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Perhaps it never occurred to you to ask this question but the answer, to the best of my knowledge, is no. Fish do not play golf. The question arose yesterday in my Science lesson with Year 7 and was in response to some interesting commotion taking place in the fish tank at the back of the lab.

First, let me tell you a little about the fish tank. It is about four feet long and has one pretty sizeable fish in there, a species of pleco. The pleco is one of a small number of common aquarium fish and I understand that our one is Hypostomus plecostomus, a nocturnal catfish which is native to South America but has been widely introduced elsewhere.There is also a bunch of goldfish which found a refuge in my tank when the school pond was drained for refurbishment. The pleco must be about a foot long and a lot of people have questioned whether it is a good idea to have such a big fish in a relatively small tank.  View full article »

If the world were a simple place you would get a fishing license by going somewhere where these things are sold and saying “can I have a fishing license please?” And then having handed over the necessary fees you might expect to be able to walk out with the thing in your hand.

But things are not so simple here. This is Spain and, of course, Spain has elevated bureaucracy into an art form. View full article »

I spent the morning digging out a septic tank and the early afternoon in a tussle with Spanish bureaucracy and so the few hours on the river were appreciated more and usual. There were a few barbel around but they they can sometimes be pretty jittery and today they were easily spooked. In the end I had to work quite hard for the three I eventually managed to bank. View full article »

There is a lot to be said for goats. They wander round in flocks ringing their little bells. I bump into them on the river all the time and yesterday after I was done fishing I followed a herd back to the car where we parted company. I don´t know how many there were and, frankly, I had better things to do than count the damn things. This is not an easy job anyway. They move around a lot and so you could end up counting the same goat twice or maybe miss one completely. This is a job best left to specialists, in my opinion, or to insomniacs who find the counting of ruminants helpful in ameliorating the stresses caused by sleeplessness. View full article »

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 »

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 »

Pippa´s Poem

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 »