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Thread: Portugal - seeking trout streams in and around Serra da Estrela

  1. #1
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    Default Portugal - seeking trout streams in and around Serra da Estrela

    will be travelling to Portugal soon, hoping to visit Serra da Estrela for a day or two if family permits. although i have fished the northern extremities of Portugal i havent had the portinuty to fish this mountain range besides playing in the snow and buying the famous goat cheese. has anyone here had any experience in this region, any help with streams not to be missed would be a great help
    thanks for reading

  2. #2
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    after a month's stay in portugal, mostly spent doing maintenance work to the house, in a way sad but happy to be back in the s.a.
    my wife and daughter met with me somewhere in the middle of the stay for two weeks, we visited many villages, churches, castles and coastal beaches in and around my home town of villa de nogueira in azeitao near setubal about 30kms south of lisbon. during their stay we took two days to visit the mountain range of serra de estrela. the village of choice was manteigas, situated in upper reaches of the river zezere. the initial plan was to visit or should i say fish both rivers, zezere and mondego but time only allowed for zezere.
    After a 360km of travel we booked into the hotel berne, a lovely appointed hotel with pool, games room and restaurant with homemade chow, very clean and well appointed rooms. After checking in we went to town to sample the beer, wine, cheese and of course to get intel about the fishing. A annual national freshwater fishing license was purchased for less 7 euros, contacted the responsible group to arrange a beat or two and only to be disappointed, they only allowed fishing on thursdays, saturdays and on public holidays (was visiting only for a tuesday and wednesday) but was allowed to fish the lakes at any time once a daily fee of 20 euros was paid at the authorities. No thank you, my interest was stream/river fishing and the only option I had was to fish downstream from a village called sameia about seven kms from manteigas. Without any delay we drove to scout the river at sameia. Just below the this village we came across a resort with a ski pad, camping and swimming beach with a lovely kiosk to kill the thirst and snacks after a days fishing, all this on the banks of the zezere river, at least I had something to wet a line the following day. we drove back to manteigas to visit the hatchery before the sun set. Funny thing was that no one had answers or knowledge of the trout in the hatchery except for a dog that accompanied us. This dog was super friendly and knew his way around the the hatchery, no jokes, he nudge us on from to pool to pool with paused for two or three minutes inbetween then back to the car, like a true guide. Apparently this type of dog is indeginous to the area and no one knows the species name, actually no one knows nothing in this village, not even what trout species they have. My best guess was two species of trout, a definite brown trout (with a silvery colouration) and the second, a very dark cross mix between a brown and rainbow.
    The following day, after a continental breakfast, headed to the stretch of river below sameia. what I saw the day before wasn’t to be, I thought I saw trout, what I landed was a specie of fish native to river (only find out later the locals call it “peixe do rio” – river fish in English, damn porras couldn’t find a half decent name for them, so I did, named them George after the bar tenders name). hundreds of them ranging from fry to 10 or 11 inches in length, profile and behaviour like trout. they turned out to be like our small mouth yellows. My rod of choice was the horizon lls 1wt rod with a hand tied 15 ft leader, 7x tippet and a wide selection of dries. After a long struggle to hook one, found they couldn’t leave the zak fly alone in rapid water. Caught plenty but the bigger ones were just too smart for the fly. after about a several kms of river and 13 hours of fishing I retreated to the kiosk for some well deserved cold frosties, not a single trout was spotted. later, a shower and scrumptious dinner meal at the hotel, plenty of port and other delicate drinks before bed for some needed rest before trekking back home.
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    Last edited by dollar; 21-07-17 at 12:52 PM.

  3. #3
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    nice one dollar sounds like a great adventure.
    Doug Larson said, "If people concentrated on the really important things in life, there'd be a shortage of fishing poles."

  4. #4
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    Thanks for the report. Those trout are clever.
    Korrie Broos

    Don't go knocking on Death's door, ring the bell and run like hell. He hates it. (anon)
    Nymphing, adds depth to your fly fishing.
    Nymphing, is fly fishing in another dimension

  5. #5
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    thanks guys.
    trout are not indeginious to these waters, all are stocked from the hatchery. pretty sure they are stocked in a regular basis to control/managed waters and stocked on other parts of the river for the occasional comp to accomadate the numbers of participating anglers. my guess, the control waters have wiers or dam walls restricting trout movement. also guessing this goes for the other river, mondego aswell. unlike the northern provices of portugal bourdering spain, but had a great time anyways.
    cant wait for the next trip to portugal to fish the northern parts again, much better than the central parts (serra de estrela).
    btw, other fly fishing i had was on the salty stuff, here i caught plenty mullet, cast after cast, any pale colour fly did the trick. fished them in lisbon, setubal, troia, arrabida, sesimbra and other spots, was lucky enough not to be caught the officials, some places had a total band on fishing and if caught fines of up to 3000 euros from what i heard. i had never had mullet so easily take a fly. other fish caught were maasbankers (carapau), garfish and blacktail.

  6. #6
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    Hi

    I recently got back from a 2 week trip to spain and also tried my hand at some DIY trout fishing, and was pretty similar experience to what you have described above. After a few days of research and investigation on how to get hold of license we drove 2 hrs to Leon and paid 17 euro for a annual tkt from the local wildlife office. Then popped into the local fly shop where got some great advice on where on can fish with the annual license, and bought some coq de leon (cost 2-5 euro for one plume of 12!).


    The next day caught a nice brown on dry on an amazing river before the dam upstream turned the river chocolate brown, later I tried some other spots in the pyrenees down near barcelona but only saw very small browns and local barbs in the local streams.

    If you ever feel like the drive next time you are in portugal, I would take a trip out to leon in spain the rivers are beautiful and good fishing to be had if you have the patience to figure out the complexities of spanish bureaucracy.

  7. #7
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    thanks Maxwink for the heads up, portugal boundering spain (geres - xures) is my next target, leon also looks and sounds fantastic, who knows

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