesterday´s little stretch of the Turón was under the A357 motorway and I parked in the shade directly under the bridge. I had little idea what to expect but the river seemed to be in good health and was teeming with small, shoaling bleak. I scoped the river for a few minutes without spotting anything more promising until a silhouette briefly emerged from the water close to the opposite bank: a carp!
After fooling around and catching a few bleak on tiny dry flies, I thought it was time to get serious and I changed my kit so that it would be strong enough for carp if I were lucky enough to get a shot at them.
The carp, when I eventually located them, proved to be not in a very serious frame of mind. For the most part, they were lazing about at the surface under the shade of overhanging oleander branches. These are the kinds of fish that can drive you to drink but, if you are patient, one or two might become sufficiently animated to break ranks and take a leisurely cruise around and offer a much better chance of taking a fly. But even those that struck out on their own did not take me particularly seriously. One or two seemed to register my slow sinking nymph and drop down in the water to follow it but it was very difficult to know if they had taken it or not and very time I tightened to the nymph it came back my way with no resistance.
In the end I did find a slowly swimming fish in relatively shallow water and managed to persuade him to accept a rather nondescript dark nymph. In the mid afternoon sunlight as I was releasing it, it proved to be a very handsome fish and I felt very fortunate to have had a brief encounter with such a lovely fish in such a lovely place.
It may have taken me many years to find this little spot but I suspect it will not be very long before I am back there again.
The better fish were just lying at the surface in the shade of the oleander and they were not really in a cooperative mood!
Lovely fish, and stunning countryside.