Ebro carping.... The highs & lows part 2

A stuttery take on my left margin rod at 8am sparked me in to a burst of adrenaline fuelled excitement & after a 30 meter sprint the heart was certainly pumping. I wound down & hit the take to be met with something solid, I'm snagged I thought, but a slow head shake made me rethink the situation rather quickly. It felt a weighty fish even on Nick's 3.25tc rods, plodding about & not really doing much as I steadily gained line. This rod had one of nicks fruity flavoured boilies so I doubted this was a catfish, although I'm told they very occasionally they do take these baits.

After slowly gaining line for 5 minutes, 

I loosened the drag as I saw the very top of the 20ft leader as I was told they can thrash about in the margins a bit.

The rod creaked & as I went to loosen the drag further........... & the beast was free, the dreaded hook pull. What a choker & it felt a different beast altogether than the English carp I've caught before. After all that time waiting for a take to loose it was a tough pill to swallow but with two days left maybe the fish were feeding at last. 

Another five hours passed without a touch we decided to slip down into the next swim on the left as we had seen a few more fish moving that morning down that way. Probably the fish were moving right to left, escaping the commotion of the London loudmouths to our right hand side. 

As night fell I could hear Zander snapping at baitfish & decided to get the lure rod out, every lure in the box got an outing over the next few days but not a touch.

I even caught some small bleak & hashed together a single hook trace & a float made of foam but the predators just weren't interested at all.

Talking of livebaits over dinner one night Nick told us of a crazy story he had heard a few weeks back, some locals landed a 250lb+ cat not far from where we were fishing, nothing to amazing about that but he then explained what they used to catch this huge beast.

They looped the line over a far bank tree branch & hooked up a 19lb carp on the business end, yes a 19lber..........

Back to the normal fishing & Mark had a twitch on his left hand rod at around 4am that didn't develop any further & we put it down to a pricked fish as when the rig was retrieved in the morning the lead had been dumped. 

But as dawn broke he had another slow bleep that slowly built momentum, enough to give it a strike anyways & after a fairly uneventful fight that I missed as I struggled to find the zip on my sleeping bag, Mark finally slipped the net under our first Ebro fish.

Estimated at around 17lb, as it was under a 20 we didn't weigh it.

At last a fish on the bank & not the Spanish monster that we hoped for but very welcome indeed when times are hard. We felt slightly more relaxed & more confident, moving on to the final two days fishing. 

Our guide suggested we might put out a pellet on one rod as the carp love them too & as long as we didn't feed heavily & attract the cats. Sounded worth a shout to mix it up & within a few hours a tiny twitch on the formentioned rod was struck.....

I thought it was some floating weed on the retrieve but after a few tiny headshakes I realised it was a fish. I secretly hoped for a big roach, the Ebro has become well known for some huge redfins (up to a colossal 5lb). I know it's not quite cricket to catch them on beefy carp gear but just to see a beastly roach would have been fun, alas I was so wrong.....

It's hard to be to mad with my first ever catfish

A little kitten was swung to hand & I let out a big sigh, this mighty river is testing our resolve but at least the bites were coming..... Slowly, but surely our time in the spotlight was on the horizon, we hoped.......

After another night of crashing carp kept the spirits high (to a certain degree) & then I had a tasty sounding run on my margin rod & that was met with a strong fish bidding for freedom......

I took things very slowly with this chunk, consistently making fine adjustments to the drag after learning from my previous carpy disaster. He came in relatively easily & just as the fish surfaced my legs turned to jelly, this was the leviathan we had come for, about 10 metres out a dorsal fish broke the surface & it was huge, this dorsal was probably a depth of 6 inches or more, followed by a huge paddle tail that was just for a moment, stuck way out of the water. The tail then slapped on the surface with immense power as he bored back down into the murky depths.

A few minutes later he remerged on the surface.... time stood still as I waited for the next powerful run. Drag set fine as he zoomed back under the surface as Nick readied the net & walked into the shallows. The battle was coming to an end & once again my luck ran out at this point, inexplicably the hook pulled just a few meters away from the net......

I've never lost a fish with that amount of disappointment & im not to ashamed to say my eyes welled up. With the rod thrown in the marginal bushes as I trudged off for a walk to clear my head, momentarily stopping to kick various inanimate objects away that dared to cross my path.

Later on Nick remarked it the fish was in the 45lb- 55lb bracket, a true Ebro monster, my dream fish..... But it wasn't to be this time unfortunately.

To add insult to injury some rather rude Romanans decided that they would set up between us & our noisy neighbours, thankfully just about far enough away to not bother us too much. 

As we had to leave at the next day at 3pm our last nite drew in & we reset all our traps & topped up our freebies. Also a group of stubborn Germans started to set up right opposite Mark's swim.

Nick got the dingy out to have a quiet word as we had a couple of rods on far side areas. A polite chat fell on deaf ears & we really started to feel the odds were heavily stacked against us, could we pull of a few last minute chunks or had our time ran & luck ran out. 

At 1am we did get a wake up call but certainly not the kind of interruption we were expecting........

Mark's bivvy was closest to the road & he had to rub his eyes & wake up quickly an angry policeman woke him up, shouting in half Spanish & very broken English.

We showed our licenses & it seemed to take an age for them to sort through the minimal paperwork but finally peace was restored. I dived back into my sleeping & just drifted off when a half awake Mark was outside my bivvy.

He was a bit freaked out by the previous hours shenanigans as I don't think he had fully woke up & thought he dreamed it all.

So I made him a brew & managed to chill him out a bit. Finally around 3am I sneaked back to my bivvy, shattered.

A very early bite never came, Mark & I woke up early to watch the sun come up with a brew & willed the alarms to spark into life.

 

Mark at daybreak, as the sun poked his head over the mountains 

Amazingly another slow jerky bite answered our prayers on my mid water rod, just like the clonker I managed set free the day before.

Once again a similar fight ensued with the heavy head shakes, but In my heart I knew it was smaller than the first, how much smaller was the question ?

As it surfaced I knew it was a decent fish but not in the previous colossal bracket, having said that with a modest pb of 22lb I felt there was a good chance it was a personal best.

Taking my time was a good plan & soon he was wallowing in the margins, Mark readded the net & as I walked back we got him in first time.

I let out a roar that hopefully woke the arrogant Germans, finally I had an elusive Spanish river carp on the bank.

In the cradle it was a pb for sure & as Mark adjusted the scales I felt a monkey loosing his grip from my back.

It had been a testing few days & plenty of lows but now I've got a picture to show my daughters of why I traveled all the way down to mid Spain.

28lb of Ebro muscle & a new pb, but its a catch tinged with sadness at the fish almost double the size that escaped my grasp.

           Hasta luego mi amigo

Just as Mark was getting changed (it's like the fish are watching us at times) one of his rods screamed into life, half dressed he struck into what looked like a decent fish.

Again a slow plodding fight but as he rolled on the surface he tested the drag a little more with a couple of strong runs, just as I readied the net & cradle.

Mark's biggest fish of the trip was netted at last & although he was only a mid 20 it felt good, just a shame our flights were in a few hours time.

        Mark's pristine 25lb carp

Next came the slowest pack up of our lives, at least 3 hours & we left the lines wet for as long as we could, but sadly no more fish took a fancy to our baits.

So with heavy hearts we snoozed on the 3 hour drive back to the airport & dreamed of what might have been.

In summary over four days, we had eight takes, landing four fish if you count my tiny cat. All in all a hugely frustrating but amazing trip to a very special place......

Very much unfinished business I felt &

I hope I will be back sometime very soon 

Ebro carping...The highs & lows, part 1

So as I frantically scrambled around, getting as much work done as possible  in south London on a cold wet Wednesday afternoon..... there's only one thing on my mind.

Big, wild & bronzy river Ebro commons is the stuff of carpy dreams.

I'd freely admit I'm a distinctly average  carp angler & if the truth be told it's not totally my bag, but at times there is nothing better than chilling out bankside while watching the wildlife tick by, keeping an eye out for a few carpy signals to give me hope that one chunk might make an error & suck in my hookbait. 

I'm sure I don't have the patience to be a 24/7 carpaholic & variety of fish & methods definitely keeps me sane but there's a lot to be said for setting up basecamp for a few nites, waiting for that shot of adrenaline when the baitrunner screams into life & the buzzers sing my favourite tune, the old 1 toner.

After a mad dash to pick up my Carp addict mate Mark, we sped off to gatwick & in the end had plenty of time to chill & get some grub down our necks. Over a beer we discussed all things "Cyprinus carpio" & honestly we weren't sure what to expect from the next 96 hours of carpy-camping in the wilds of mid Spain.

 

We had chosen Nick Shattock as our guide for our Spanish odyssey, his Facebook page is a testimony to his wealth of knowledge of this captivating & challenging river.

He & his clients have banked countless huge carp to 59lb & with the average size of 27lb, these untamed river lumps certainly fit the bill as my kind of carpy nirvana.

The idea of our trip like this all started when Mark sent me a link to a video on YouTube where Nick guided carp ledge Steve Briggs & he filled his boots with plenty of chunks up to 37lb. Both Mark & I felt this was our kind of fishing & had to give this a bash soon as we could.

Back to gatwick & typically our enthusiasm was dampened a touch with a delayed & turbulent flight. But as we landed we were buoyed again receiving a call from our guides friendly wife Mandi, she pointing out that Nick's dad Andy would be at the airport to collect us & her description of him did make us laugh "just look for the Father Christmas lookalike". She was spot on & we spied him from a large crowd as soon as we collected our luggage. Then it was a two hour journey back to the Shattock household for our last sleep in a proper bed for a while.

Weaving through & over the mountains we quickly sped to our desination as there was no traffic at all at this time of night.

The drive didn't pass without incident though, as we hit the crest of a hill, a pair of deer were standing slap bang in the middle of our lane, within a second or so we were too close & typically they just froze in the headlights. With a sharp bang one of these unfortunate beasts was under the car & possibly a glancing blow to the other deer, all I saw as I was half asleep was a leg flying over the windscreen & I certainly woke up quickly. 

Andy said "ooooopppppssss" at the moment of impact & then as we sped off again he quipped "anyone for venison !"

Upon arriving at the Shattocks Andy assessed the damage to the car & suprisingly it was minimal as the pic below shows.

Amazingly just the front grill was missing

Some well needed shut eye was very much needed & Nick's wife showed us to our rooms for the night & we slept like logs.

Up early-ish & a well needed cooked breakfast out of the way, Andy was behind the wheel for the two hour journey to the river, as last !! We hoped for a less  traumatic journey this time & thankfully it passed without incident. 

Nick had been baiting up a swim for us from the night before so as we made a pitstop for food & water both Mark & i found it hard to concentrate on anything but carp but we knew we would be making our first cast into the unknown so very soon.

Rugged landscape, but just like a millpond & beautifully serene

As Nick greeted us along a beautiful section of the river he had good & bad news.......

Good stuff first & the carp were boshing all over the place last nite as he baited up a few likely spots. He'd also flicked a rod in the margins & had a mid 20 early that morning, but........

The bad news was a group of loud cockney lads turned up at first light & set up right next to where our bait was so carefully placed & were being generally antisocial. They piled in bucket after bucket of pellet for the cats, so Nick made a decision to move a bit upstream but unfortunately meaning that we were having to start again with the prebaiting. Not a great start but these things happen from time to time, thankfully we were now far enough away to not even hear the loud racket that they were making & thank god for that.

So of course we got the baits out (Nick's homemade Prodigy boilies in three fruity flavours) at various spots that Nick had suggested & 20 odd freebies over the top of each bait, also attaching a few halfs on a pva stringer.

Mid water was just about my limit with the casting at first, but I gained in confidence throughout the trip & improved my distance a little. The far bank baits were slightly easier as we rowed them out in nick's little blowup dingy, as we sat back for 10 minutes it was not a time to rest on our laurels just yet.

Time to help Nick get the bivvys & bedchairs out so we didn't have to rush as the sun was looking to hide behind the mountains in an hour or so.

      Traps set, come on you Spanish chunks 

Mark did us proud with a great meal & as we sat back as darkness fell with a beer in hand, bliss. 

Stargazing & watching shooting stars we pondered if the carpy gods would be smiling down on us.

An uneventful night passed but we heard quite a few big fish topping in the area & as the sun came up we watched a few jumping about. We knew the fish were in the area so that, in a way it settled our nerves & it would just be a waiting game for the first bit of action.

We waited & waited & waited some more with only a few liners here and there.

Doubts start to creep into our minds, did the rig tangle on that last cast & should I put some more bait out.......

Nick reassured us & said often the first 24 hours are quiet & be patient. The next day came & went, with hope fresh in our minds we stayed as positive as we could. Early on the next morning a chance finally came our way............