fishydreams

We´ve got this great big lump of a dog called Brutus. One time, a few months ago, Leo used the internet to try to find out exactly what breed he is. He narrowed it down to some kind of mastiff. He is a bit scary to look at. He looks like the kind of dog that would take your hand off. But appearances can be deceptive, Brutus is as gentle as a lamb.

Brutus has only got one working eye but this doesn´t seem to hold him back in any way. When we walk each day he sees the world, like most dogs, pretty much at knee level. It is often dark by the time we head out anyway and so not having two good working eyes, or even one, is no great loss. Continue reading →

I guess I´m a creature of habit and fishing the local river seems to be a habit I cannot shake off. There was not much fishing time this afternoon and the shadows were already lengthening as I headed out but I figured I had nothing to lose.

It seems that in winter the fishing needs to be approached a little differently. It is not so much a game of stalking. The fish are hard to spot. They have largely abandoned the shallows. I caught two barbel but did not see either fish before it took. I guess it is a case of finding stretches that you imagine hold fish and search them out with a little nymph. Today I used a little yarn indicator about three feet from the nymph and probably would not have caught without it. Continue reading →

Today has just started and is the last day of the year. Everyone else is in bed but I have just come in from outside the house because I wanted to see if I could take a photograph of the frost on the plants. A jay flew overhead which was a nice surprise. We don´t see too many of them here, maybe because the campo is a little to open for their liking. The pictures of the frosty plants came out better than expected. I had four dogs jumping all over me as I was trying to take them! Continue reading →

In the high tussock country of Otago in the South Island of New Zealand there is a little retreat to which I have been offered an open invitation. The invitation was kindly given by Murray Thompson and the little oasis, just spitting distance from the lake shore, is Murray´s fishing hut.

About a year ago Murray was good enough to send me a few pictures of some trout from the lake because I wanted to have a stab at painting them. The trout from Onslow are, not unexpectedly, varied in size and appearance and I realise that a typical “Onslow” trout does not exist beyond what we might imagine or can remember if we were lucky enough to have been there. Continue reading →

You have no idea of the kind of bureaucratic hoops we have to jump through to get simple things done here. Yesterday I had to go and pay a bill for the irrigation water and went along to the bank in Alhaurin. In the good old days I could pay it in Cajamar without any undue fuss. But not any more, now these bills need to be paid at Banco Sabadel.

That little hurdle hardly compares to the obstacles that Banco Sabadel puts in the way. When I reached the front of the queue and presented the bill and some cash, the guy at the till pointed out a notice stuck onto the wall. These bills, according to the bank´s timetable, can only be paid between 11.30 and 2.00 pm on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays between the 11^th and 24^th of each month. Continue reading →