Tag Archive: outdoors


Only an idiot would go fishing on a Monday or, for that matter, on a Thursday. Where I am in Cantabria, if the guardia civil caught you in the act of trying to catch a trout in the local section of the Ebro on either of those days they would land you with a fine that would make your head spin.

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I have just come back from the reservoir at El Chorro where my cunning plan had been to extract a carp from the margins. I´m afraid I have to report (once again!) that I had no success. The last time I fished there I brought a foolish young dog that proceeded to leap into the water and charge up and down the shallows, scaring the hell out of the carp and every other aquatic organism in possession of a nervous system and so my lack of success was not unexpected.

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The black bass at Concepción can be contrary and moody creatures, given to ignoring whatever we might tie to the end of our lines to tempt them. But yesterday evening, for reasons best known to themselves, they decided that they were going to play ball. Whatever we were offering they were having it, and then some. No questions asked.

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I don´t know which one of us is thicker, me or my dog Sable. We have not had her for very long and I suspect that if you asked those who know us both which of the two of us was the brighter most would say that it is very likely the dog. Sable, they might tell you, has the edge in terms of cerebral firepower, if only by a whisker.

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Yesterday morning I took my little trio of newly-tied carp flies to the reservoir at El Chorro to see whether I might come across a carp to tell me whether or not they were up to scratch. As mentioned previously, the carp here may or may not put in an appearance. They´re kind of moody.

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Sean and I spent a few hours fishing Lough Guitane in County Kerry on our last fishing day together last week. Guitane is about 10 km from Killarney and, at over a mile in length, it is a reasonably big lough, though it will raise few eyebrows in the west of Ireland. 

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