I heard from Dave Felce a little earlier today and he told me about a fine pike he caught. His words describe the circumstances better than mine and he was kind enough to allow me to reproduce his account below, together with a photo of the fish and its captor…… View full article »
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I had no time to go fishing yesterday but went anyway. I figured I needed to be home within an hour and that the journey to the river would take 10 minutes, then another 5 minutes to tackle up, and then another 5 to reach a broad shallow where you can find the odd carp. And of course the return leg would take just as long. All of this mental arithmetic was carried out on my way to the river and the upshot of it all was that I would have only a few minutes to try to catch anything. It didn´t matter a jot though. I was going fishing anyway. View full article »
If you don´t want to witness the pathetic spectacle of some bloke gushing over his daughter´s achievement you better look away now……. View full article »
I was ambushed a few weeks ago by a bunch of women who made their way into my lab. They were on the lookout for some bloke with Celtic blood who could be coerced into wearing a dress onstage and taking part in an Irish dancing routine.
Why they should have chosen me remains a mystery. I have no co-ordination or grace to speak of ,and I am nothing to look at but I do tick the boxes as far as gender and genetic provenance are concerned. In the end I did what I always do when surrounded by domineering women; I meekly acquiesced to their demands. View full article »
Fishing is an odd business. Nearly every time I head out to the river I witness something curious and yesterday was no exception. As I was making my way downstream to ford the river I came across a suitcase and a couple of bags on the side of the river on the edge of a dirt track. And then I looked across to the other side where a man was walking across the shallows carrying a woman. Seeing no good reason not to wade across myself we met in mid river in water shin-deep and greeted one another before I went my way and they went theirs. View full article »
John Muskett sent me a message to tell me he had attended the funeral of Murray Thompson. By all accounts it was as good an occasion as you might wish for with fine words spoken. Murray was piped out of the church by his son William.
John included in his message a poem that Murray penned 20 years ago. It is lovely. Here it is: View full article »
Sad news came from New Zealand this week. A man called Murray Thompson passed away. Cancer got him. It is a long time since I met him and I met him only once. On that occasion he handed over the keys to his fishing hut on the shore of Lake Onslow to my brother and me. He didn´t know either of us from Adam. We were just a couple of fly fishermen who showed up at his door during an inhospitable spell of foul weather. We were looking for somewhere to go fishing when local rivers had become muddy torrents.
We talked a little while. Murray was famously strong and played rugby for Otago back in the day. He was as solid as an ox. When we had dispensed with a little small talk he handed over the keys and asked in return only two things; that we leave a small contribution to the upkeep of the hut, and that we leave behind something that might be of some use to subsequent visitors. He did not specify what – maybe a can of stew. Maybe a six pack of beer. View full article »
It pissed rain last night and the unrelenting downpour was such intensity that it would get the Noahs of this world asking themselves “have I got two of everything?!” There was lightning too and claps of shuddering thunder that had the dogs scratching at the front door. And then today began with open clear skies and a warm sun. Puddles on the track outside mirroring the blue sky were all that gave testament to the dramas of the previous night.
The river was swollen with rainwater. I brought the rod when I went to look, first at the Guadalhorce and then at the Río Grande in the vague hope that a quiet eddy might have a few fish I could try for. I lowered my rod top into the stained water to test the visibility and it was no more than an inch or two and it soon became clear that fly fishing was a simply not on the cards. View full article »
The fish had the last laugh on the river this afternoon. The only one I did manage to hook flew off as though he had been fired from a cannon and then buried himself in a pile of weeds. When I finally caught up with him and waded into the river to extract my leader from the weeds he got away. Good luck to him. You can´t beat a bit of initiative. View full article »
An odd thing happened this afternoon as I was exploring a little section of the Río Grande. I looked down on the arm of my short-sleeve shirt and realised I had snagged a some little twigs, probably as I had been pushing through some brush, and it was only as I was set to brush them off that I realised it was a praying mantis. View full article »
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