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.
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.....
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.
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.
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.
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
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