For some time now I have dabbled in painting fish in water colours and, until now, the subjects have been fish that I have become acquainted with first hand including brown trout, perch, carp, black bass and gypsy barbel. I have just broken with this little tradition by painting a fish that I have never seen in the flesh but that strikes me as a beautiful subject – the Golden Dorado. It´s no surprise that I have never seen or caught one. If I were to do so I would have to book myself a flight to South America. View full article »
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This blog of mine is the nearest thing I have to a diary and, as such, it´s great to be able to report on Leo´s big day on Saturday when he graduated from the University of York with a B.Sc in Accounting, Business Finance and Management. Catriona, Pippa, Grandad and I made it up to York for the occasion and we had lunch afterwards with the families of two of Leo´s closest friends from university. View full article »
My brother Sean and our close friend Mark McCann head off fishing the mayfly every year on Lough Arrow and it is one of my few regrets about living in Spain and working as a teacher that I am unable to join them. I do however insist on getting a full report and Sean invariably provides an account in his own inimitable style. Mr McCann has also contributed to the cause this year and I have therefore, in the finest tradition of plagiarism, stolen their words and pictures, without their knowledge or consent, and include them here for us all to enjoy.
I was in Bavaria last week with a school group and met a very interesting chap. His name is Frank. He has a surname too but I don´t know what it is. Frank taught our students how to rock climb on a climbing wall outside the hostel. Frank is no spring chicken. We guessed his age at something greater than 60, maybe a good bit more, but he was fit as a fiddle and there wasn´t an ounce of fat on his wiry frame. View full article »
In the fish tank in my lab we have a crab that is remarkable for a number of reasons. For one thing it is not a crab and it has died at least twice. This remarkable creature was a gift from a Year 11 student, Margarita Solontovnikoff, and was presented with a companion tropical fish about 16 months ago. Both of these were Margarita´s former pets and, for whatever reason, she thought we might like to have them. View full article »
It was very nice to meet up with Simon Thompson on Wednesday evening and to spend a little time with him on the river. Work and other commitments made it a pretty brief visit but we managed a couple of fish between us and Simon was out again on Friday and had some more.
Today I was at the river again and had a mighty tussle with a carp. I had been given the cold shoulder by a bunch of carp on this stretch of the river a little while back and felt that I had a score to settle. View full article »
My neoprene fishing boots have seen better days. They are full of rips and tears. In places they seem to be hanging on by a thread. Thinking about it, my neoprene chest waders are just as bad. I took these waders on an outing to Concepción reservoir after work on Friday and it turns out that, despite my best efforts to patch them up, they have nearly as many holes as my landing net. When I finally dragged my arse out my float tube after three hours casting to largely indifferent black bass, my legs looked like water balloons and the water sloshing around inside the waders was waist high. View full article »
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