It is a little while since I fished Concepción Reservoir from a float tube but I did so this morning in the excellent company of Johan Terblanche. Johan is frequent visitor to Andalucía and another fishing nut. He has caught, amongst other things, shark on the fly. Our quarry today was likely to be smaller and less dangerous which is perfectly fine in my book! View full article »
Latest Entries »
The Guadalquivir is a hell of a river. It is over 400 miles long making it the fifth longest in the Iberian Peninsula and the second longest to keep itself within Spain and not to go wandering off into Portugal.
We spent a couple of days fishing the upper part of the river around the town of Mogón and further upstream into the section that falls within the Parque Natural Sierras de Cazorla, Segura y Las Villas.
You should see the river here. It is just beautiful and it provides the wild trout with everything they need; cold, clear and richly-oxygenated water that conveys the aquatic invertebrates and terrestrial insects that they need to sustain themselves. View full article »
Every now and then my wife tells me off for using bad language. She points out that a blog post is no place for profanities and so I will refrain from using them in describing the tiger mosquitos that are causing a plague on the lower reaches of the Guadalhorce river.
Tiger mosquitos are not endemic. They hail from Southeast Asia but they have become quite widespread as a result of their association with humans. I must confess I did not know very much about them but am now a little wiser having read about them on Wikipedia. The article usefully pointed out that they are not to be confused with tigers which, apparently, are wild mammals! View full article »
I don´t know about how high the cotton is but fish are certainly jumping, or at least they were last Saturday. The Guadalhorce was looking good after having been shaken up a little by recent rains. The fish were in the fast water and I managed to catch some barbel, 10 I think, in the faster stretches.
Heading back home I stopped to take in the view of the fish milling around in the water at the foot of a weir. There were mullet, gypsy barbel and carp all packed together just behind the white water. View full article »
On the way back from the river the other day I nearly walked on a turtle. At the time I was clambering over some rocks and just before planting my foot I realized that one of the rocks looked odd. It was. It was a turtle that embarked on what, from a turtle´s point of view, would have been a major mountaineering adventure. View full article »
Up in the Ebro you can catch catfish that weigh a couple of hundred pounds and must be the best part of 10 feet long. They have mouths that could swallow a football.
The prospect of catching these great lumps draws people from all over Europe and, for many freshwater fisherman, they represent the ultimate catch – the ultimate catch, that is, if you want to catch something bigger than you are, or if you want to brag to your mates. View full article »
A couple of weeks back Steve Lawler and I headed off to Extremadura to see if there were any fish swimming around up there and to meet up with some fly fishermen who had been up there for a few days. These guys had abandoned the grim weather in Scotland to find equally grim weather in Extremadura. But these were hardy types and not given to complaining. Fishing, if it teaches you nothing else, will help you to be philosophical and reminds us to keep our expectations in check. View full article »
I guess I could go blaming the horses for my unsuccessful stint on the river yesterday afternoon. There were horses everywhere and often they were being ridden right down the middle of the river which does´t make life any easier for a fly fisherman trying to sneak up on a fish. There was at least one occasion when I got myself into a promising situation or began to work some nice looking water when, all of a sudden the four or more horsemen of the apocalypse would come galloping over and scare the síit out of everything in the river including me! View full article »
Yesterday, out of the blue, came a card from New Zealand. It was sent by the family of Murray Thompson who sadly passed away recently. I have written about Murray in the blog elsewhere and in my book Dry River. He was the owner of a fishing hut way out in a remote highland lake and he was very generous in allowing a whole army of people to stay there over the years.
The card told me that Murray appreciated what I had written about the hut and that a painting of a fine trout which Murray caught and which I sent to him as a gift was given pride of place in the family living room. It also said that he had enjoyed my book which had been given to him as a gift from his family.
I guess that he was reading it during the time that cancer was getting the better of him and I hope it gave him some pleasure during a difficult time.
The New Zealand card was a lovely gesture and I appreciate it very much. It is on the shelf in my lab now where I can see it. It sits next to a couple of dinosaur models which shine in the dark and that light up the space around them when the lights are low.
Murray was like that too.
