Catmaster Tours - Catfish and Carp fishing on Spanish rivers

by Nic Cole

Introduction

For years I have harboured a desire to go and fish for catfish in Spain. Tales from friends of the brutish power of a catfish battle and the whole experience of waiting for a take was something I wanted to try but there never seemed the time to get around to it. That was all to change when my fiancée booked me a visit with Catmaster Tours in June 08 as a Christmas Present.

The last week of June 08 saw me on the plane to Barcelona and the trip had begun.


Review

I have to admit that I was a bit sceptical about the concept of a 'fishing tour'. I do have certain hang-ups about my fishing and I doubted that Catmaster would be able to cater for my needs. As it turned out, I need not have worried. From the time that I was picked up at the appointed time on Sunday from the airport in Barcelona, it was hard to imagine that I could have been better catered for.

The typical trip is Sunday to Sunday with the airport pick up and drop off provided by Catmaster. The 2 hours trip to the town of Mequinenza passed quickly and after a fitful sleep, soon it was 6-00am on Monday morning and my guide for the week, Ashley Scott, was waiting outside the comfortable apartment to take me to the river along with the three other guys I was to fish with for the week.

During the week I met three of the Catmaster guides and have to say that I could not have expected or wished to meet a more helpful and expert team. They simply could not do enough for their anglers and even turned out 'after hours' to help out when they should have been relaxing after it all got a bit silly with three cats and a 40lb+ river common carp on the bank at once.


The Fishing

The fishing for catfish is a little bit like barbel fishing but on an industrial scale. Using 120lb braid mainline, 220lb hooklinks and up to 28oz of lead to hold bottom and defeat the flow and drifting weed, the hookbaits were strings of 5-7 x 22mm pellets on long hairs fished over 1-2kg of free offerings. The practicalities of casting such a set up made it a non-starter and the baits and free offerings were rowed out by our guide, Ashley.

'end gear for hard fighting cats'

Rods were pointed skyward and then you simply waited for the huge wrap-around or a massive drop-back to signal a take.

If the gear seems to be biased towards overkill, let me say that once you have a sizable cat on, it's a very welcome comfort to have confidence in the strength in the tackle. We were using Catmaster rods and Penn 340 GTI multipliers and even with the clutch screwed up to the max during the fight, the bigger moggies were still able to pull line off and nearly caught some of us off-balance with the power of their runs.

'Sunrise over the river '

Fishing is done according to the preferences of the anglers and Spanish law permits fishing for catfish from 6-00am to 12-00 midnight (at the time of writing in July 08). By consulting the individuals in my group of 4, Ashley made it possible for each of us to fish as much as we wanted. Each angler is permitted a maximum of 2 rods and it is usual for groups to adopt a rota system for runs on the catfish rods whereby lots are drawn to decide the order of fishing so that angler 1 fishes all of the group's rods until he or she has caught a cat and then angler 2 takes over until her or she catches one and then angler 3 etc. In our group however, I had already decided that I wanted to have a dedicated set of rods rather than join a rota. The guides were excellent in explaining the pros and cons of the approach and were completely supportive of the individual's particular wants and desires. In the final analysis it made little difference to the overall catches for the week as my group had a total of 17 catfish between 4 of us with my individual tally being 5 and the others taking 4 apiece. All of us had 100lb+ fish and the biggest fell to Bradley at 144lb

'Brad's brute'

Although this is primarily about catfish, it would be remiss not to mention the quality of the carp fishing on the rivers around Mequinenza. During the week I was there, there were no less than 4 x 40lb+ carp caught by my group and the group guided by John 'Orange John' Deakin of Catmaster plus numerous 20s and 30s. Some came on the cat rods (who said carp were finicky on those 220lb hooklinks?) and some on the couple of carp rods that were lobbed out on a single hookbait and were struck in rota by the group whilst waiting for one of the cat rods to roar off.

'Ashley Scott, Catmaster Guide with a 46lb common'

Catmaster also run carp fishing trips over the winter when the catfish are less active and the potential of the carping on the Spanish rivers is outstanding.

What's Included

Included in the package provided by Catmaster was :

	transfers to and from the airport in Barcelona
	accommodation in a comfortable shared apartment
	provision of all transport to and from the rivers
	provision of all tackle and terminal rigs
	all licences and day tickets (important as the Guarda Civil 'nicked' a couple of English anglers nearby for not having the right permits whilst we were there)
	continuous guiding and advice during fishing
	a guarantee that if you don't catch, you can have a return trip paid for by Catmaster (but I believe that the guarentee excludes the costs of everything in the excluded list below)

What's Excluded

Not included in the package provided by Catmaster was:

	food and drinks although a gas burner was proved to cook food on the bank if you wanted
	cost of flights to and from Barcelona
	bait: my share of the cost of the pellets for the week I was there was 140 Euro

Conclusion

I regard myself as a bit fussy about my fishing and I came away from a week with Catmaster very impressed at the quality of the service and the flexibility and willingness of the guides to do everything possible to ensure that their gusts both caught fish but also had a really good time. My guide was Ashley Scott but I also had help and guidance from John Deakin. The Catmaster Tours boss, Colin Bunn also popped down from time to time and proved to be both extremely knowledgeable and personable. The fact that we had never met each other before my trip (even though we both hail from Birmingham) did nothing to stifle a really interesting conversation over the two hour trip between Mequinenza and Barcelona and I came away with the feeling that here was a fishing guiding service that was run by anglers for anglers and that it was all the better for that approach.

I'm sure there are plenty of guiding services operating on the Spanish rivers but based on my experience I'd recommend Catmaster Tours without hesitation.

More information is available on their website at: www.catmastertours.com

'a nice way to end the trip - a 70lb and 86lb brace caught on the final evening'

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Nic (Barbel Blank) Cole
Jul 2008