Yesterday I spent the morning and early afternoon fishing on the river with Johan Terblanche. Johan and I have fished together several times over the last two or three years and when he pops over to this neck of the woods from his home in Luxembourg he drops me a line and we meet up to see if we can catch black bass or, as was the case yesterday, some gypsy barbel from the river. Continue reading
Category: Fish and fishing
When Steve Lawler and I reached the second fishing spot he had planned to show me on Friday we both chickened out of the trek across an open field to the shore of the reservoir. There were a few cattle in the field there and neither of us trusted them. In particular there were three shady characters standing in the shadow of a tree and one of them had a mean look in her eyes. Continue reading
Yesterday, quite out of the blue, a bunch of photos came my way from Mark McCann as attachments to an email. Mark is an old fishing buddy and, along with my brother Sean, we are veterans of many fishing campaigns. Coincidentally Sean came across some photos as well and, while not currently in digital form, I am hoping that these may be coming my way soon. The photos Mark sent recorded a fishing trip we went on about 10 years ago. It was significant because my son Leo who was then 12 was invited along. Continue reading
I have been isolated in my little finca in Andalucía since the 14th of March and during this time my wife has been staying with her father in London. They tell us to social distance from one another and recommend 2 metres but we have managed to extend that by over 1000 miles! Continue reading
I have a particular soft spot for Mediterranean barbel which is one of our endemic species here in Spain and one that Paul Reddish and I have been chasing in Valencia, most recently at the end of February. Continue reading
Thomas McGuane tells a lovely little story in his book “The Longest Silence” about how his family referred to his fishing fanaticism. To the rest of the family his obsessive preoccupation was simply referred to as the “F word.” And so it happened that one evening, when dinner guests had been invited and everyone was sitting around the dinner table, his young daughter appeared and loudly pronounced to all the guests “all that daddy really cares about is the F word….. And if he’s not actually doing it, he’s reading about it!” Continue reading
On the river the other day I came across two big fish. The first was a large carp that had been bunkered down in a deep undercut right at my feet. I had been casting to some barbel and had been quite still for a while when this large shape drifted out almost, it felt, from between my toes. Instinctively I dropped my little tungsten beaded nymph in front of it and then everything went rock solid. Continue reading
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