Category: Fish and fishing


What the hell is a mero?

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June 12, 2015

I was driving home from the the river today and bumped into my neighbour Andrés. He is another fisherman, just like me, except that he fishes only in the sea. I told him I was had been to the river and had caught three barbel. He asked me what kind of size they were and I used the universal gesture that indicates the length of the fish as the distance between the palms of the hands. I told him the best fish might have been a kilo and a half, mas o menos.

Then he put me to shame by pointing out that he had recently caught a “mero” of 14kg in Algeciras. “Jesus, that´s a big fish” I thought “but what the hell is a mero?” Continue reading →

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Old Trout

Filed under: Fish and fishing, Other bits and bobs — 3 Comments
June 11, 2015

Every now and then I start out on a painting and then, for one reason or another, forget about it. I came across an old trout today that I had started a long while ago and, having a little time on my hands, I thought I might see if I could finish it off.

It is now more or less done and so I popped out a few minutes ago to take a picture of it before the evening steals too many of its colours.

Here she is. An old trout.

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Fishing report of 8 June

Filed under: Fish and fishing, Fishing reports, Flies and fly tying — 2 Comments
June 8, 2015

This weekend was my first chance to get out on the river for a while and I managed to fish on the evenings of both Saturday and Sunday. The river was in pretty good shape and there were a few fish around.

The gypsy barbel seemed very spooky initially and I was forced to go down in size both in nymph and leader. Curiously the fish would often be frightened of the little splash created by the nymph as it landed. When they are “on” they can often be attracted to this and even swim over to investigate, often accepting the fly in the process. I found that it was better to offer the fly from slightly upstream and often give the nymph a little movement when it was close to the fish. Continue reading →

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Sean´s Fishing Report

Filed under: Fish and fishing, Fishing reports, Folks I know — 2 Comments
May 19, 2015

My brother Sean and our old fishing buddy Mark McCann have just done a stint fishing the mayfly in Ireland. They fished Lough Arrow in County Sligo where Sean and I used to live many years ago in an building which had previously been a school house. I asked Sean to report back on his adventure and he sent me an email today. I will stick photos on some time if I can extract any out of Mark.

That´s enough of a preamble from me. Nobody writes a better fishing report than Sean so here we go…..

Continue reading →

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First carp of the season

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May 12, 2015

If I could be in any one place at any one time I would be hard pressed to suggest anything that would trump an evening like this one on the Guadalhorce river. In many ways I can appreciate it more for having been a spur of the moment decision. The weather looked good, I didn´t have much work to do and so I just said to myself “why not?”

The fishing was good too. I picked up a three barbel in pretty short order. The first of these was wounded in the middle of its back around the dorsal fin. The wound looked like the kind made from above, by a heron perhaps. Continue reading →

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Nearly pissing on a partridge

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May 4, 2015

If you fish from a float tube, and are sitting in chest waders for hour on end, you will be aware that it is a good idea to go for a wee before you set sail. Very often the margins are sheer and rocky and so it becomes impractical to haul up and answer the call of nature. This is particularly true of Concepción where Steven Lawler and I set out on Saturday to do battle with black bass.

Mindful of the hard-won lesson about the need to powder one´s nose before setting out, I trotted off into the long grass this morning just as soon as I had tackled up. Continue reading →

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The first of the day

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May 3, 2015

It´s funny how, even if you catch several fish during the course of a day, the capture of one might stick in the mind far more than the others. On Saturday, when I was joined on the river by Steven Lawler, it was the first fish of the day.

This was the first fish I cast to and it was holding in the water which was just accelerating out of a broad pool and into a narrow stream. The fish was swimming strongly just to hold position and, every now and then, it would slice the surface with the tip of its tail. Continue reading →

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Naked Slovenian Woman

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May 2, 2015

On Saturday I spent a day fishing with Steven Lawler on my local river. Steven is a very experienced and accomplished fisherman and has fished many exotic locations. He has also fished several of exulted chalk streams of England, the “Holy Grail” for lowly heathens like me. He has also enjoyed wonderful trout fishing in Eastern Europe. On the banks of the Guadalhorce he told me an intriguing story about a fishing adventure in Slovenia.

I don´t know a whole lot about Slovenia, to be truthful, but it turns out that it is very beautiful and has remarkable fishing; pristine rivers, free-rising trout. It also turns out, as it happens, that the natives of that country are pretty uninhibited sorts who think nothing stripping off of sun bathing along river banks in the nude. Continue reading →

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Fishing Report of 25 April

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April 25, 2015

Things have been pretty busy recently and it has proved difficult to squeeze in a little time on the river. But I did manage a trip last Saturday and again today and am very glad that I did.

We have had a sprinkling of rain recently and the river is just looking just lovely. I had the river to myself on both of my recent visits but for the black winged stilts and little egrets. I noticed I was walking on boar tracks today and can imagine these animals moving through the rushes at dusk and into the night. Continue reading →

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Just what the doctor ordered

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April 20, 2015

On Friday after work I took a little trip to Concepción Reservoir to see if there were any black bass knocking around. It had been a busy week and it just seemed to me that a couple of hours floating around a reservoir might well be the perfect antidote for the accumulated stresses of the week. The reservoir sits in what was once the river valley of the Río Verde and the surrounding terrain is very steep-sided. It is a mountain goat country here and it is not unusual to see these animals working their way among the scrub high above. Continue reading →

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