My first-ever Catfish with Costa Carping By Craig Carden

I turned up at Barcelona airport at 7.30am on the Saturday morning to be greeted by a chap called Mark. He was a very friendly and chatty and he couldn’t give me enough information about different parts of the River Ebro and about the sort of fish I would be catching.

He showed me a load of pictures of catfish and carp that had been caught the week before, and this really got me going. When I got in the truck he told me it would take about an hour and a half to get to the area that we were to be fishing. But because off all the chatting and showing of all the pictures, it felt like only 10 minutes.

We arrived at the accommodation and had some breakfast. Its was not a bad brekkie as it goes, 2 eggs, 2 bacon, 2 sausages, beans, toms, fried toast and a cup of tea. After that we got back in the truck and drove 10 minutes up to a lake off of the main River Ebro.

When we got there I couldn’t believe what I was seeing!

It was amazing, when we first arrived the mist was just lifting and when it finally cleared it was like a mirror image. All I wanted to do was get the rods out as soon as I could.

He set me up two catfish-rods and said: “You won't have both of them in the water all day.”

“What do you mean?” I replied

All he said was “Wait and see” and that is just what I did.

He boated my baits out for me to previously 'organised' markers and when he got back to the bank he showed me exactly what to do when I got a take. I asked “how will I know when I have a take?” He just laughed and said: “You’ll know!”

Within 10 minutes I saw the tip of the rod bounce and all of a sudden the multiplier reel just ripped off, I got out of my seat and flicked the bait runner off and struck…

WELL!!!… I CAN HONESTLY SAY I HAVE NEVER FELT POWER LIKE IT!!

It just kept on going and going and going, I didn’t think it would ever stop, it must have taken 100 yards of line before it even thought about stopping and when it did decide to stop - it came straight towards me at the same speed, I didn’t think I would ever land it - not in a million years. My arms were aching so badly I thought they were going to drop off.

The fight with this monster went on for what felt like over an hour, but Mark said I had only had it on for 35 minutes!! He added he has fought catfish for over two hours - on carp gear!

It must have made 5 or 6 big runs before it started to tire itself out. After a while the fight got less and less and then it surfaced. WOW!! It was over 6ft long.

Mark said “IT’S A TON!”
I said “What?... Over 100lb?” he replied with “Yeah it looks like it.”

I got in the water with a glove on and grabbed hold of the shock leader and pulled the fish towards him, when it was at arms-reach he grabbed hold of its bottom jaw and pulled it up the bank onto some unhooking mats, there is no way I would have been able to land it on my own.

He unhooked it and asked me to put the rod back in the rod rest. When I got back to the fish he asked me to hold the sides of the sling up, so as the catfish didn’t get out, whilst I was doing this he grabbed the scales and a 5ft alloy pole to use as a weigh bar.

We got it up on the scales and the needle pulled round to 123lb. I couldn’t believe it, my first ever catfish and it is over 100lb! Now that is angling.

Regards

Craig Carden