Caspe, River Ebro.

Shit, especially for anglers who rather go with their wifes than their fishing buddies lmao

Haha, no good not signing in- i still know its you Bri! when you next on the Split? we aint fished together for weeks, i dont like it when i have'nt got anybody to cook my tea lol.

I'm off down there next thursday for 3 nights, without fail . 

oh well in case it will have to wait until i come back from Caspe. Also, are you aiming to have a go for the zeds while the Linley bank is still open?

I doubt it m8 i probably fish the split till October then go for the Zeds after that, have you been up Coombe yet? its worse than the split for weed at the moment, hardly any open water just holes to fish to, they deffo got to start sorting that place out soon

No i have'nt been up. Sounds like it may have to wait until after the first frosts. I'll probably fish the the cats til the end of October, with a few barbel sessions thrown in and then up to Coombe November time. All depends on the weather really. i still want a winter cat so i may have the odd session on woodys as well.

If you want ebro info, follow the link to ebro adventure and get in touch with marc, he is based in caspe. Drop him a line. Got some photos to put on of a 50,80 and 100lb all on the boat at the same time.

Cheers karl.

Just had a text off Dave, sounds like he had a good weekend has had cats of 138, 112, 104, 64 and one around 50ish plus a pb common carp of 31lb Well done that man, what a tosser though for not taking me

what a tosser though for not taking me

-bps1

I think you should send him to Coventry Brian, lol

Hi Guys,
Well where do i start? As Bri says i had a right result. However it was bloody hard work, and not all plain sailing. So here is how the weekend went:

Friday Night: Myself and Jackie were picked up from Zarogoza airport by our guide Gary Sheridan (Carp Dream Fishing). On the way back we had a chat about the type of fishing we would be doing and my level of experience etc. gary also warned me at this stage that it was fishing very hard at the mo, but said that he would try his hardest to find me a few fish.
After the hour long trip in to Caspe we arrived at our apartment, which was spot on. Gary then showed us to the local bar/restaurant and arranged for packed lunches for the next days fishing for myself and Jackie. Gary then arranged to pick us up at 9am for fishing and me and Jackie settled down to a couple of beers.

Saturday: Down to the restaurant at 8am for breakfast. The menu is the same as the evening menu so bacon, egg and chips it was then! My missus now thinks i'm a tramp but what can you do? a mans gotta eat! We were picked up by Gary at 9am for the 1/2 hour drive to a well known area of the river called Tyre Tracks. Upon arrival this is where i had my first massive shock. I expected virginal banks and not another soul in sight - what i was confronted with was piles of rubbish everywhere and what looked like an open match on the Trent! There must have been 30 guys in a 1/2 mile stretch with at least 100 rods in the water! Even Gary was suprised how busy it was. This is when i got my second shock, Gary explained that most of these fishing were Eastern Europeans fishing for the pot, and it was these that made all the mess. We managed to set up at the down stream end of all this lot. Gary set up 3 cat rods on big 8oz leads with 1 rod being baited with squid, 1 rod with pellet and one with squid and pellet. These rods were all boated out about 3/4 of the way across, about 50 yards from each other with a bucket of pellets dropped over the top of each rod. These rods were fished beachcaster style. Gary then set up a couple of carp rods on standard semi fixed, 4oz leads and pva bags. one was baited up with a 25mm pellet and the other with 4 16mm pellets. These were fished on alarms.
After a couple of hours one of the carp rods went off and i was into my first Ebro fish, which was a common of about 18lb. After another couple of hours one of the carp rods went again and i was into another fish of the same stamp, however this one managed to throw the hook right at the net.
Mid afternoon Gary asked if i would be ok with the rods as he was going to take the boat a few hundred yards downstream, to where another guide was, on the other side of the river to see if they had located any fish. Off Gary went and off course the inevitable happened. All of a sudden the bell on one of my cat rods sounds like jingle bells on high speed, i looked up to see my right hand rod bent over to an alarming degree. I ran down the bank, lifted the rod out of its stand wound down to the fish and struck. Then i held on for dear life as a very large and angry cat powered off down stream. After about 80yards i managed to stop its first run, all this time i was shouting, well screaming actually, to Jackie, who was asleep in the jeep, to put the butt pad on me. She got the butt pad on just as the cat stopped its first run, i then managed to pump the cat back upstream for about 20 yards, the fish then decided it didnt want to come upstream and powered off again. The rod was hooped over, the clutch was clicking away and then....nothing! The fish had come off! Gutted, i wound the rig back in to find that the hooklink knot had gone! At this point a few choice expressions were shouted, i stripped the butt pad off and sat and had a fag. Gary then came round the corner in the boat, saw the rod up the bank, the pad on the floor and me looking gutted. When i told him i had just lost a biggy due to his knot going his face just dropped. He was gutted for me and just kept repeating for the rest of the afternoon how gutted he was for me. That was all the action for the day and we packed up at 6.30 so we could get back into town, so that me and Jackie could go out for a meal.

Sunday: Pick up was at 8am and off to a stretch known as Badgers, When we got there we had a romanian to our right with 3 rods out fishing again for the pot. Through the day i witnessed the disgraceful sight of 3 carp, all 20's being held on stringers so they could be killed to eat. gary had a go at the bloke and managed to save one of the carp. We also had some guys further upstream illegally longlining to bouys again for the pot. Downstream and on the other bank we had 2 guys set up with 14 rods spread along 100m of bank! I had said to Gary that i wasnt really interested in the carp rods so he set up an extra cat rod for me, and a carp rod for himself. Mid morning Gary grabbed himself a 34lb common carp. About lunch time one of my rods gave a dew taps and slowly bent over. i wound down and struck into the fish. A couple of minutes later i had my first Ebro cat on the bank, unfortunately it was a kitten of about 5lb! That was all the action for the day. By now i was thinking 'shit, this may be going a bit pear shaped'. We were leaving tomorrow night and i hadn't landed a decent fish. After we packed up, Gary, who was nearly as desperate as me to catch, drove me down to several well known areas to see if cats were showing. Nothing was happening anywhere on the river! Gary decided that the following day we would fish a little known mark a few miles upstream that could only be reached by boat and therefore would receive far less pressure.

Monday, the final day: Pick up at 8am, this time without Jackie the jinx, 20mins by road and a very bumpy ride down a really rough track for about 20 mins down to the river, Then a 1/2 mile boat ride upto the swim. We were only fishing til 3pm as we had to drive to Zaragoza for the flight home that night. 4 cat rods went in, followed by a carp rod and we settled down at 9.30. We could see fish were in the swim and so we were really fired up. After 20 mins one of my rods gave a gentle knocking, Gary picked the rod up after another gentle pluck,wound down and struck. 'Your in' he shouted handing me the rod as it hooped over. he then fitted the pad round my waist as the cat charged off. After a few minutes of pumping the rod, then the cat running and then getting the line back in again the leader knot slowly appeared out out the water. Gary, who was waist deep in the river with his glove on, held the leader knot and slowly drew the fish towards him while i took in the slack. A massive head slowly appearred and Gary chinned the fish he turned to me grinned and simply said ' its well over a ton mate' i was buzzing ,the pain in my back and arms disappeared instantly and i was in the river with him. The fish was slinged and weighed and Gary looked at me with a grin stuck out his hand and said '138, your first ton fish, well done you bloody deserve every pound of it'. The photos were taken and she was slipped back into the river. i was grinning like a Cheshire cat as i changed my slime covered tee shirt and we boated the rod back out.
After another 1/2 hour one of the rods went away again, a good positive bite, and i would down and struck. After another hard fight, my second ton-up fish was in the sling at 112lb. I had been fishing for less than an hour and a half and i had 2 fish over the ton mark! Things then went a bit quiet for an hour until another bite just after 12. After a lively fight off a fish that was clearly not as big as the first 2 a cat of 64 was photoed and released. Half an hour later one of the rods went away again and i was into a fish that absolutley screamed off. This felt a really big fish as it sreamed 180 yards downstream from where it was hooked. In doing this it charged through 2 of my other rods  so it was a case off knit one pearl onr for gary with the other rods while i held on to a very large and angry fish. I started to make some headway on the fish and 10 minutes later the leader knot rose into view. Gary gloved the fish and we were both very suprised when we saw the size of her. She tipped the scales at 104lb and was a very long fish. She was still a ton fish but by the way she fought both myself and Gary expected a much larger fish.
Twenty minutes later Gary was out in the boat rebaiting a couple of rods, when his carp rod screamed off, I hit the fish and felt a solid resistance on the other end, after a good fight, Gary, who was back on land by now, netted a lovely looking common for me. The fish tipped the scales at 31lb and was a new pb common carp for me. This session was unreal! 40 mins later a cat rod went again and i landed my 5th cat of the day. i know this is a bit blase` but we didnt bother weighing the fish as 'it was only a 50'. I had been fishing for just over 4 hours and had landed over 1/2 a tonne of fish!
i didn't have anymore runs but Gary had a lovely dark common of 34lb.

So that was my trip to Caspe and the best days fishing of my life. But for others thinking of going out to the Ebro, just be aware that it isn't as easy as some of the companies make it sound. many of the guys i spoke to were really struggling and had been all week. If he ever gets to read this i would like to thank Gary Sheridan, of Dream Carp Fishing, for his excellent guiding and the general piss take. If anyone like the sound of this i am hoping to go over a couple of times next year with Gary. I am waiting on him getting back to me with availability over the bank holiday periods, anyone is more than welcome to come along with me. Roll on next year and a 150!

Forgot to mention somewhere in amongst that lot i squeezed a couple of more carp around 18-20lb as well. Not sure what times as i didnt take photos. The carp are just a vague memory compared to the cats!

Congrats on the captures there Dave - superb bit of fishing.

Soons like you had a good do Dave . Nice write up too with all that background info in it.

Cheers Boys, as you can imagine i'm absolutley buzzing!

Hi dave well mnate what can i say jackie the jinx and those catfish mate i will be honest with you and in front of all these guys iut was hard mate both mentaly and phsicaly . i was so shocked to see the river that bad . i mean its been slow but that was bad for those two days . as i told you last year we had one day on the same swim with 44 catfish and 35 of those fish were over 100lbs thats smelly gear works doesnt it lol. i have about 20 kilos of that on its way mate. so happy you had a good time speak soon your guide gary.

Nice one Dave, it all came good in the end. I fished Tyre Track last August but it wasn't as crowded as you describe. There were a couple of Eastern Europeans there, a couple of English guys and a few Spaniards. Plenty of room for everybody.   We had quite a few fish but found that to be successful you have to put loads of pellets in, and I mean LOADS.  It gets quite expensive.  Frankly I think the river around Mequinenza/Caspe has been screwed up with all the pellets going in, the cats are not feeding naturally anymore. I met Garry Sheridan briefly in Martin Walker's bar, seemed an ok guy although Martin wasn't very happy with him, lol.

i know what you mean about all the pellet Maurice, Gary kept the amount down as nobody was catching anyway, i think we used about 100 kilos. We were  also using squid, that was absolutley minging along with the pellet and this seems to be the up and coming bait out there at the mo. I think Gary returns the sentiment to Martin lol. 

Incidentally, you mentioned the cats not feeding naturally anymore, and to an extent i think you are right. However, on the last day, myself and Gary witnessed an absolutley awesome sight. A big cat, well over the tonne, was right up on the surface and was just smashing into shoal of bleak. It just opened its huge mouth and bow waved right through the shoal. It was head on to me and Gary as well, after seeing that i'm glad i'm not an ebro bleak! lol.

On the subject of the amount of pellet being used, one spanish guy had put 10 sacks in one day and all they had were 4 kittens. 250kg is a crazy amount for that return, it would be different if they then battered it.