fishydreams

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 →

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…..

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My friend Harry Abbott has this habit of wondering off to far away places and catching large fish. Then he goes and sends me photos with messages like “look at these lovely trout I have been catching!”

Well, he´s at it again. In the past I have had pictures of arapaima, blue and golden mahseer, and catfish from Thailand. Now he´s in the South Island of New Zealand helping himself to some fine brown trout. He took a few just recently from the Mataura, the river I used to fish in a former life, when we lived in New Zealand. Continue reading →

Yesterday was the last day of October, Halloween, and in the morning I found myself sitting on a hotel balcony in Marbella reading Fly Fishing and Fly Tying Monthly. And then the thought dawned on me that there were going to be a few hours before I was needed by anybody and if I had any brains I could get out to the river fool around fly fishing myself rather than just read about it.

I rang Mark McCann to see if he fancied a stint on the river but, in an appalling lapse of judgement, he said he would spend some quality time with his wife rather than take a spontaneous fishing trip. Of course the fishing gods were pretty pissed off with him and pulled a few strings to make sure he would regret his decision. Imagine wanting to spend time with your wife! Whatever was he thinking of? So the gods tinkered with the fundamental laws of nature, pulled a few strings here and there and, more or less, rigged things so that the river would fish exceptionally well. Continue reading →

Yesterday evening my son Leo and I went off to the river to see if we might be able to catch a carp. Leo has accepted an offer to study Management at the University of York and will be off within a month. He may well join a fly fishing club if the university has one. If not there is always squash, the gym, or the swimming club (he is eyeing up the University´s 50m breast stroke record and is our school´s record holder for this distance.) Personally, I would advise him to sing in a band. He has a great voice. Girls always seem to have the hots for the lead singers of bands. If I were young and single and was not the owner of a voice box like that of a frog in a swamp I know what I would do!

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