A very odd thing happened yesterday when I was fishing with Colin McLachlan. I was sneaking around the shore of a reservoir called Embalse de Gabriel y Galán in Extremadura when I came across a full grown griffon vulture on the slope leading to the shoreline. I had been so intent on looking for barbel in the shallows that I approached reasonably closely before I noticed. It is very unusual to see a vulture like this on the ground and there was no sign of a carcass that might have attracted it. View full article »
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I have walked many kilometres of riverbank of the Río Guadalhorce over the years and have a developed a pretty good feel for the river and, particularly, the stretch that runs closest to home. I fished there this afternoon and felt that I would trade miles of this river for just a couple of square metres a shallow run which tips into a deep pool.
If you look very carefully from an elevated bank beside this run you will soon make out the shapes of good fish here. They appear and disappear in the broken mirror of the surface. If you really want to make them out clearly and, in the process, punch a little too much out of the skyline above them out they will vanish. It is that simple. View full article »
My brother Sean and my friend Mark McCann are my longest serving fishing buddies. We try to get together every year or two to wet a line together and sink a few pints each evening to celebrate success or commiserate failure, whichever is a suitable response to the events of the day. View full article »
Yesterday I drove for an hour and a half to catch a single fish that would not have looked out of place in a can of sardines. The reservoir from which I extracted this modest organism was Embalse Zahara el Gastor and it lies close to the town of Zahara de la Sierra in Cádiz which is nestled in the hills of Andalucía in the province of Cádiz. View full article »
I owe a big debt of gratitude to a friend of mine called Clare Morris who was a very inspiring Head of English at the school where I work. When I started out writing things of my own a few years ago I would run them by her and she would give me much more praise than my efforts deserved and in the process, crucially, she encouraged me to stick at it. The end result was a book, a dozen or so magazine articles and a number of comedy scripts which were delivered in the form of standup routines. View full article »
My son Leo gave me a present of a nifty little hip flask and, a little while back, Johan Terblanche gave me a nice bottle of South African brandy. And so, I put two and two together and decided to pour what was left of the brandy into the hip flask and then go looking for something to celebrate.
What better to celebrate than the capture and release of a nice fish? View full article »
Yesterday afternoon Johan Terblanche and I fished the Guadalhorce. The river was somewhat skinnier than when we had last fished it around Easter time and it was carrying a little colour. Johan is now officially my favourite person in the whole world after he gave me a present of a bottle of Klipdrift brandy from South Africa. I don´t know much about brandy but I understand that this is a bit special. I reckon I might pour some of this stuff into a hip flask my brother in law gave me a few years back and enjoy a celebratory toast if a good fish should come my way. View full article »
My brother Sean will turn 51 this month. Whenever the opportunity presents itself he leaps off the wall of the pier in Knightstown on Valentia Island. It is the Atlantic we´re talking about here and, even in high summer, the sensation of jumping into deep water is something like having your balls rapidly immersed into a flask of liquid nitrogen. View full article »
I guess at some time or another every one of us has found ourselves at shit creek with or without our paddles. Maybe some of us have even fished there. I think I have. From what I recall the fishing there was disappointing to put it mildly. View full article »
