A few friends of mine invited me on a fishing holiday to Spain and after about 5 seconds of persuading I had cleared the time off with my boss and already started thinking tactics.

25lbs a mere Baby!

The trip was with Matt from FAT Angling Tours and we were being guided on Lake Orellana, which with a little research we found the lake was huge with over 1000km of bank side to fish. Matt has some exclusive areas which he has been putting tonnes of particle in to try and hold the fish. The lake itself has been stocked with fish by the government which are for the locals to catch for the table but obviously not all have been caught and have grown huge on the resident crayfish. The lake has produced fish up to 60 lbs and Comizo barbel to 35lbs

 

We were met at the airport by Tono from Fanaticarp who is a good friend of Matt, he took us to the apartment where we would be staying. The trip itself was through some of the most amazing countryside and some vast expanses of water. Tono filled us in on how it had been fishing and it was hard going with only a few fish coming out recently and none of the large ones had been caught.

 

The apartment was of the highest quality with a large kitchen, living room and outside seating area. Within a short walk there was a supermarket and a 5 minute drive away was a bar serving English food and some amazing Tapas along with cold lager.

 

The next morning we set out to an area which Matt had been baiting up for us, once arrived we set the tackle up and settled in to start fishing, we were at about 80 yards range to markers where the bait had been put in for us, we decided against putting any more bait in for the time being to see how things were.

 

After about 20 minutes of the bait being in the water one of our party Lee Robbins (Lee Valley Fisheries) had a Tench which I followed 10 minutes later also with a Tench. we discovered the our baits were getting eaten by crayfish so I went onto some Tuna Wraps which I had been hardening off in pellets for the last couple of weeks. They had become so hard I had to use a drill to get through them. This makes the paste wrap take longer to hydrate in the water but still giving off the same levels of attraction.

 

Unfortunately there were no more fish caught that day, so over a few pints that evening we discussed our tactics for the following day. My fishing partner Steve Burley from Burley Aquatics and I decided to go down the heavy bait tactics to try and induce the takes, we also caught crayfish in the margins and smashed them up in with the prepared particle as we thought the Carp may be feeding on the crayfish. We both fished Tuna Wraps and Crayfish Tails and used the boat to put our baits out with about 100kg of particle on top of it.

 

Another pair in the party kept with the same tactics as the day before and the other team boated baits to long range where we had seen a few fish crashing the day before. Although we were all confident that we had the tactics sorted only 1 small common came out of the unbaited area to Chris Blunt from Linear Fisheries.
 

The next day we decided to split up and fish different areas as where we had been hardly had any activity and sightings of only a few carp crashing. Steve and I opted for a very snaggy area which has been known to produce some huge fish in the past. The snags are an old orchard where they used to grow acorns for feeding to the pigs which make the local Ham. We leaded around and found a few clear areas but we knew if we did hook a large fish the carp gods would of had to of been on our side for us to land them.

 

We positioned the rods as close to the snags as we dared and sat locked up back up the bank to give us a better playing angle on the fish. We put a few baits out around the area and sat back and waited. After a couple of hours my rod rattled into life and I was on it before the swinger hit the blank, after a hard but brief struggle I slipped the net under a small single figure common, so we knew fish were in the area. Steve had a good run a few minutes later but unfortunately it cut him off on a snag on the initial take. We had no further action that day and decided another move was in order. I spoke with the other members of the party and they had had no success so we decided to move away from the snags to a point area which looked promising.

 

Again we had a lead around, Steve had a big tree sticking out of the water but everything else was clear, on the other hand my area looked clear but I found loads of snags under water although I think these were rocky outcrops rather than trees, so I knew if I did get a run I would have to be straight out in the boat over the top of the snags to keep the fish free.

 

At about 8 am my left hand rod rattled off and the battle commenced. I was fishing without tail rubbers to make sure the lead was dumped on the take, and the fish shot straight to the surface. It was a better fish and I was only fishing in 20 foot of water so I decided not to take any chances and went out in the boat with Tono to net it. I could see it was a common of at about mid 20’s and it looked a stunner so I was relieved when the net was slipped under it. The fish was 25lbs exactly and after photos were taken the fish was returned in to the vast expanse from which it came.

 

I quickly rang everyone else to rub in the fact that I was the only one to have caught anything and if they were not catching to come to the area as there were obviously fish here. I repositioned the rod and sat back to take in the fantastic scenery with a celebratory bottle of cold lager.

 

Chris and his wife Jackie turned up a couple of hours later and fished to my left in the hope that there were more fish around. While Chris and Jackie were setting up Steve’s rod roared off and after a hectic fight I waded out and netted the fish for him. It was a low 20 Mirror which had amazing scale patterns, some photos were taken and the fish safely returned. As it was being returned I saw a fish head and shoulder just past where I had had the first fish from, It is certainly one I would have liked to hook I would guess around a mid 50, it was an absolute corker of a fish so I sat there praying to the carp gods that it would get its head down on the bait!

 

Moments later Chris hooked a fish which lead him a merry dance and in the back of my mind I was thinking could it be the same fish I had seen a short while earlier. Unfortunately for Chris it proved to be the sister of the fish I had caught earlier looking exactly the same but weighing 4 oz more. Again the fish was returned and after much jibing by Chris and comments by me about incorrect weighing we celebrated with a couple more bottles.

 

We left the swim that night convinced that we would catch more if we had stopped on a little longer but unfortunately night fishing is still banned in Spain although Tono is doing all he can with the government to have the ban lifted. We had a good BBQ that night as we could only have another half days fishing due to having to return to the UK.

 

The following morning we returned to the same area but without any success, the fish seemed to have moved on and where do you start looking for them in 1.2 million acres!?

 

Although we only had 3 Twenties between 6 of us it was always exciting knowing that the next minute you could get a run off a world record fish as I am sure that in that massive expanse and fish already being caught to 60lbs the lake has the potential to do it.

 

There is always next year!!

The Snags at Sunset