Category: Fishing reports


Up to his old tricks

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July 7, 2015

We have family here at the moment and I have been unable to slip quietly away to the river for a bit of “psychological readjustment.” The result of this is that I have been unusually grumpy for the last couple of days. The weather hash´t helped. It has been punishingly hot and so we “retreated” indoors for much of the day watching Wimbledon on the telly.

While we have all been competing for the most comfortable spot on the sofa to watch Andy Murray, or arguing about whose turn it is to do the washing up, others have been “living the dream” and headed out to sea to do battle with giant fish. Last week Steven Lawler reported on a great big tuna a neighbour of his caught out on a charter from Sotogrande. He tells me that it took three of them an hour and a half to finally land it and they estimated its weight at 200kg. Continue reading →

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Fishing report of 28 June

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June 29, 2015

I reckon God must be getting old. Old folks often feel the chill a little and like to turn the central heating up and that certainly seems to be happening here. The weather people say we are experiencing a little heat wave which should pass in a few days. Maybe. I figure it is just God twiddling the dials that adjust the thermostat.

On Saturday morning I collected Leo from a friend´s house in Fuengirola and took him to the river to see if the fish were up and about. They were, but they were sluggish, as was Leo himself after a night on the beer and just a few hours of sleep. Continue reading →

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Feckin flies

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June 21, 2015

I spent Sunday afternoon and evening with Steven Lawler on the Guadalhorce river. Steven has recently been out in Bosnia fishing for trout and grayling and he showed me some of the tiny nymphs and dries used to catch them in gin-clear water. He said he figured I would like Bosnia and after listening to tales of his adventures there I must admit that it sounds like my kind of place.

We had no prospects of catching trout or grayling on the Guadalhorce of course but were looking forward to catching some barbel and maybe, if the gods smiles on us, a carp or two. Continue reading →

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Fishing report of 14 June

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June 13, 2015

Today was as good a day on the river as I can remember for some time. As I was heading out I was trying to decide which of two stretches of river to visit and I opted, in the end to go to Estación de Cártama and just walk upstream for a way. There were quite a few people having picnics and barbecues, this being a popular area with the public, but it took just a river crossing and a short walk upriver to find myself alone. Continue reading →

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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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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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A man with about 400 goats

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May 21, 2015

On the river the other day I had a conversation with a goat herder. He was a kind of wild-looking guy but he was friendly. He was walking along with his flock of goats, dogs working around him, in the direction of the water I had been fishing. Ours was less of a conversation than an exchange of shouts because we were on opposite sides of the river.

Initially we exchanged greetings and he asked how I had done. I think I had at that point caught four barbel. Then I asked him how many goats he had and he told me he had about 400. That sounded like a good answer to me. Chances are there are new goats being born all the time, and old ones popping their clogs so the number probably fluctuates around that figure. Still, that´s a lot of goats whichever way you look at it. Continue reading →

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Sean´s Fishing Report

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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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