If the world were a simple place you would get a fishing license by going somewhere where these things are sold and saying “can I have a fishing license please?” And then having handed over the necessary fees you might expect to be able to walk out with the thing in your hand.
But things are not so simple here. This is Spain and, of course, Spain has elevated bureaucracy into an art form. Continue reading
I spent the morning digging out a septic tank and the early afternoon in a tussle with Spanish bureaucracy and so the few hours on the river were appreciated more and usual. There were a few barbel around but they they can sometimes be pretty jittery and today they were easily spooked. In the end I had to work quite hard for the three I eventually managed to bank. Continue reading
There is a lot to be said for goats. They wander round in flocks ringing their little bells. I bump into them on the river all the time and yesterday after I was done fishing I followed a herd back to the car where we parted company. I don´t know how many there were and, frankly, I had better things to do than count the damn things. This is not an easy job anyway. They move around a lot and so you could end up counting the same goat twice or maybe miss one completely. This is a job best left to specialists, in my opinion, or to insomniacs who find the counting of ruminants helpful in ameliorating the stresses caused by sleeplessness. Continue reading
I heard from Dave Felce a little earlier today and he told me about a fine pike he caught. His words describe the circumstances better than mine and he was kind enough to allow me to reproduce his account below, together with a photo of the fish and its captor…… Continue reading
I had no time to go fishing yesterday but went anyway. I figured I needed to be home within an hour and that the journey to the river would take 10 minutes, then another 5 minutes to tackle up, and then another 5 to reach a broad shallow where you can find the odd carp. And of course the return leg would take just as long. All of this mental arithmetic was carried out on my way to the river and the upshot of it all was that I would have only a few minutes to try to catch anything. It didn´t matter a jot though. I was going fishing anyway. Continue reading
Fishing is an odd business. Nearly every time I head out to the river I witness something curious and yesterday was no exception. As I was making my way downstream to ford the river I came across a suitcase and a couple of bags on the side of the river on the edge of a dirt track. And then I looked across to the other side where a man was walking across the shallows carrying a woman. Seeing no good reason not to wade across myself we met in mid river in water shin-deep and greeted one another before I went my way and they went theirs. Continue reading
I suppose there is a good number of reasons to go fishing but one, which comes close to the top of many of our lists, is that fishing allows you to get away from other people for a little while and this is probably something we all need to do from time to time.
So few people fish my local river that seeing another fisherman, let alone another fly fisherman, is pretty unusual. So yesterday I was rather surprised to see someone fly fishing the river at the point I first join it after a little trek through the citrus groves of the Guadalhorce Valley. This fella was accompanied by a young lady and seemed pretty focused on what he was doing and so I did not draw attention to myself and wandered off downstream. Continue reading
Every now and then you catch a fish that you know will lodge in the memory. It may not necessarily be a monster, but something in the circumstances of its capture will make it stand out. I had one of those fish yesterday evening just as the light was going and I thought all chances of a fish had passed me by.
I have often failed to catch anything and sometimes you get that feeling that this is just not going to be your day. That was certainly the way things felt yesterday. The fish were few and far between, and when I did finally manage to locate a few, they showed no interest in my nymph. Continue reading
Yesterday was the second day of the New Year but offered me the first chance to spend a few hours on the Río Guadalhorce and, fly rod in hand, I was keen to see if I could open my account for the New Year. The river has been fishing very well recently and I was hopeful that the fish might put in an appearance.
There is lot to be said for spending a few hours at this river, or at any river. Just think of all that water and all that air! And think of all the birds and stones and trees and maybe of a few fish, borrowed for a little moment, just so we can be reminded of how pretty they are. Continue reading
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