Camping at the lake

A notice board at a beauty spot we visited had asked walkers not to feed the wildlife ‘as it may change their diet’. This doesn’t appear to have been a detriment to Herring gulls in the UK, as they seem to thrive on meals of fish & chips and ice cream. In fact I read today that they are a protected species and the nest a pair have made on top of a police car in Bridport cannot be disturbed until the young have fledged!

At this beautiful lake where we camped overnight at another suggested ‘wild place’, a fisherman arrived at about the same time as the sun was warming our canvas, urging us to get up.

He was ready to chat as soon as I emerged with my morning cuppa but was a little less engaging once I’d told him I was Inglese. Of course that was more a language issue than anything else and I reassured him that I could converse in Spanish, This isn’t exactly true but a Carp in England is a Carp in Spain so we were off to a good start.

Fortunately for this friendly guy there were no notices about changing the diet of the Carp in this lake. It was just as well, as his first activity was to launch about 500Kg of ground bait that could easily be from yesterday’s menu del dia, using this fishing line bomb. It explodes on impact and dumps the contents in the water. This attracts the fish to his casting area and they later jump onto his hook.

He seemed to know what he’s doing but the Carp were having none of it! There’s a lot of standing and even more sitting in this form of the sport, as once the fishing lines are ‘out’, dangling the hook below the float, the fisherman does nothing except check the rod for movement.

This lake and several others are known as Mar de Castilla it’s a huge expanse of beautiful blue water, east of Madrid, with forest and rocky outcrop slopes. We had a perfect night and a great most of the next day pitched just above the waterline.

The shoreline is very accessible and maybe it gets busy sometimes. We could honestly have stayed there for a week. The water was a lovely temperature and the sun strong and warm.