Riba-Roja, March 2008 – “hunting the big one”

- as you may know (at least now) I’m very into fishing, especially carping. But
this is not a report about a carp fishing trip (although we caught some nice ones), it’s about a “neat” predator – the catfish.

We – I think of Bruno, Markus and me – planned a travel to spain a while ago and finally booked our travel in december 2007 @Andrees Angelreisen (http://www.andrees-angelreisen.de/). And on March, the 15th we finally started our travel.

Thank god Bruno organized a decent car which took a lot of luggage. But although it was a estate car with a box mounted on its roof we managed to have too much to get everything in. I think Markus only had half of my luggage, and I was way behind Bruno. But maybe it’s best if you have a look yourself – and keep in mind that we left a 50kg sack of maize behind:

Before we could finally start to spain we first had to do another important thing – we had to attend Bruno’s final ceremony. He finally finished his apprenticeship successfully. Again, gratulations – as you are a full employable physiotherapist now you will – sooner or later – be paid for massaging some hot chicks… hm, maybe I’m a bit jealous.

After the – more or less exciting – show the drive through the night began. It took us 15 hours, a lot of stops and two shots by speed cameras to get to spain. Markus, who prefered to relax in the back for the last hours of driving, was very surprised when he woke up 14 hours after the start…

Finally we arrived at the camp, around 15 o’ clock. And it was very very impressing. The “rio ebro” (river ebro) is more a giant lake than a river, at least for german measures.

The camp itself was very neat and well organized. We got ourselfs our 40PS boat, emptied the car and visited our bungalow for the first of two times. Believe it or not – but we didn’t sleep once in it… In fact we just used the bungalow to charge our handys.

The first person we met from the camp guides (his name is Manne) gave us a map and explained the terrain to us. He told us that it had been very windy the week before we arrived, and that a lot of big catfish have been caught. I don’t have to tell you that this didn’t calm us down… So, we got onto the boat and rode around the river, watching  out for a good place to build our camp. This took around a few hours, because the bank was most of the time very steep. At last we found a nice and huge place.

Unfortunately it was in the wind direction, so we have been punished by the wind throughout the week.
As it was very late we didn’t do anything to catch catfish this night, but we were at least busy with feeding the carp in a promising looking cove.

The next day we went into the camp and got our equipment and the hint that we have to catch baitfish (especially roaches) because they ran out the weeks before. So we went for roaches and – oh fortuna – a few hours later we got a handful of them.

The mechanism how they catch catfish was very interesting. Together with your guide we placed yellow buoyages [A] (using a rope and a sack full of stones) where we expected the catfish to come along. Onto the buoyage we tied another y-shaped rope, which had a carabiner and a plastic line-clip attached on the other side [B]. Finally we prepared the baitfish, floater, reels and rods. We went out on the boat, dropped the bait into the water, clipped the mainline into the line-clip (this is used to adjust the depth of the bait), put the carabiner on the mainline beyond the line-clip and [C] … there we are. When the catfish takes the bait it can’t escape from it’s position in the freewater because the mainline is still hooked inside the carabiner.

So all you have to do is get onto the boat, get the mainline out of the carabiner and catch the fish. Easy, isn’t it? Well, it sounds easy but it was sometimes quite difficult, especially when the waves are 1m high, storm force is greater 4 and the skipper is drunk…

The first three days were not very promising. We catched some small catfish and also some carps but no clue of the big one… And everyday – when we got our exorbitant breakfast the guides told us that some other groups were catching a huge amount of catfish. Great… Nevertheless Markus and me were very pleased because we both caught our first catfish in spain – and I think this is a nice picture of us holding our babies.

The nights were very very cold, I’d guess somewhere around 0° celsius because of the cold and strong wind. I already had a cold, and this wasn’t making it better… I still shivered when I started using two sleeping bags and my clothes to keep me warm.
But – as we are man – we stayed in our tents night after night. You can see some of the improvements I did to my shelter in the picture beyond.

But we also enjoyed the nights, the full moon, the beer – talking about new and old topics, wallowing in stories from the past. This is one thing that fishing is about – having a nice profound chat with good friends at a lonely lake somewhere abroad.
Well… not completely lonely. Our good friend “the fox” – it really was a fox – visited our camp each night while we were sleeping. And nicked maize, baits, a complete cooler box (!!!) containing the rest of our breakfast and our leather gloves. The guides told us afterwards that there are many foxes around, and they love to nick things made of leather. Personally I think somebody trained the foxes to nick purses.

The days went by and we grow old by a year per day, because it was blazing hot in the middle of the day and freezing cold during the night (what didn’t prevent me from having a sunburn :/). We often slept less than two or three hours in a piece because either a biting fish or the fox interrupted our sleep. We kept catching fish but the big one was still out of sight… Bleary-eyed and chilled to the bone we let the rods alone, even if we heard a fish twitching the bait.

So one night I heard the reel going and the bells ringing… and I cried for Markus to get up and strike. 5 Minutes later I was fed up with crying and hearing this damn reel – so I (luckily) stood up and stroke myself. The stroke was quite hard I think, I teared the carabiner of the buoyage – and BOOM. The line tigthened, the rod flexed – and I was standing 50cm nearer to the water than the moment before. “What the…” I thought. And again. This wasn’t a fish, this was a underwater tractor pulling me bit by bit towards the water. I cried again, but compared to the minutes before I doubled the volume. “Fischkontakt” (“fish contact”). Markus and Bruno were on their way to the boat as we saw the fish already near the bank. It took some time to drill him to the bank and make this guy tired. But – finally – we were able to tie the fish down, so we could make some photographs the day after. And it payed off… But now take a look at our baby:

I know that Bruno is still a bit jealous of me having the drill… Sorry, Bruno. When you’re back from New Zealand I promise I’ll let you drill the next one.

The days after we were at one with the world. Highly pleased. And that’s also what fishing is about. Catching fish and being proud of that.

On Saturday afternoon we left the camp in Roba Roja and started on our way home… Partly we were looking forward to a hot bath and a bed – but afterwards I think we all wished to stay. But guess what waited for us on our way home – I think you know it… Have a look:

Quite shocking if you’ve been in 20° for a week. All things considered we (I think I can speak in the name of Markus and Bruno as well) were unbelievable impressed by the beautyful landscape, the water, the fish and the kindness of the guides. One thing is already clear – we will start another session “hunting the big one”. And it won’t take that long, for sure. Until then…

Yours sincerely,

Daniel