After moving here to Spain and working for my son with his Entertainment business I started to get asked to take some of his entertainers and there families on trips up to the river, this of course I couldn't refuse, more fishing!!

Most of the trips I used to just ask them to cover my expenses, we fished for carp and they loved it, some were anglers, some had never been fishing before, it then started to grow and I found myself taking holiday makers on day trips for the carp, I charged 75 euros each for the day and if there were two of three in the party then I reduced the price for the group, I supplied all the bait, tackle and took them to the river from their hotel in Salou, of course I spent the day with them helping them to catch fish. 

I still run these trips and if anyone is interested send me an email at  andy@thecarpangler.com

Back to the story!

Oscar my bank manager here in Spain asked about going carp fishing, he had fished in the sea a fair bit but had never caught anything of any great size, we set a date for Oscar, his wife Carmen and my wife Sandy to spend the day fishing at the river, all the gear was loaded into the Kangoo and off we went.

I had planned to fish 4 rods for the carp and two rods for cats, I had caught a few cats from the river by now and this was the usual set up on these trips, Sandy has a licence for two rods and so does Oscar and myself. We caught plenty of carp up to about 16-17lb even Carmen was playing fish like an expert by the end of the day.  

A nice Ebro common

At about 5pm the right hand Cat rod sounded a take on the delkim, then line started to be taken from the spool, not a screamer like the carp takes, but a nice  steady run. I turned the reel handle to close the baitrunner waited for the 60lb braid to tighten and pulled nicely into a very strong fish that started powering upstream away from me. These Ebro cats always fight like demons, they just keep on going and with braid you can feel every lunge and turn that the fish makes, after more than ten minutes I had the fish under control and had seen just how big this one was, to land these monsters I use a thick rubber type glove and hold onto the bottom jaw from inside it's mouth, although they do not have teeth as such the have long velcro type pads that would scrape you skin off your hands easily.

How big this Cat actually weighed is hard to say, it bottomed my scales! But from others I have now caught it must have been over 80lb the 60's and 70's I have since caught were a lot smaller, but it's the catching em that counts not the pounds and ounces! 

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80lb + of muscle, the fish, not me!