Adventure (/ədˈvɛn(t)ʃə/): an unusual, exciting or dangerous experience, journey or series of events, according to its Oxford English Dictionary definition. I’m not sure of the word’s etymology and it would be interesting to find out more, but this isn’t about its origin.

However, if you look for synonyms for adventure, you’ll likely find these: exploit, escapade, deed, trial, experience, crusade, quest, stunt, caper, and eleven more, depending on your literary source. This particular adventure, was all of those, with perhaps the words quest, escapade and caper, standing out in bold a little more than the others. I will elaborate…

I had been working in London for well over a decade, and had been living pretty hard too. Advertising, whilst being very well paid, wasn’t a particularly healthy industry for me to be part of and stress and unhealthy living was beginning to take its toll. I had been relieved of duty at my last and final ad agency as an employee, not an uncommon event in that ruthless world, particularly with ‘creatives’ who don’t necessarily tow the commercial line, people such as myself I can freely admit. So I had three months gardening leave to figure things out and with not a whole lot to do other than mooch around Soho, if I can remember rightly, when it opened at lunchtime, most days I spent in the Toucan off Soho square, staring into what seemed like an endless stream of beautifully well poured pints of Guinness.

Not being someone who back then did things in half measures, I had also just completed a gut renovation on a three story house close to the river, and at the same time, when I was finally legally allowed to, prised myself away from the Toucan to start my own small design agency with an office in Beak street. So maybe that was all a bit much in hindsight. But don’t get me wrong, that decade or more had been a lot of fun. I had been seduced by the apparent glamour of the lifestyle, I had travelled, I’d dined out in most of the best restaurants London had to offer and on someone else’s expense account, and there had been moments when I’d felt indestructible, although I have to admit that wasn’t necessarily a natural high. But despite all that, I had the sense that something was clearly missing and generally speaking I’d hit a wall, a metaphorical one and nothing to do with the renovation. Day to day I couldn’t really find much enthusiasm for anything. I imagine these days we’d quickly identify that as some kind of a mental health struggle, something that someone, who almost seemed to wish for me to stumble, once miserably and uncharitably pointed out to me in my early 20s that I was going to experience at some point in my life. In retrospect, perhaps then it was all a little rash to decide to pack it all in, sell up and move to another country, but I was in desperate need of a change, had no real ties and Portugal seemed like a good idea, plus knowing a few people there already, made things a little easier.

So, a totally new country with a rich and apparently untapped seam of fishing opportunities presented itself and adventure awaited. As it was an era before smart phones, YouTube and drones, I spent most weekends away from the new ‘mad’ home renovation project I’d already subjected myself to, driving around with a handful of maps, sleeping in the back of my trusty Toyota Surf, exploring the lakes and rivers in Portugal and Spain. I’d had a little experience with the latter already, having fished a large reservoir in the late 80’s, Embalse del Vellon I think it was called, catching mostly commons with a handful of beautifully scaled mirrors close to thirty pounds, so I knew carp were there. But whereas France was already a fairly well trodden path, in contrast, Spain and particularly Portugal were still relative unknowns. I’m sure there were already a few who were quietly tiptoeing about trying not to alert the carp grapevine, but not really being part of all that anyway, I did feel a bit like a pioneer and I loved it.

One place in particular piqued my interest was a huge river system. There was 646 miles of it in total, 171 miles of it in Portugal alone and another 445 miles of it in Spain, not to mention the mere 29 miles that straddled the border of both. It was quite a daunting prospect, and picking a good place to start was anyone’s guess. A vast amount of the river seemed really quite inaccessible, so quite sensibly I quickly arrived at the decision that a boat and an echo sounder were probably going to be more useful items than say a bivvy table or a catapult. I’d managed to find a decent 5 metre RIB with a Johnson 40HP engine from a reasonably trustworthy guy in the Algarve. It wasn’t the most inconspicuous craft in gleaming white, and certainly wouldn’t pass anyone’s ‘carpy’ test these days. The boat was in fairly good nick but sputtered a bit so after stripping and cleaning out the carbs – a crash course in marine mechanics for me, it did actually go like stink. In fact if anything, the engine was probably a little bit of overkill for the size of boat, and without a bit of ballast in the pointy end, you’d often run the risk of the thing taking off if you were a little too enthusiastic with the worryingly sticky throttle, more on that later.

So it seemed like I was slowly getting things in order and I now just needed some willing companions and I knew just the duo; my friends from the UK, Rob and Martin. Plans were hatched, flights were booked and before I knew it, they were stepping on to Iberian soil, ready for some adventure, and that’s where THAT word starts to resonate.

We spent a day or so up at my new abode, which sits overlooking one of the big Algarve reservoirs. I figured it was best to kick back for a couple of days and get a better idea of where we were going. I think Martin had less time at his disposal and was due back in the UK a week or so later but Rob, keen to escape some ongoing marital upheaval back in the UK, was in less of a hurry to return. The river system beckoned, but it was not going to be a quick ‘in and out’ escapade, so we decided first on a relatively easy trip to a reservoir in the Alentejo which we’d heard rumours about from a couple of legitimate sources. We packed up the Surf and hit the road arriving a few hours later at our destination, all 3400 acres of it.

If I have learned anything over the years about fishing, it’s that it is a little optimistic to simply rock up anywhere over a couple of acres and expect to catch straight away and even on small venues you’re not always guaranteed immediate success. So there we were standing on the banks of a very large venue, scanning to see if any willing creature might give us a bit of clue. Sadly nothing was obliging, not entirely surprising given it was only the end of March and air and water temperatures were still on the chilly side, so conditions were not exactly stacked in our favour.

Despite the truck being jam packed with kit, we had travelled relatively lightly, opting for a small inflatable, the noble Holiday 200 purchased from a tourist store and repurposed for fishing duties, as opposed to the overpowered RIB. Martin, as was often his way, apart from carrying a load of Rob’s kit like some kind of tackle mule, had also come quite unprepared, bringing with him not much more than a very tight fitting red sleeping bag, which we thought was hilarious and likened to some sort of huge nylon condom.