On Saturday I met up with Clive Smith and we had a crack at the barbel on the Río Grande. There have been some heavy rains recently and the Guadalhorce has coloured up and is not yet returned to form. The Río Grande is a more challenging river but at least it was running clear and we had a shot at a few fish in the steadier flows. View full article »
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Nobody seems to know how old Brutus is. Brutus is our dog. Before making a home for himself with us he used to belong to a local farmer. He was probably supposed to act as a kind of guard dog. We used to see him as we walked around the corner and up the hill. He just looked at us with a kind of indifference. Maybe he remembered vaguely that his job was to appear menacing but he was beyond caring. He might have lifted one of the brows above his dark eyes but that would be about it. View full article »
I don´t know if there is anything that can surprise me any more. On Saturday afternoon, as has been recently reported, I caught a fish that wasn´t in the river at all but was swimming around in the grass. At around the same time Harry Abbott sent me a picture of his fly fishing buddy David Blair travelling to his fishing spot in two seater airplane with his dog sitting in the back. I don´t know if mermaids are real but I am keeping an open mind. From time to time I glance around on the banks of the Guadalhorce, just in case. View full article »
On saturday afternoon I fished the Guadalhorce river. The fishing was good and I managed to coax a fair few barbel out of the river. Most of these were taken pretty conventionally – one on a dry fly and the rest on nymphs. The one fish that stood out was one that was not in the river at all but swimming around on the grass outside. View full article »
On Monday I fished the river with three fly fishermen from South Africa who were keen to get acquainted with the Río Guadalhorce´s gypsy barbel. One of these, Johan Terblanche, now lives in Luxembourg and is a fellow veteran of a previous campaign on Istán, where we fished for black bass. Yesterday we were also joined by his brother Wian and friend Pieter, who are in Spain ostensibly on business but everyone knows the main purpose of their trip was to have a crack at the gypsy barbel! View full article »
Spending their days in clear shallow water, the gypsy barbel on my local river live lives that, compared most freshwater fish, are subject to public scrutiny. They may find keeping secrets a more difficult task to pull off than the fish of deep or muddied waters, but they remain nevertheless mysterious creatures. View full article »
I don´t know how you feel about it, but life can begin to seem pretty grim at times. The UK today signed off on an engagement and involvement with Europe that they had maintained for 44 years, and for no single good reason that I can fathom. They have set sail blindly into uncharted waters without a map. And idiotic as that may appear, the first prize for idiocy goes, as usual, to Donald Trump who is busy reversing any rational policies of his predecessor. Next in the firing line is the environment. I happen to teach Science for a living and I could probably wander into the primary section of our school and find dozens of youngsters who are more scientifically literate than this bozo. View full article »
It´s not quite summertime yet and it may be a little early yet for the cotton to be high, but fish are certainly jumping. On the way back from fishing on Saturday, I came across some gypsy barbel on the Guadalhorce who treated me to to a fine display of their aerial acrobatics. View full article »
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