fishydreams

The way things work around our way is that if you don´t have internet you can´t watch the telly, or at least you can´t watch British telly. Most of the time this is no great loss but things are different during the spring when the six nations is underway and the best rugby teams in the northern hemisphere are slugging it out.

On Sunday the internet signal was on the blink and I had no way of watching the Ireland England game at home. What was more, the few guys who had been talking of meeting up to watch it over a pint called it off for one reason or another. Continue reading →

An odd thing happened this afternoon. I spent a couple of hours on the Río Grande seeing if I could catch a barbel and did catch one in the end in a rather unexpected way. Continue reading →

I used to work with this guy a long time ago and he told me an interesting little story one time. He had left home when he was only sixteen and his old man had a word with him as he was setting forth into the big wide world. His Dad said “Son, you´re going to be on your own now and it will be up to you decide how you live your life. The only thing that I would ask of you is that you steer well clear of incest and morris dancing!”

Fair enough! I just remembered that story today as I was driving to the river and I regretted having had no similar words of guidance to offer Leo when he headed off to university in October. Mind you “steer clear of incest and morris dancing” – who could improve on that? Continue reading →

Today the weather was lovely and, having I a little time on my hands, I decided to pay my first visit of the year to the Río Guadalhorce to see if I could open my account with the gypsy barbel. The river was looking lovely and was running reasonably clear but after an overnight frost I figured things might be a little slow.

I walked a good stretch of the bank before I saw a fish. Unfortunately it had seen me too and drifted off to deeper water. There were a few fish around but they didn´t seem to have much time for me. You need thick skin for this business and I try not to take these things personally! A few turtles dropped into the water on the opposite bank, a task they accomplish do with remarkably little grace. Most things that live in water seem to be able to move into or through through this medium with some degree of elegance but this is not true of turtles. If you disturb them when they are sunning themselves on the bank they launch themselves into the river and invariably hit the water in a clumsy belly flop. Continue reading →

I spent a good spell yesterday stalking fish along a pretty exposed section of the Río Grande.  It was pretty tough going. The sky was overcast and on my bank there was almost no cover and so I was forced to stand well away from the river to avoid breaking the skyline. To make matters worse there was a pretty steady downstream wind with gusts strong enough to blow my hat off.

All of these things – the overcast skies, the strong wind and the scarcity of cover mean that you really have your work cut out for you. I realised this even as I was tackling up at the car but fishing is just one of those things. I will always sign the consent form regardless of what is written in small print! Continue reading →

I guess that the Scottish rugby supporters might have felt they were in for a long afternoon on Saturday. The All Blacks were in Murrayfield and Scotland, like Ireland, has never beaten them.

This game was on the telly and I figured I might squeeze in an hour or so on the river before kick off and, if the fishing was good, I could even give the game a miss. In the end I caught the second half, not because the fishing was slow, but because the daylight gave out on me.

We have had a bit of rain recently and I didn´t know if the river might be carrying too much colour to fish well. Sure enough it was a little coloured and the level had risen just enough to open up shallows in the margins for the carp to explore. They were in and among the plants that had, only a week ago, been ankle deep. Continue reading →

An odd thing happened today. Catriona said “why don´t you head out to the river? It´s a lovely day. I bet the fishing would be good!” In our house this kind of thing is pretty much unheard of. My hours at the riverside are stolen and often there is a price to be paid later. And yet today golden time was bequeathed to me by my better half!

It was only as I was heading towards the Guadalhorce that I began to figure the motivation behind my wife´s magnanimous gesture. Today was an afternoon of international rugby fixtures and there was beer in the fridge. Suggesting that a fishing trip was on the cards was a cunning strategy to secure the telly and preventing the old man from sequestering the sofa and generally making a nuisance of himself. I have to take my hat off to that woman. Like they say, she wasn´t born yesterday! Continue reading →