Hi there, I’m Dave, a 65-year-old retired welder from Cornwall, England. I now live near the Embalse de Orellana in Extremadura. On this website you'll find expert insights on the best fishing spots in Spain, guides & recommendations, plus personal stories of my experiences on the water.
I was at the lake by seven. Too early for anyone sane, but the light looked good and the air had that cool stillness before the insects wake up. Coffee from the flask, bread already drying at the edges. The float sat clean in the water, just a faint ripple. Nothing for the first hour. …
Lake looked fine at seven. Flat as a plate. I set two rods off the shallow spit opposite the pines. Method on one, simple inline on the other. 12ft 3.25s, 0.35 mono, fluoro links because this water is usually too clean for my liking. Washed-out yellow wafters, cage stuffed tight with crushed maize and pellet. …
I was just looking for a sandwich. That’s all it was. Took the wrong turn off the CV-something-or-other near a lake I hadn’t fished in years. The sign was bent, maybe hit by a tractor or just neglected. One of those villages where the shutters are always halfway down, even when it’s not siesta. There …
Trevor turned up wearing a sunhat big enough to shade a caravan and holding a rod tube that looked like it had been nicked from a skip. Hadn’t seen him in years. He used to come out every now and then with the lads, but life happened — dodgy hip, some drama with his daughter, …
Let me say this first: if your bait alarm costs less than your last takeaway, you’re fishing with a lie. You can’t trust a shrill little beep from a knock-off unit you bought off a bloke called Kiko behind a petrol station. I learned that the hard way. Middle of the night, two summers ago, …
I don’t like to admit this, but I screamed. Not a little yelp. Not a manly grunt. A proper full-throated squeal. Like a goat falling off a cliff. It was a bee. Not just any bee—a mutant, sunburnt, Spanish demon bee with wings like bin lids and the attitude of a nightclub bouncer. It dive-bombed …
You ever gone fishing for a quick afternoon and ended up sleeping in your car because your mate left the radio on for six hours? We didn’t mean to. Honest. It was supposed to be a short one—pop down to Embalse de Mequinenza, chuck a few lures, maybe spot a zander if the water was …
I’ve made some dreadful decisions in the heat. Once welded a hull in Seville in August wearing jeans. Another time I tried to sleep inside a zipped bivvy with three mozzies and a gas stove. But that Saturday on Buendía—me, Glenn, and Rafa—takes the flan. The sun was mean. Not cheeky, not “ooh grab a …
I still dream about it sometimes. Not the fish, though that catfish bent my rod like it owed him money. No—I dream about the silence. That heavy, Spanish kind of silence that wraps around you like an old jumper soaked in olive oil and sun. Orellana. Embalse de Orellana, to give it the full church …
It started with a pub bet and ended with a sunstroke-induced hallucination involving a talking carp. Summer of ’96. Maybe ’97. Back in Sunderland, we’d just had the wettest June since records began, and we were sick of dragging our gear through ankle-deep mud for a shot at a single sad tench. Then someone—I think …