The Sessions - January 2021
The start of the pellet revolution
I signed off last month having had a poor month fishing wise but writing and enjoyable blog about my fishing friends, I had some lovely feedback, so thank you to everyone that read and enjoyed it.
I did not manage to get out fishing at all in January, with the covid lockdown restricting us to no night fishing and local fishing only, this made things difficult enough and the weather causing severe flooding around my area made any thoughts of local Chub and Perch fishing impossible. The flooding is some of the worst we’d seen since 1999 with the rivers full of mud, raging through and in the fields for most of the month. Here are a couple of photos of the Trent well over its bank.
This gave me nothing to write about so I looked back though my diaries and decided to tell you about a special time when I had little time for English fishing but still managed to get abroad hunting Catfish. The photos are all pre-digital camera so please excuse the quality.
I’d been fishing for Catfish in France since 1991 making from one to three trips a year to the River Saone, I’d watched the Cat Fever video but outside of that very little was known on location and tactics and my friends and I felt we were pioneering back then. On our first trip Kevin Maddocks and his friends pulled up and we were set up in the swims they wanted so we thought we were on the right track, but the fishing wasn’t easy and success was two fish between four of us in ten days fishing, very enjoyable but hard going.
I continued to go with different friends most trips and on 2 June 1999 I hit gold and landed my dream fish at 101 pound along with a 50+, 60+, 70+ and some smaller fish, what a trip but I knew then it was time to move on. I made one more trip that year before deciding my time was up and to move on to the Ebro System in Spain.
None of my friends wanted to make the longer journey especially as we knew very little about it, we were taking our own tackle and driving so it would be at least 24 hours driving before we even saw a river so most called it a day with the foreign trips, although one of my pals still goes to the Saone to this day.
Colin had started Catmaster Tours and we’d already had plenty of contact so with none of my friends up for travelling it made perfect sense to go on a trip with Colin, I was in his second group of customers back in 2001. We hit it off straight away and have been great friends ever since. Six trips later I was part of the Catmaster team, we were fishing partners and experimenting with rigs, bait and fishing out of the main Catfish season trying different areas and colder conditions to improve the experience for the clients. This takes me nicely up to Nov 2003.
2 Nov 2003 – River Segre, Mequinenza, Spain
Up to this point we had been fishing the buoy system with live Eels, a very successful method and I’d had some great fishing hiding on the back of Bird Island with fish to 161, back then it was huge.
Colin had noticed the Bavarian Camp baiting up an area in front of their camp for Carp for a number of days with Maize, one of our TV celebrity fishermen was due over for a trip so they were getting a swim ready. Colin was offering Carp trips and had a group of lads Carp fishing the week before I arrived. He put them downstream of the camp hoping they would intercept fish moving up onto the bait, they were using boilies and Halibut pellets on the hair. Well that is where it all started as they caught a number of Cats on the pellets, enough to get us thinking…..
I arrived at Barcelona for the midday pick up and Colin told me what had happened, we talked about tactics on the two hour drive back to the village and couldn’t wait until morning to start so we got my rods out and headed to the river. The area was in the middle of the village on what we call “the front” which is basically a walkway along the river in the front of the village, very different to places like Vietnam, the High Bank, Bird Island, the Orchard and the Pump House that are all way up the Rio Segre. The front can get busy with people walking and youngsters on their mopeds howling up and down so it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but the fishing more than makes up for it.
It was approx. 18:00, and after a warm sunny Nov day it got very cold, just above freezing as the evening drew in.
We decided to keep the rods up beach caster style to keep as much braid out of the water as possible to stop the tow on the braid. Rod holders were knocked into the path far enough back so people could walk under the lines without any problems. The rig was basic enough, a 6oz lead, two large rubber shock beads, a large strong swivel, a five foot 100kg Dyneema hooklink and an 8/0 hook with between four and six Halibut pellets on the hair. Back then we had to hand drill them with a Nut drill. Once I was set up I hopped in the dingy Colin swung the rig towards me and I rowed out 170 metres to the spot using the echo sounder to locate the deeper area, I dropped the rig over the side and put three good handfuls of pellets over the top. Colin set the rod in the holder, set the clutch and tightened up as I rowed back in for the second rod, I was 20m away from the bank when the rod went over. He struck as I clambered out of the boat handing him the rope and I took the rod and started playing a big powerful fish. With no snags in the area it was just a tug of war and trusting the tackle to do the job, it all went well and an hour into our session I’d caught a PB at 176 pound. Any doubts we had in the bait and location had evaporated and it looked like the pellets were going to be an effective bait to target the Cats. We had no more takes that evening and with a strict no night fishing law we packed up at 23:30 but were both buzzing for the morning.
3 November 2003
We were back down and fishing by 06:00, it was very cold just above freezing and when it’s like that you sit watching and willing the sun to come up over the mountain to start warming the valley up.
We had two takes in the morning, one to me that was missed and one to Colin resulting in a hook pull.
Once the sun came up it was up to 18 degrees and t-shirt weather, it still amazes me how much the temperature can fluctuate in a day there, as by sundown it would be freezing again.
At lunchtime I had a take soon after rebaiting and hooked a big fish that I played into the margins, as I tried to get it up with Colin in the water poised to glove it the hook pulled, on inspection the hook had opened up. The same thing happened again four hours later, so that was enough for me to start looking at hook patterns.
The hooks we were using were the pattern we used for live baiting, they had been very reliable to date and the shape of the hook made it easier to ensure the Eel stayed on, however for some reason they were opening up with the pellet fishing. I had a few theories as to why; one being the take was less aggressive as with a live bait so the hook wasn’t getting right back in the mouth and hooking in the scissors. My thoughts were they were engulfing the patch of bait up and the hook was catching in the front of the mouth and the strip of tough skin behind the jaw bone, so with the wide gap and shape of the hook the pressure of the jaw bone on the hook point was opening the hook up. We discussed this and I agreed to experiment with hooks while Colin would carry on with the pattern we were using and we could compare results.
I tied on a Terry Eustace Catfish hook in a 4/0, they later became the brilliant Gold Label Penetrators, they were a much shorter shank and thicker wire, this was tied on with a Palomar knot and a hair whipped onto the shank with six pellets.
I suffered a hook pull on the next take, however the hook hadn’t opened up this time. The last take of the day went to Colin and he landed a fish at 118 pound but on inspection his hook had opened up very slightly so lots for us to ponder on overnight.
4 November 2021
We were back out early and rowing baits out in the dark and freezing fog. I’d thought my rig through and upped my hook size to a 6/0 for the added strength.
The first take in the fog was to Colin, I was in the water ready when up came a big half albino and the hook pulled, on inspection the hook had opened up again, that was enough for him and he went onto the same pattern as me using an 8/0.
The next two takes were landed safely with no hook problems, both to me at 60 and 137. The fog finally lifted by midday and it was warm again.
We found rebaiting the rods every six hours was about right, to ensure I was confident with this I set a rig up and dropped it into a bucket of river water to check the breakdown level, after six hours they were still ok which then gave me the confidence to leave them out on the rods. I continue to do this most trips as bait ingredients change slightly its always worth checking the break down levels as you won’t catch with no bait on the hair.
Mid-afternoon I had a take soon after rebaiting and landed this lovely fish at 153 pound, this was a picture that ended up centre pages of AT and one of the Sunday papers. Somehow as the trip progressed word had got out and we had a call from the AT and somehow it ended up in the newspaper as well.
I picked up another at 129 pound later in the evening and we packed up early as the level had come up bringing down lots of rubbish making fishing difficult.
6 November 2003.
The previous day had been very cold all day and it was noticeable with only two takes coming to my rods with both landed at 118 and 107, however the Carp fishing had been very good with the lads catching a number of good fish to high 30’s.
By the morning of the 6th the level was back down but it was still very cold and foggy, I had a take straight away with a fish at 96 and then had a bit of a nightmare. I was rebaiting on my own and dropped an oar, it floated for a few minutes and sunk, we had to strip of and wade out and it was ridiculously freezing, Colin got it but we had to retreat to the bar to warm up again.
We were back fishing by teatime and had five takes, Colin landing a 143 and I had two smaller fish, however we both suffered hook pulls on good fish although the hooks hadn’t opened up but it was thinking time again.
The Palomar is a super reliable knot but when the hook link was pulled tight I felt it wasn’t presenting the hook point in the right direction and pulling against the shape of hook rather than pulling the hook in. So I experimented again with something that now looks so sensible and easy but at the time with 100kg hooklink it didn’t seem that way. I whipped on a hair first using 20kg braid and then tied the 6/0 hook on with a knotless knot, with the braid coming out the front of the eye it would pull the hook in rather than working against it.
The concern was with the braid being so thick would it slip over the eye of the hook, and even to this day I still put a granny knot in the tag end even though I’ve never had one go.
7 November 2003
We were fishing again by 06:00. The lads fishing with the guide John Deakin hadn’t had a bite all week on the Eels, they knew we’d had a lot of takes especially for the time of year so moved up with us and swapped over to pellets, and that was the moment where the pellet fishing really took off. With more pellets going in the Cats started to really get on them and despite the freezing cold weather we were catching regularly, a client Geoff had a monster at 179 for his first one. I took two fish, both half Albinos at 110 in the thick fog and 136 later that evening, there were no issues with the rig with everything holding firm. It got so cold that evening we retired to the bar at 21:00, but with two half Albinos landed I was over the moon.
9-15 November 2003
This is where things started to get interesting and looking back very funny, we knew we were onto something special, we’d had lots of takes and although not all landed we had created a lot of attention particularly within the Bavarian Camp as people live baiting had not caught anything and they had seen us playing and landing fish. As the days ticked by we noticed more people walking over, dog walkers being very regular and tourists sitting behind us watching but they were all German……
We knew what they were up too so took precautions. As we were setting up the rigs they were covered with towels until swung into the boat, the fish were gloved in the boat and the pellets taken off before the fish was taken up onto the bank for weighing and photographing, all the buckets of bait were covered so there was no trace. They took to sitting in boats in front of us with binoculars watching as we dropped the rigs in from our boat. Their dog Jacko was down so regular he ended up spending the days with me and the owner having to come and find him as it got dark, I checked there was no camera attached to him…..just to be sure 😊
The funniest thing was we saw them later in the week fishing from the bank using small Eel sections on the hook, it’s amazing what you think you see from a distance through binoculars.
The one disappointing thing was our TV celebrity fishermen treated us the same way and wouldn’t even speak to us, years later we ended up quite friendly and laughed about it looking back.
Their frustration continued to grow through our second week as we were catching every day and they couldn’t get a take, they took to regular drive byes and had people just sitting behind us all day but to no avail, we managed to keep it a secret well into summer 2004.
The fishing got better and better, the rig was working well and we were just having a great time, two likeminded anglers doing what we love. Colin’s son Ashley came to join us in the second week to do some Carp fishing, I think he was 14 at the time and he did really well but the highlight was when he hooked a Cat on 15 pound line, a size 4 hook and a single pellet and played it from the boat for two hours well into dark in freezing conditions with Colin eventually boating it at 187. It was still bringing up pellet and fish when I put a stringer on it and we all agreed it could possibly have been the first 200 pound plus fish if hooked and landed quickly on Catfish gear.
As for my fishing I finished with 21 Cats, 15 over the 100 pound mark which was staggering fishing at the time compared to what we were catching on live baits. As the years ticked by and more pellet went into the river the fishing got better and better for the next 8-9 years with some huge fish caught with fish now just short of 250 pound. When I have another quiet month I’ll cover another 12 month period of that very special time.
To finish off this piece with another funny storey, over the winter of 2003/04 I was up in Kings Norton at Colin’s house for a catch up and we had a visit from a guy called Jason that wanted to show us some Catfish rods he wanted to use on a trip to Meq. Obviously that was just a way in as it wasn’t long before he was asking how we caught so many, we were ready and I played a blinder, I told him in great detail how we caught them, hair rigged dead bleak, six on a hair and the key being to make sure the hair went through the eyes. He fell for it and spent his trip doing exactly that and blanked. It was hilarious and we all became quite good friends for a period and often looked back laughing at that storey over a beer or two.
Looking outside as I write this piece its freezing and even my beloved Mequinenza has experienced its worst winter in years with heavy snow fall making this a lovely photo to finish off with this month.
Until next month, tight lines and be lucky 😊
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