Latest Entries »

Fly fishing, War and Murder

Filed under: Books and stuff, Other bits and bobs — Leave a comment
August 15, 2014

My friend Norman Smith loaned me a couple books last week, one of which was written by GEM Skues. The book is called The Chalk-Stream Angler, Sidelines, Sidelights and Reflections. It is probably not his most important book. That particular accolade should go to “The Way of a Trout with a Fly” published way back in 1921 and “Minor Tactics of the Chalkstream” published even earlier, in 1910. Until now, I have I known Skues only by reputation and through the writings of others so it was quite a treat to be able to read the words of the great man himself.

What was so interesting about Skues? It was Skues who was involved in a quiet revolution whose ripples spread even beyond the esoteric world of fly fishing. A London lawyer, short in stature, Skues may seem an unlikely revolutionary but nevertheless he was one. From 1887 right up to 1938 he regularly fished the Itchen, one of the England´s exulted chalk streams. When he started out the prevailing orthodoxy was to fish the dry fly upstream, a practice followed almost religiously by Halford and his disciples. But then Skues put his mind to it and suggested it might be time to think again.
View full article »

Read More & Comment

Fishing Report of 10 August

Filed under: Fish and fishing, Fishing reports — Leave a comment
August 11, 2014

Sometimes it is difficult to decide how to use the morning you may have gone to some lengths to secure for the purposes of fly fishing. Initially, I had it in mind on that I might fish for bass from the float tube, particularly given that the forecast was for very hot weather and having the lower part of your body immersed in a reservoir is a pretty effective way to prevent over heating.

But in the end it was the river that won out, as it so often does, and the prospect of some gipsy barbel or, if I was lucky, some carp. View full article »

Read More & Comment

Clarinde´s Fish

Filed under: Other bits and bobs — Leave a comment
August 1, 2014

Teaching Science to secondary students is what I do for a living. This suits me pretty well. I like Science and I like kids and these, needless to say, are the two key prerequisites for this particular job.

Few students ever say thank you to teachers, even though they might consider you to have taught them reasonably well. And why should they you might ask. After all, as a teacher you are only doing your job.

But every now and then a student does seem to appreciate that, in their estimation, you seem to have given things your best shot and might make some kind of gesture to affirm this. View full article »

Read More & Comment

Fishing Report of July 28

Filed under: Fish and fishing, Fishing reports — Leave a comment
July 28, 2014

It is 36 degrees Celsius in the shade at the moment and the dogs, normally happy to sleep in the shade outside, are stretched indoors cooling their tummies on the tiles. Outside there is not much happening. The cicadas are doing their thing but almost everything else seems to be sitting out the hot hours in whatever shade is available. Here indoors, things are much the same for us. Grandad, who is staying with us for a couple of weeks, is having a snooze on the sofa because the cat is sleeping on his bed while Pippa is crashed out on mine!

Yesterday I spent the evening at the river. I arrived as the sting of the heat was beginning to subside and I stayed, not quite until darkness but until I had just landed a nice fish and didn´t give much for my chances of getting another before darkness arrived. Generally, the fish can be taken throughout the day, although during the mid summer they tend to have times when they succumb to the general torpor that afflicts us all. It is really the comfort of the angler that leads to the decision to approach the river early in the day, or very late. View full article »

Read More & Comment

What the parrot said

Filed under: Fish and fishing, Other bits and bobs — Leave a comment
July 19, 2014

Today some bird told me that I was I was good looking. I was told this not just once but several times. This does not happen to me very often, as it happens, so I felt pretty flattered. More precisely I was called “guapo” the Spanish term for good looking, which is pretty much what you might expect here in rural Andalucía.

Things might have been even better if I had been called “guapo” by a human being but, like I said, it was a bird. My admirer was a red tailed parrot which, I understand, is also known of as an African Grey.

This particular bird was in a cage at a roadside service station on the A357. It had a pretty impressive repertoire which, in addition to “guapo,” included the greeting ¡hola! and I am sure it has a much broader vocabulary had we had time to become better acquainted. It was certainly well able to wolf whistle! View full article »

Read More & Comment

Embalse de Guadalcacín

Filed under: Other bits and bobs — Leave a comment
July 18, 2014

I have fished this huge reservoir, the largest in Cadiz province, several times now, most recently with a little “band of brothers” consisting of myself, my son Leo and a few of his mates and, despite this, I came to realise I knew little enough about the reservoir itself.

I have since tried to make amends and what I have learnt is very interesting. For starters it is the water which has produced the heaviest bass recorded in Spain, a 4 kg whopper. This fish was taken in 2000 by a Malagueno. View full article »

Read More & Comment

The Boys´Fishing Trip

Filed under: Fish and fishing, Fishing reports — Leave a comment
July 14, 2014

We have just returned from the Province of Cadiz, where we spent a couple of nights staying at a place called Tajo del Aguila on the shore of an enormous reservoir called Embalse de Guadalcacín.

The group consisted of me and my son Leo and three of his school buddies, Ryan Edwards, Damian Le Chat Lewis and Daniel Porter. Our aim was to see if we could catch a few black bass on the fly. Leo and Daniel had fished here before but both the reservoir and fly fishing were unknown to the others. View full article »

Read More & Comment

A Brilliant Invention

Filed under: Fish and fishing, Other bits and bobs — 2 Comments
July 10, 2014

When I was a kid, at about the age when I felt my first stirrings of sexual awareness, I came across a rather curious object. It was a pen. It had a picture of a woman in a bathing suit on its side. The curious thing was that when the pen was held upright, as it would be in use, the woman´s bathing costume slid down revealing her naked figure beneath. As far as I was concerned, this was an invention as awe inspiring as any I could imagine. It was right up there with the great pyramids of Egypt and the hanging gardens of Babylon. The human imagination is capable of great things and the “swimming costume” pen was testimony to our creativeness. View full article »

Read More & Comment

Fishing Report 5 July

Filed under: Fish and fishing, Fishing reports, Other bits and bobs — Leave a comment
July 5, 2014

My kids tell me that we are living in the 21st century. Fair enough, I will have to take their word for it. And one of the benefits of living in these enlightened times, they tell me, is that our lives are enriched by technology.

I´ve noticed this myself. If you find yourself in a social situation everyone seems to have their head buried in some little hand held device checking emails, finding out about the bowel movements of their favourite celebrity on Twitter, or just surfing the web. Boring old farts like me, who like to regale fishing stories to whoever happens to be sitting nearby, have our work cut out for us. View full article »

Read More & Comment

Murray Thompson´s Trout

Filed under: Folks I know, Other bits and bobs — 2 Comments
July 3, 2014

Murray Thompson owns a fishing hut up in the high tussock country of central Otago in New Zealand. I have stayed there on a few occasions and, if I could afford either option, which I can not, I would sooner stay in Murray´s  fishing hut than in the honeymoon suite at the Ritz. View full article »

Read More & Comment