You can do worse than spend a day afloat with a few fellow fishing nuts. I have done this many times on the big limestone loughs in Ireland with my brother Sean and our friend Mark McCann. When the fishing has been slow, as it often is, we have enjoyed the kind of verbal exchanges that only a bunch of inveterate bullshitters can provide. Continue reading
Category: Fish and fishing
Every now and then the fish on my local river are prepared to cut you some slack. Maybe they feel a little collective guilt for the times in the past when they have spurned all your offerings and sent you home scratching your head. Luckily for me yesterday was one of those days. Continue reading
On the first day of October I was fortunate enough to spend a few hours fishing the upper Guadalquivir with Steven Lawler and Keith Baxter under the expert tutelage of Antonio Lloreda. The fish here will rise to dries but the most consistent way to catch them, particularly in the earlier part of the day, is on little nymphs and it was a real eye opener to see how effective this approach can be. Continue reading
The other day an email arrived from my brother Sean. He was not full of news but a means of sharing with myself and our old fishing buddy Mark McCann, a photograph of a particularly beautiful trout caught on Lough Sheelin. Continue reading
I remember reading some time about scientific research had shown that an absolutely perfectly symmetrical face appears odd and unattractive and that punters shown “doctored” images producing this effect did not find them appealing. Continue reading
My son Leo has been at home for the summer but he is soon off to London for a work placement with PWC as part of his degree course at York. Despite having been here for several weeks we never managed to organize a fishing trip. This evening we put this right. Continue reading
Two good things happened today. The first is that the broken rod that I sent off to Orvis came back. As it happens it is not just the old rod fixed up but a shiny new rod of the same vintage: Clearwater 10 foot, 4 piece for a 4 weight line. Orvis say that if they can´t repair your rod they will replace it with a similar model and they provide their rods with a 20 year guarantee.
I have to say I was very impressed with Orvis. I had bought the original rod about 3 or 4 years ago but the “thick end” behind the reel seat came apart exposing the blank. This rod was originally purchased from the US and I never filled out all the paperwork for the warranty. Nevertheless the Orvis repair people in the UK didn´t kick up a stink and charged only the usual 20 pound handling fee. They were courteous and efficient and I am much obliged to them.
The discovery of a bottle of beer was the second good thing that happened. One of the benefits of never tidying out a car is that there´s a pretty good chance that stuff that was in it once will still be there – somewhere. Sometimes too you can make the odd serendipitous discovery as I did today when I came across a litre bottle of Alhambra lager. This stowaway was obviously the legacy of a recent trip to the supermarket and it succeeded in concealing itself among the assorted debris while the rest of the shopping was being carted off to the kitchen. Today´s discovery could not have happened at a better time. At home I am all out of beer.
The Alhambra is now cooling down in the fridge. This evening, when the heat of the day is easing, I will remove it and pour myself a nice cold pint and propose a toast to the Orvis fishing tackle company.
Cheers.
I took a picture of myself holding the new fly rod. The rod looks fine, the reel looks dirty (it is) and I look like a gorilla!
Orvis cleverly put their name on the reel seat and so guys like me give them quite a lot of free advertising!
Just a matter of time!
fishydreams 