A highlight of our recent visit to Japan was getting to see cormorant fishing on the Uji River which runs through Uji city in Kyoto. We came across this opportunity by chance, having climbed nearby to see the macaques on a nearby hilltop (these are monkeys famously seen bathing in hot springs during the depths of winter). Having worked up quite a sweat we decided to “chill” for a little while aboard a little hired rowing boat on the river nearby. It was only when we returned our boat that we came across a poster advertising boat trips to witness the ancient tradition of fishing with cormorants. We decided that we would return to do so the next evening.
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A couple of weeks ago I had a day off and my wife Catriona was away for her work. So it occurred to me that I could do a lot worse than head off fishing in the Conde del Guadalhorce reservoir at El Chorro and have a crack at the carp that occasionally venture into the shallow margins.
Continue readingYesterday morning I took my little trio of newly-tied carp flies to the reservoir at El Chorro to see whether I might come across a carp to tell me whether or not they were up to scratch. As mentioned previously, the carp here may or may not put in an appearance. They´re kind of moody.
Continue readingSean and I spent a few hours fishing Lough Guitane in County Kerry on our last fishing day together last week. Guitane is about 10 km from Killarney and, at over a mile in length, it is a reasonably big lough, though it will raise few eyebrows in the west of Ireland.
Continue readingMy local stretch of the Guadalhorce river is now reduced to a thread and you can step right across it in places. Even where it is too wide to do this, you may be able to walk across the tops of medium size stones and get from side to side without even getting your feet wet. It is difficult to imagine, during the heat of summer, that the lower branches of bank side trees capture the debris flushed down when the river is in flood. It is now as low as I have seen it for many years.
Continue readingMore often than not Sean and I will fish together but on a couple of evenings we were joined by Sean’s son, Dan, who is serving a kind of sporadic fly fishing apprenticeship. We began each session with what has become something of a tradition – the group photograph. We fished twice and so there are two of these. Sean is unable to have a serious face and so he is the one with the strange grin. I am the one holding the camera and am usually looking a bit perplexed. Dan, posing alongside his old man and his uncle, is the only one who looks even remotely normal.
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