Category: Fishing reports


At the river inlet into the Embalse del Ebro reservoir the Ebro splits into two channels, each heavily weeded up in places but the clear water pushes through the weed growth, often in clear seams revealing the stony substrate beneath. Both flows converge before the water flows into a narrow tongue which extends to the west from the main body of the reservoir. From above it looks as though the embalse had extended an arm to greet the inflowing river that sustains it.

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My brother Sean and our old angling buddy Mark have just completed their annual pilgrimage to Lough Arrow in search of brown trout. They do this every year but, unfortunately, I am never able to join them for reasons of work and geography. In dribs and drabs they have been sending over information, mainly in the form of Whatsapp messages and emails with attached images and I am piecing together them together. I asked them if I could write a few words about their adventures on this blog and they graciously consented, possibly because they thought that if I said anything they did not approve of nobody would be likely to read it!

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I have just come back from the reservoir at El Chorro where my cunning plan had been to extract a carp from the margins. I´m afraid I have to report (once again!) that I had no success. The last time I fished there I brought a foolish young dog that proceeded to leap into the water and charge up and down the shallows, scaring the hell out of the carp and every other aquatic organism in possession of a nervous system and so my lack of success was not unexpected.

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Last week while Catriona and I were exploring the north of Spain, my brother Sean managed to sneak off to do a little bass fishing back in Ireland. He managed to catch himself a lovely fish and sent a picture to me on Whatsapp.

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The black bass at Concepción can be contrary and moody creatures, given to ignoring whatever we might tie to the end of our lines to tempt them. But yesterday evening, for reasons best known to themselves, they decided that they were going to play ball. Whatever we were offering they were having it, and then some. No questions asked.

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I don´t know which one of us is thicker, me or my dog Sable. We have not had her for very long and I suspect that if you asked those who know us both which of the two of us was the brighter most would say that it is very likely the dog. Sable, they might tell you, has the edge in terms of cerebral firepower, if only by a whisker.

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We have this new dog. Her name is Sable. A young black labrador, she is sleeping at my feet right now. I think that I knackered her out when we went fishing today.

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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.

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Yesterday 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.

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I caught a turtle on the fly yesterday which probably allows me to be considered among the world´s foremost authorities on fly fishing for reptiles. It has to be said that I had no intention of catching the thing and so I cannot pretend that this outcome was the result of focused effort or cunning strategy. What happened, as you can probably figure, is that I cast a fly out in the hope of catching a black bass when this dumb turtle showed up and decided it wanted to get in on the action.

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