Fishing The Old Country

[jackinbkk]

Ok,

firstly sorry this is fishing in Thailand I know. But, I wanted to ask if anyone on here has ever tried the cat fishing in Spain.

On the river Ebro. Lots of you guys are from Europe.

I will probably try there in December and I'm wondering how necessary a guide is?

It looks fairly simple. I plan to talk to the locals when I arrive and watch what other people do.

I never needed to use a guide for the fishing in Thailand. Then again that was mostly fishng parks and not a wild

river.

The cats in the Ebro are now topping 100Kg, just like the Thai fish. Not my favourite fish. I'd rather a 10Kg GT or Tuna

but these days they are hard to find.

[zoso]

You ae fishing for Wels catfish?

[kenny999]

You ae fishing for Wels catfish?

[/quote

If he is going to fish the river Ebro it will be for the Wels Catfish, live bait and pellets are the best baits and the best time to fish is late March untill October...

[jackinbkk]

Yes guys for Wels catfish. aka pla duc on steroids

It will be interesting to see how they compare to mekong catfish, not having a large tail but swimming with most of their body?

Their tremendous size gives them a lot of power. I think I will be bringing my Thai rods. 6 foot and 7 foot. Most people use

very big 10 footers. With such a big fish I think a shorter rod will give me a great advantage provided I avoid snags.

The leverage of a 100kg fish on a 10 foot rod would be back breaking!

Rod1: 6 foot, PE 8 with Alutecnos Gorilla 12 reel, 400 yards 100lb braid.

Rod2: 7 foot, 40lb class, unbranded reel similar to Trinidad 30, 300 yards 100lb braid.

[robblok]

Yes guys for Wels catfish. aka pla duc on steroids

It will be interesting to see how they compare to mekong catfish, not having a large tail but swimming with most of their body?

Their tremendous size gives them a lot of power. I think I will be bringing my Thai rods. 6 foot and 7 foot. Most people use

very big 10 footers. With such a big fish I think a shorter rod will give me a great advantage provided I avoid snags.

The leverage of a 100kg fish on a 10 foot rod would be back breaking!

Rod1: 6 foot, PE 8 with Alutecnos Gorilla 12 reel, 400 yards 100lb braid.

Rod2: 7 foot, 40lb class, unbranded reel similar to Trinidad 30, 300 yards 100lb braid.

Just remember the leverage works both ways, with a bigger rod you can also exert more pressure on a fish. I have such a large catfish rod and i used it in BSR there it did not preform well because the fish can go under the bungalows. However i liked it on the other lakes i used it mainly because i can cast further with it.

[jdhogg]

Hi there,

As you have never been to the ebro it is vital that you get yourself a guide,I will give you an example of what happened with me last september,I booked my trip with angling direct holidays for a weeks fishing at Caspe fully guided with accomodation,travel,food and guide it cost me about £860 which also included 2 sacks of pellets,you will use at least a sack a day at 50 euros a sack,the company that angling direct use out there is called catfishcapers who also do a budget £150 weeks fishing which they label credit crunch offer,Me and my son were the only ones on the full price tour and boy im sure glad we did it that way,

In all 12 anglers 10 on the credit crunch and us two on the full paying trip first day we had 17 cats the smallest was 65lb going up to 120lb and although all the other guys were fishing with in 100 yards all but one blanked and he only had a small cat of about 30lb and although we tried to persuade the other guys to pay the extra they just kept saying that all the guide did was row our baits out and that it was not worth the money,After a weeks fishing the count was as follows my son and me caught 117 cats,23 were over a ton the biggest being 150lb the guide also put 2 carp rods out for us (max 2 rods per person) to which we had 24 common carp to 39lb (what a week) while the unguided guys who which i might add fished the swims that we had fished on three occassions and we fished theirs caught 14 fish between them and that was only because we felt sorry for them and asked Scott the guide to give them a bit of a hand on the thursday.

Something else that was pretty obviuos was the Spanish who were fishing on the same stretch as us have no idea at all on how to catcht these fish and were constantly sitting and watching us to try and get some tips,also you have to remember that you do not cast you baits but take them out by boat and throw a few hand fulls of pellets over you bait,one last thing is you can only fish between the hours of 0600am to 1200 midnight and the Spanish patrol even the remotest of areas at night and if you get caught they confiscate all you tackle,you will also face a large fine and they wont return you tackle for about 6 weeks so it will cost you a fortune to ship it back home

[jdhogg]

not very good on pc but heres a couple of pics