The Sessions - February 2021
Spanish Boat fishing for Carp
I signed off last month having looked back at the start of the pellet revolution fishing for Catfish in Spain, having suffered another month of little fishing with one trip in Feb I looked back through my diaries again and will tell you about my boat fishing for Carp in Spain.
22 February 2021 – River Ouse
During February I managed to get out once for a day on the Ouse. Jerry and I had three nights booked on Collingham after being invited by our pal Lewis Baldwin, the Covid restrictions very disappointingly killed that but I kept the annual leave and thought I’d try and fish locally. The Ouse was still very high and coloured, being weir controlled it takes a lot longer to settle down than other rivers, so I spent an afternoon walking the section with a leading rod and found it to be quite fishable but the banks treacherous and I very nearly slipped into 10 feet of muddy water and went home covered in mud.
I returned the following day mid-morning and fished up to 19:00 in two different spots, one rod on double 15mm Asbo and the other on meat. You’re chasing shadows at the best of times and winter makes it harder so it was no surprise that I blanked other than a Pike banging the rod over and biting me off on the meat. However it was nice to be out by the water again and I had the best of both worlds with nature, the best part being a Muntjac trying to creep past right behind me and the worst being an Otter coming up under my feet an hour into the session. People have their own opinions and views on Otters, they are lovely to see but our river systems cannot sustain the amount that have been released and yes nature eventually finds a balance but that may be too late for many, we can only hope they start to predate on Crayfish and Mitten Crabs as their main food source.
This is the longest period I’ve had away from any serious fishing for eight years and with the gyms being shut it’s been a difficult period that we can all hopefully look back on in a years’ time and smile about, let’s all keep our fingers crossed for normality and better times ahead. I haven’t been to Spain or seen Colin since Oct 2018, I miss Meq and I miss my friend so we both hope the vaccine has the right effect and we can get back to chasing dreams together. Our main target when fishing in Spain is always Catfish but when the right opportunities arise the Carp fishing can be brilliant and not to be missed.
11- 24 Nov 2007 – Rio Ebro, Mequinenza, Spain
My first experience of Carping from a boat came about on this trip in funny circumstances. We’d been fishing for Cats for the first week and really struggled, with Colin having a 98 and me a 160 on the sixth day. For some reason the Catting in 2007 was poor, the numbers and weights were down throughout the season and our trip was the same. So we made the decision to Carp fish for the second week as we’d seen loads crashing out in an area by an old submerged orchard. I had two of the clients with me and we were all doing well with me rowing the baits out 170-180m with my first fish being a 38 pound Common.
This is where the funny circumstances came about, now Colin and I do like to do “after hours fishing” and fishing in November we generally got away with it when fishing in out of the way areas. But the downside to doing well is jealousy and on this trip there is no doubt the police had been tipped off we were fishing and every time we moved. We moved every 24 hours when Catting and they appeared every day and night trying to catch us out, so it wasn’t worth the risk to fish at night. In the second week the Carp fishing was so good and we were all catching but reeling in at night and then listening to fish crashing out all night over our spots, so there was only one thing for it, we got the cabin cruiser out for the Friday night.
We left the shelters and bedchairs in the swim with one of our guides Ashley Scott and the clients. Colin and I got the boat loaded and launched and motored down the Ebro to the edge of the orchard but a little upstream of the lads so as not to disrupt their fishing. We tied off to one of the trees and lowered a mud weight off the front so we were able to fish into the deeper channel but right on the drop off. We both fished two rods each on single halibut pellets and baited up with a scattering of the same. We started catching straight away and it was non-stop all night but the funniest thing was watching the police. We saw them driving down along the river and due to their blue light being on permanently we were able to track their route. They stopped and caught a few people and were definitely looking for us, it was hilarious as they went all along one bank, over both bridges and along our bank but couldn’t work out where we were. Ashley was panicking and kept calling to warn us but we knew we were safe and we went on to have 27 Carp with lots of 30’s in the one nights fishing, it was brilliant and definitely something we wanted to try again.
May 2013 – Rio Segre, Mequinenza, Spain
I’d been going over every year anything from two to four trips a year and although the Catting had slowed down since 2006 we still had some great fishing with some huge fish. Some of the trips were Carp trips but all from the bank and I had some brilliant fishing with fish to 50-08 that I’ll cover in another blog. My next opportunity with a boat was this trip. I’d gone over for a week’s Carping, it was very hot and I was struggling as they were just not in the areas accessible from the bank in any numbers, I had fish to 31 pound but ended up Roach fishing a lot of the time taking Roach to 2-04 and Rudd to 2-14.
The fish were clearly in the shallow water and well out of the way of Catfish. The answer was to take out one of the boats and sneak up into the nature reserve, which was a no fishing zone, for an evening session. Colin asked me to take a client with me so I agreed and we got to the area for 18:00 and I lowered mud weights from both ends of the boat to keep us stable. The water was only two feet deep and the fish easy to spot with their backs out of the water or a patch of mud as they moved around, it was easy to see the patrol route and where to place a bait. The key was to be quiet and stealthy, everything in the boat had its place and we needed to sit still after flicking the rigs out. Unfortunately the client didn’t read the script and couldn’t stop moving, recasting and dragging his bag and bait bucket along the bottom of the boat. It was proving very frustrating as there were fish everywhere but moving away from us due to noise. Once I got him “sorted” the fish came back in and I quickly had two upper 20’s and lost a fish. After an hour I saw a big fish going towards my rig, it went down and the rod tapped over, I lifted into it and had to really put the pressure on to stop it getting into a snag, it all went to plan and I lifted the mesh around a cracker at 41-10. We’d out stayed our welcome so I took us back after photographing this lovely fish but made a mental note to return on my own.
I went back the following evening on my own, the presentation and boat handling was difficult due to a strong wind but I had another 30 plus and this 41-06 to finish off a very difficult trip but one in which I learnt a lot.
April 2015 – Rio Ebro, Mequinenza, Spain
I made three trips in 2014, two Catfish and one Carp and on the Carp trip in Oct we had a great catch of big Carp fishing from a new area we’d found fishing from the bank.
We planned for a return to that area in April 2015 but unfortunately we’d been spotted the previous year and people had been fishing the area quite regularly, this can go one of two ways, the regular bait can bring fish into the area or the pressure can drive them away. There was only one way to find out so we started in that area. My tried and trusted tactics for the Ebro / Segre are a single Halibut pellet tipped with one piece of fake corn, lowered in by boat with a cup full of Tigers and Maize and six to ten pellets each drop in. Too much bait just attracts Catfish. The fishing was not as good as the previous year although we did catch two forties each but there were long periods of inactivity and regular drive byes from the Police so night fishing was out. The other issue was Romanian Gypsies, there was a large group of them in the village that Spring who had managed to come in in small groups and before the locals realised they were there in numbers. They were constantly walking up and down the river, would make out they were tourists and take pictures next to our rods and bivvies, when really they were just “pricing up the gear”, it wasn’t comfortable fishing at all. As a side note, they were caught committing burglaries in the middle of the day later that summer, the Spanish Police do not mess about and they were “persuaded” to leave town…….
For the last few days of the trip we took to the cabin cruiser and found a large group of fish in the Ebro / Segre confluence. We kept the boat there and used a dingy to go in and out for showers and food, it was great as we could get away with night fishing and the issue with the Gypsies was sorted as they couldn’t get near us. We were testing the Nash Scope 9 foot rods at the time and this was their first outing and really put them to the test. We caught loads, it was ridiculous with lots of thirties coming to the boat and in beautiful surroundings. Fishing in a boat does present problems and this one was quite funny, Colin has put on a few pounds in recent years and when we’re sleeping opposite sides of the boat it tips towards him making it difficult for me to stay on my bed and not fall into the gap between the beds, coupled with his deep snoring sleep was not always good, so it was just as well the fishing was.
May 2016 – Rio Segre, Mequinenza, Spain
With more people Carp fishing it was definitely better especially in Spring to go out in a boat to find them, more often than not they’d be in the shallow inaccessible areas that couldn’t be reached from the bank. Colin had got back into bird watching so wasn’t fishing as much so I decided to boat fish for the whole trip and just do dawn to dusk. One essential piece of equipment I haven’t covered so far is a prodding stick, I’d never boat fish without one as it enables me to find the slightly harder areas, clear areas and test the depth as I’m slowly motoring up and down the river. I don’t use anything fancy or expensive, just a long piece of bamboo I got from the river, it’s perfect and stays packed away with my tackle in Spain.
This was a tough trip as the river was in flood, when that happens they drop the level to prevent flooding but it was racing through and chocolate brown. The area we were fishing in 2015 was totally out of the water as seen in this photo.
I still managed to catch a lot of Carp to mid-thirties and had a Catfish smash my Scope into four pieces but it was noticeable the Carp fishing was getting tougher.
April / May 2017 – Rio Segre, Mequinenza, Spain
I covered this trip in some detail in my 2017 blogs so it would be wrong to go over it all again here but suffice to say this was probably the highlight of my boat fishing for Carp. It wasn’t any easy trip with a lot of moving to find fish which isn’t easy on your own constantly pulling mud weights up out of the silt and trying to position the boat in strong winds. I played around with my rig on previous trips and felt I had it right with a combi-rig giving me everything I needed.
The hard work paid off with two very good fish at 47-06 and a real Segre brute at 50-02 in the middle of a sunny day. Give me a river fifty over a pudding fed lake seventy any day.
May 2018 was a washout, the river was in flood the whole two weeks and I struggled to find any fish in areas I could hold bottom catching only two twenties, to top it all I broke a rod while trying to position the boat so gave up and went birding with Colin.
As I finish this piece I’ve got all my fingers crossed we may see the lockdown eased and get out fishing properly again by the end of March, I’ve got plans for Tench and Crucians but let’s see what Boris has to say first….
Until next month, tight lines and be lucky 😊
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