It’s the catfish capital of Europe, with anglers pouring in from all over the world to fish the mighty river Ebro. It holds just as many carp as cats, but we had to be the oddballs, heading south for a fish much smaller but more highly prized. Around four years ago it was producing massive roach, 3-4lb fish were common, and big bags to be caught if you dropped on them and worked hard. We had been informed that a new visitor had arrived throughout the system in plague proportions, but we hadn’t quite realised to what extent until we sampled it for ourselves.
We rocked up at the fishing capital Mequinenza after a lengthy drive from the UK. It was still mild, but the floods that had just ripped through Spain the week earlier had been biblical, and the river itself was unfishable just before our arrival, but you roll the dice and dance with the devil!
Licences purchased, we set off upstream after a tip off to an area above the dam that was much wider, deeper, with slack water even in flood conditions. The plan was to get set up before nightfall, so we pushed on, bringing the average mpg down to 25 while going heavy on the accelerator.
We turned down a dirt track off a sharp bend on the main road, river bed gravel had been used to surface the track, muddy ridges and ruts would have ripped the sump out of a family saloon but the van monstered through it as we descended down the track to the fast expanse of water we could see ahead through the scrubland. It must have been 500 yards wide minimum, tree stumps poking above the waterline like the loch ness monsters head, providing perch posts for the black-death. I must have watched a flock of 500 plus cormorants working the far bank with the cliff-face back drop creating the illusion it was the north sea. Heads and beaks dancing in formation as they slipped under the surface with the fluidity of a seal. My eyes scanned the surface to see a boat heading directly towards us, nose pointing skywards as the outboard was at full throttle sending waves crashing into our shore. A group of lads were set-up 100 yards to our left, cold stares and unwelcome body language, I stood with a fixed gaze looking at the fella controlling the boat.
He pulled up, mooring the boat against a makeshift jetty, as the waves lagged behind him, hitting the bank one after the other for the next few minutes. He flicked his chin up, a simple gesture to indicate…”What the fook do you want” without moving his lips. A thick set fella with shoulders that wouldn’t fit through your average bivvy door, with a face as hard as the aluminium boat he was sat in.
I asked about roach……he smiled and paused. His thick Russian accent and deep tones bounced back at me, he laughed………”you are four years too late” was his reply.
“Before covid you could catch many big roach, but it’s hard now with so many silver bream. Bait heavy….they will come”
I lent forward to shake his hand and thank him, his right hand was missing a small finger with the top of his thumb disfigured with only a tiny piece of his nail still present. He shook hands with purpose, wrapping his XXL sized palm around mine with a wrist as thick as my ankle. He was guiding for the lads to our left, as we watched him that evening baiting rods with carp live baits, making it look easy, he had earnt his stars and stripes, and no doubt done the same drill a thousand times.
We encountered anglers from all over Europe dotted here and there on our travels. It reminded me of the prospecting days of the California gold rush. Folk flocking in the thousands with the hope of finding gold. Shacks and camps set up, offering tour guides and their services, all trying to make a buck and survive, just like the wily Russian who offered us showers for 5 euros, but I doubt we would have gotten off site if we took the bait!
We moved down stream, setting up for the night and baiting heavy close in after markering for 30 minutes. A nice drop off into 15 feet of water just a couple of rod lengths out we worked hard with the feeders, and as night fell the starlight was bouncing every millisecond, unable to keep a bait in the water from the silver bream smashing us up. We used 15kg of feed straight off, and knew we couldn’t sustain this, so a change of plan was needed. We wound in at midnight, it had been a long day for Andy driving and you can only unhook so many silver bream before you’re done.
I woke in the early hours, nervous energy and needing a piss, I opened the van door into the cold night air, the cosmos in all her glory shining like diamonds against a shear cliff face of 200 feet plus. I could hear cats clomping everywhere, close in around our baited patch, near, far……into the abyss. Never have I heard anything like it, as if the bottom dwellers had risen on mass to the surface, and every night was absolute survival for all the inhabitants….eat or be eaten. I shone my head torch like a lighthouse left to right, the white searchlight reflecting green with the colour of the water. I cannot even relay into words how many bleak were on the surface, jumping and flashing from the luminescent beam. Millions…..no billions of ‘em. They were being rounded up like bait balls in the ocean and when I say 500 yards across was solid fish, I’m not bulling, the fish density must have resembled the seas before man raped them.
I stood there until the cold set in, staring in awe of the sights and sounds, it was an over powering sense of heightened awareness. I rolled back in for the night, knowing we needed to hit the road at daybreak, with the hope of finding silver with red fins.
We travelled to the Segre river, it merges with the Ebro, and was also known for big roach too, not so long ago. We thought heading above the hydro dam might have been the answer, hoping the bream hadn’t managed to travel so far just yet, but make no mistake, you could close your eyes and cast a feeder anywhere on that massive water system and the bream were present. Water conditions must have been perfect for them, and to think a new species could breed at such a rate is beyond comprehension, it was staggering. I think roach are still present but they have been literally forced out through competition, and the bream have taken pole position. It was the same process, bait heavy, keep working the water in front of us, and the bites kept coming. I decided to even fish for the bleak on a few occasions because it’s a fish I have a soft spot for. If they grew as big as the dace it would be highly prised. They have the silver sheen of a saltwater fish, almost a liquid mercury shimmer to the flanks, with an olive and powder blue stripe along the shoulders when you catch the light angle just perfect. A deep chesty fish but narrow across the width, a large upturned mouth not too dissimilar to a tarpons, it’s a mega little fish.
Fishing in the upper layers with single maggot and constantly spraying feed it was one a chuck, but fishing just that bit deeper below the main shoal and concentrating the shot near the hook to drop the bait quickly, I could pick up some specimen sized examples. A couple of hours bleak-bashing, followed by a few clicks of the shutter button, I was made up and ready for tea.
The plan that evening was to put a single carp rod out, I had no plans to fish for them, but with fish showing I thought to come this far and not bag a first Spanish carp would be foolish.
I fished a boilie rod short over the feeder rod area, and sometime in the night the sounder box was screaming as I dived on the rod only to see the river had come up in the night with the bite alarm only just poking above the surface. I slid the fish in the sack for a few pics at daybreak. It wasn’t far off now, so I put the rod away and got my head down for a couple more hours.
Lively and not playing ball I took a step too far back while taking a few water shots, only to take my balls for a quick dip……not what I needed, but we laughed while rattling a few images off. It was then a strip down to dry myself off before we hit the road again.
We hatched a plan to find a tributary that feeds the main river, hopefully faster and clearer water might be the answer to find roach? We went right off the map into the wilds, and without Andy’s van being 4 x 4 there wasn’t a chance you would have ventured as deeps as we did into the mountains. It was a much smaller river here, a feeder stream feeding the main river systems of pure mountain spring water and tiny smooth pebbles for a river bed, it looked more suited to trout than anything else. Mile after mile we searched without sighting a single fish. Bright sun and polaroids, clear water and perfect high banks giving us an advantage point, it was lifeless, but we did find more cormorants. Every tree stump in the river or perch was black with them, it was glaringly obvious nothing could hide in the clear water from so many beaks, so it was time to turn around and head back to Mequinenza.
When we first drove over the main bridge, I noticed the water below the massive hydro dam was far clearer than most of the main river system, and I mentioned to Andy that when I have seen cormorants hunting in the past, they can round the roach up into the margins, and the silvers take cover in thick reed beds, burying themselves deep into the bamboo type structure to prevent being eaten. It acts like natures prison bars, and we started driving and looking for any large reed beds than extended out into the river. We pulled over to scan some aerial footage on the phones, hoping to locate some ideal spots. I glanced out of the side window of the van over Andy’s shoulder, the sandy coloured rock faces and steep cliffs looked more akin to death valley in Nevada. I caught some movement from my peripheral vision as what looked like the rocks were moving. My eyes refocused as I watched a family of Ibex traverse the wall of boulders, as I started shouting “IBEX….shit the camera” scrabbling to switch the lens while falling out of the van as they kept climbing and pulling away from me fast, while Andy looking gormless with the phone in his hand, starring at me thinking I had sunstroke with my mental behaviour. I only had a 200mm of glass so I struggled as they soon put some distance between us, but I could see at least four ‘kids’ a female and two young males. The alpha goats can have a massive set of impressive horns, but these adolescents hadn’t reached full maturity yet, but what a sight.
I was pumped after the encounter as we set off towards a massive lay-by down on the river front that was basically as close as you could get to the dam. It was evident in the summer it would be wall to wall with anglers, but the muddy parking area was now void of anyone, and it was an ideal spot to fish for 24hrs.
A big set of reeds jutted out to our right, the man-made concrete wall was the back drop, with the water rising and falling fast as they controlled the water flow to generate electricity. Six feet in depth tight to the reeds, and a cast of about 40 yards if I waded out across some sedge and marsh ground. I felt confident, and the clear water was also appealing, but the bottom was seriously snaggy again with sharp boulders, so the casts had to be tight to prevent locking up and losing too many feeders.
I started baiting little and often, groundbait balls raining down as we tackled up to see if our plan would work. First fish was a small roach, super clean and bright silver, certainly this year class. Andy also picked one up, we both smiled thinking for the first time we might have found what we travelled so many miles for. I kept working the swim with the bait, and then started to catch some nice prussian carp. It’s wide spread throughout Europe and looks a bit like a crucian but more of a silver colour to its flanks. They’re a member of the goldfish family, and quite invasive, but they were a nice change from silver bream. I caught some good-uns around two pounds, but then the bream rocked up and it was back to the same old, no more roach and quickly our hopes faded as fast as the bites from our intended target.
I paused after 5 hours of going at it hard, laying the rod down in the damp vegetation while soaking up the beautiful light which is so different than sunny Olde England. It has a lovely pastel colour and soft glow, I know that sounds all a bit airy fairy but the backdrop was incredible with a group of vultures soaring about and landing on an outcrop just to my right. They could have been a ‘Space X’ satellite eclipsing the sun with their massive barn door wings. Primary feathers up-turned like giant fingers, they just cruised high on the breeze, forever scouting for a victim. Ravens too billowing out that deep throaty call that was resonating off the cliffs as they passed over head, it just made the moment that bit special as we put the feeder rods away and called it a day.
I started leading about in front of the van, but the boulders down there were so jagged and unforgiving, every other cast would cause a lock up, and I had to pinpoint an area asap before emptying my minimal stash of marker floats in the rucksack!
Out towards the centre of the river was snag free, with a smooth river bed. The water dropped away into 40 feet plus, and it had all the hallmarks for big cats, so I persevered close in, with no intention of doing battle with those slugs. I found a table top area of gravel amongst the big rocks after a hundred plus casts and popping the marker up to the surface. The spot was tight, and I was running the risk of a cut-off on the take, so I kept the tip high on the rests. Out went 300 boilie with the ‘pult’ and putting just the one carp rod out for the evening while we got the pan sizzling. Did that piece of steak caramelizing over the stove smell good? it had me licking my lips.
A few hours later I’m in, as the tight clutch gave little away for the carp to snap me off. I had the rod at full stretch above my head, trying to keep the line as high up as possible, with a dark, wild looking common going ape shit on a short tight line. It would have made the perfect end other than a 2lb roach, but it went mental for the camera too as I was stood in my chesty’s waste deep in water. I was left with a blank expression as it nose dived back in the river, no pics…what an amateur as we both laughed it off.
We slept through the night listening to running water, but come daybreak there was no time to sit scratching our arses, we had another location earmarked.
A mate had been out there only a week earlier, and despite catching hundreds of silver bream, he did manage one nice 2lb+ rudd. Ed gave us the coordinates as we headed out of the town and up river to a parking area off a small winding track. It was deep…30 feet plus off the end of the rod and some savage rocks that loved to eat end tackle! We used the bait dropper to get the bait down deep into a nice slack close in just off the main current. But the onslaught continued, bream one a chuck and getting through them was impossible. In the end I switched to 8mm boilies, upping the size to 12mm that stopped me catching the small ones, but no roach came our way. I fished again for the Bleak, same method and caught some belters, but chatting to the two German guys to our right who were filling tubs in the back of a van with live baits for the cats, they also caught nothing but bream. It was now time to start thinking about a new game plan fast…..time was running out.
A mate of Andy’s who has been guiding out there for years dropped in for a chat. It was clear they had history and chatted like mates do, as I listened and carried on fishing hard for bigger bleak.
Talk of an area called ‘Caspe’ was mentioned a few times, and a phone call to the local tackle shop had us packing the van in a hurry, with one last night remaining, we rolled the dice again as we headed off, thanking Andy’s mate with stiff handshakes and smiles.
We travelled up river for a good hour, arriving in a town that looked like something out of Beirut. We parked the van directly outside the local tackle shop, minimising a popped side-window and giving tackle away for free. More money changed hands and a new licence purchased, it was all getting desperate as we set off to our location in a rush, a massive body of dammed water, with a landscape that looked like the surface of the moon. Rocks and muddy tracks, burnt orca coloured soil and typical Spanish fly tipping in the most remote locations always left a bad taste in my mouth. It’s a national pastime to throw their rubbish on the floor, and no matter how far off-piste we drove, there was always urban scent marking to spoil the vista………excuse the pun but they really need to sort their shit out!
I worked hard that evening as the sun was dropping fast, casting its warm equator glow over the rugged terrain. Once again is was tough going with the massive boulders locking you up on every other cast, but as you start to pinpoint a few zones, I found some tights spots for us both to position a single feeder rod.
I started baiting with the spomb around 30 yards out. The near margin was the main feature again, and a gentle breeze was pushing in on our bank. All was quiet for the next hour as I watched carp throwing themselves out a good 300 yards away. I watched through the bino’s with huge sheets of fizz breaking the surface, and it looked like a good number of fish out there. I lashed one long on a stiff-hinge rig, falling way short of the mark, but it was out there and fishing. We both fished the near baited spots, and the quivver tips started to wake up at dusk, confidence high and the hope of maybe the chance of a few roach as we merged with the night had us posed on our seats. A couple of quick sharp raps on the tip had me automatically setting the hook, a short jagged fight and a silver bream surfaced……shitttttttt. And this is how the story ends, because once again we couldn’t get a sniff from another species. Once they homed in on the bait we continued to catch them as the stars started twinkling.
We had a stunning moment with what seemed to be a short eared owl, his wings being too long for a tawny as it’s silhouette danced black against the glow of the horizon. It twisted and turned over our heads, before ghosting off into the distance, a magic moment where we felt like the only humans for miles, lost in the moment with nature….and just one more snotty for the road.
We had stretched our stay as long as we dared, it was time to head north but this time through the centre of the Pyrenees mountains and not the east side close to Catalonia which was the route on our way down. It was absolutely breathtaking, mountain tops peaked with the white stuff, rivers so clear and cool at times you thought it could have been Scotland. A lammergeier falcon stooped low over the road in front of the van, which had me diving out as Andy locked the tyres up on a gravel lay-by, while I’m off with the DSLR around my neck, running full pelt up the road for 200 yards trying to get a few shots, but a flock of vultures had chased him off, so I managed a few distant shots of the shady looking group.
I will return to the mountains for sure, it had a serious draw for me as we raced through them trying to cover ground as quickly as possible, which prevented us from taking it all in. I think the rivers could hold some stunning upland fish, possibly trout and grayling, but also just to stomp the landscape and marvel at its raw beauty. We passed a stand of ancient hornbeam or beech trees, all withered and stunted from the harsh environment, they looked like bonsai, silver grey trucks the colour of an elephants limbs, grouped as if they had held their ground for millennia. Just to return alone for that opportunity to admire their age and beauty is worth the drive, but make no mistake about it, I will have a rod in my other hand when I do!
Timing is everything, and nothing lasts forever. This time we had left it too late and a net full of big olde roach wasn’t meant to be. But it’s never a blank, it’s all part of the adventure of a big road trip. In fact at times you need a good kicking to appreciate the golden days, and we both left with memories to last a lifetime.
Here’s to the next one…………..Be free
Swanshot Rogues