The mayfly is up at the moment and everybody in Ireland with half a brain will be out chasing trout. It just has to be done. The best advice for any fisherman at this time of the year is this: divorce your wife if you need to and, if it comes to it, be prepared to abandon your kids. If things are busy at work consider pulling a sickie or, if you have a little business of your own, just stick the “Gone Fishing” sign and get the hell out of there. View full article »
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Every now and then you catch a fish and, for whatever reason, the circumstances of its capture stick in your mind. I caught a nice fish a couple of hours ago and the little details are all there in front of me. The barbel was duly returned unharmed and is now swimming in the darkness of the nighttime river. View full article »
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 »
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 »
