Ebro Catfishing

A late, late show for Dave Dowson as he bagged himself this whacker of 163lb in time added on at the finale to a successful week for the Cheshire based family trio. This huge cat came down at the bottom of big cat alley late on friday evening with time fast running out.

The fish completed a good trip for the trio, who all return to the UK with personal bests well over 3 figures despite the river fishing quite hard at present. Dave was personally delighted with this fish as he had strived hard for it all week!

Grandad Geoff Dowson had a superb day today, beating his own personal best twice in a single session. Geoff was initially delighted with an 88lber caught in the chicken factory area, but then went on to eclipse this with a mammoth 132lb Ebro beauty which went like an absolute train! The fish were caught with mullet livebaits, which at present are proving not too difficult to catch.

A day trip to the Ebro for Northern Irish brothers Micky and Mark Barr proved to be successful with 2 cats landed at 94lb and 75lb. The lads, who are more used to pike fishing in their homeland, had an enjoyable tussle with some of the giants of the Ebro.

A great start to the holiday today for youngster Adam Dowson with this giant of 127lb taken on the ‘big cat alley’ drift close to Amposta. The fish took a mullet at around 6pm in some cloudy, cooler conditions. The fish would have been at a higher weight but for it’s complete lack of girth. It eclipses Adam’s previous biggest on the river of 110lb.

It’s been a fantastic couple of days for Sesh Mehmet, with a 127lber caught yesterday, followed up by an absolute whacker of 160lb today. The fish accepted a big mullet fished free roving centre channel in the ‘mozzie bay’ area at Amposta. A powerful fight was to follow with a number of surging runs before the fish was eventually beaten.

The fish falls 1lb short of Sesh’s PB caught with us 3 seasons ago, and is his 4th over the 100lb barrier.

There was a sharp upturn in the action today with a 5 cat haul between the boats, which included a stunning 127lber for Sesh Mehmet caught very late at around 9.30pm and also a first ever catfish for John Hoad at 71lb. Mark Chasey landed a bizarre hat-trick of cats - all under 40lb!

Pictures to follow…

You can probably guess that the fishing has been pretty tough when you see pictures of 60lbers posted on the blog! That’s definitely been the case over this weekend with conditions fairly unsuitable for catting, air temperature well above 30 degrees, water temp around 27 degrees and this combined with gin clear water coming down the river.

Despite this, it was certainly a case of the one(s) which got away today as 3 fish were lost due to hook pulls, one of which was taking line at quite a rate. Fortunately we did manage to land a couple as well, including this 62lber for Gary Mirtens.

A great moment today for Gordon Pillinger, the non-angler in the party, when his float smashed under whilst fishing a deep eddy in the Aldover area. The cat hit the main flow and powered off on a scintillating run, with the boat having to follow! The fish turned out to be a very welcome 93lber which beats the 78 which Gordon caught last week. The remainder of the session was tough again, with just a 20lb kitten later on to show for our efforts.

Carp livebait was the successful bait today for Andy Pillinger on his first visit to the river Ebro. Fishing the Tortosa stretches, this cat proved to be the only reward on another stifling hot day.