A couple of weeks ago we treated ourselves to a few nights away in Andalucía and Extremadura. We started out in Sevilla and moved on to Zafra and Trujillo, both in Extremadura, before returning home via a town called Palma del Río in the province of Córdoba. We were lucky enough to visit some lovely places but the cream of the crop turned out to be a former Franciscan monastery in Palma del Río which has now become a hotel. Columbus himself stayed here after one of his journeys to the New World but I don´t know which of his voyages or what year this was. View full article »
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An odd thing happened a couple of weeks ago. We put our names down for a friendly padel event at our local padel courts. This was a competition of sorts (winners were promoted, losers demoted and their was a lot of swapping around of players). The most interesting thing was not the tournament, though, or any of the players. It was the birds.
When we arrived at the courts there was a Harris hawk sitting on a post and a barn owl on the ground. Another hawk was also nearby. As it happens all three birds belonged to a local falconer who was competing in the padel tournament with us, and the three birds were tethered while their owner was out on court working up a sweat. View full article »
Two good things happened today. The first is that the broken rod that I sent off to Orvis came back. As it happens it is not just the old rod fixed up but a shiny new rod of the same vintage: Clearwater 10 foot, 4 piece for a 4 weight line. Orvis say that if they can´t repair your rod they will replace it with a similar model and they provide their rods with a 20 year guarantee.
I have to say I was very impressed with Orvis. I had bought the original rod about 3 or 4 years ago but the “thick end” behind the reel seat came apart exposing the blank. This rod was originally purchased from the US and I never filled out all the paperwork for the warranty. Nevertheless the Orvis repair people in the UK didn´t kick up a stink and charged only the usual 20 pound handling fee. They were courteous and efficient and I am much obliged to them.
The discovery of a bottle of beer was the second good thing that happened. One of the benefits of never tidying out a car is that there´s a pretty good chance that stuff that was in it once will still be there – somewhere. Sometimes too you can make the odd serendipitous discovery as I did today when I came across a litre bottle of Alhambra lager. This stowaway was obviously the legacy of a recent trip to the supermarket and it succeeded in concealing itself among the assorted debris while the rest of the shopping was being carted off to the kitchen. Today´s discovery could not have happened at a better time. At home I am all out of beer.
The Alhambra is now cooling down in the fridge. This evening, when the heat of the day is easing, I will remove it and pour myself a nice cold pint and propose a toast to the Orvis fishing tackle company.
Cheers.
I took a picture of myself holding the new fly rod. The rod looks fine, the reel looks dirty (it is) and I look like a gorilla!
Orvis cleverly put their name on the reel seat and so guys like me give them quite a lot of free advertising!
Just a matter of time!
It has been a few years since I visited the National Park at Montfragüe in Extremadura but the chance arose last week and I didn´t let it go begging. Montfragüe is about half an hour´s drive north of Trujillo and runs in an east-west direction. The Río Tajo passes through it on its westward journey, ultimately to the Atlantic close to the city of Lisbon. In the National Park at Montfragüe the Tajo meets one of its major tributaries, the Tietar which joins it from the Northeast.
The Tagus is a hell of a river. It is over 1000km long making it the longest River in the Iberian Peninsula. About two thirds of the river runs through Spain before passing into Portugal. At Montfragüe it is already a very sizeable river although there it is a little constricted by an ancient seam of Ordovician rock at the famous Salto de Gitano. Here the Tajo struggles to push through the unyielding rock which is thrown into vertical cliffs. The skies here are full of vultures. View full article »
If you are a regular reader of this blog you might well imagine its author to be some kind of Neanderthal throwback who creeps around muddy riverbanks on the lookout for some dumb fish to catch. To be honest, if that´s the view you take, you would not be too far off the mark. But I will have you know that I am coming up in the world. Things are looking up. As evidence of this I am pleased to announce that I am now mixing with the social elite of Marbella and have perfected the knack of pouting my lips and throwing my hair around in an alluring manner.
Only the other night I was at Marbella´s glitzy Starlite venue. My wife was partaking in some kind of corporate hospitality thing and had an invitation for free cocktails and an open air concert. Her invitation included a partner and, needing a dynamic and glamorous socialite to accompany her, her thoughts quite naturally turned to me. View full article »
I got in trouble with the law the other evening as I was about to launch my float tube in a reservoir close to one of Málaga´s satellite towns called Santa Rosalía. Just as I was about to slip my moorings some security guy comes up to me on his moped and asks if I am aware that I am breaking every law in the country. For one thing I am about to go afloat on the reservoir where being afloat is verboten, where swimming is verboten, and I was planning to fish within 50 metres of the dam wall which is also verboten. He was unclear about whether fishing beyond the 50 metre zone was okay but that was probably verboten too.
He was actually a nice guy and was being helpfully informative. The guardia civil would have fined me if they came across me showing such blatant contempt for the law or maybe thrown me in a dark cell never to be seen again. View full article »
The ibex is what the locals would call the “cabra de montaña” or mountain goat, which stands to reason because it is a kind of wild goat and the mountains are where you will find them.
I was lucky enough to come close to a female ibex and her kid the other evening as I was paddling around in my float tube casting into the margins. The two ibex showed little alarm and spent a while grazing in the vegetation close to the waters edge and I was lucky enough to get some reasonable photographs. View full article »
From time to time I have come across the remains of crayfish on the banks of the Guadalhorce river but had never seen any live specimens until yesterday evening when I chanced upon three individuals which I must have disturbed from the marginal vegetation. They scurried out into the shallow river leaving a trail of disturbed silt in their wakes. View full article »
I´ll let you in on a little secret. One of the most beautiful places I have seen recently is where the Río Verde joins Concepción Reservoir near the town of Istán. It is not easy to reach and if you get there, chances are you will have the place to yourself.
Last weekend I paddled my float tube about a kilometer to reach it and it was well worth the effort. The river was crystal clear and flowed through a beautiful rock pool before making its way into the reservoir. View full article »
There are a few places, Florida among them, where fly fishermen may, on rare occasions succeed in catching, on the same day, at least one specimen of three different species; bonefish, tarpon and permit. This is a feat for celebration and entitles the successful angler to wear a smug grin that seems almost painted on his face. His mates slap him on the back. People buy him drinks. For a while he considers himself an equal among the supernatural forces of the universe. And he pulls up a stool next to a bowl of peanuts at the pantheon of the gods. View full article »
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