Mark with a hard fighting Ebro ‘river bus’
Kent carper Mark Boyle has been in touch with news of his latest trip to the Ebro in Spain last month with Brett White and Dan Clemens. If there was ever a tough environment to test tackle to its limits it has to be the Ebro and it turns out to have been a very productive trip!
‘Our annual Whitey Tours trip to the famous River Ebro in search of the monster carp it holds was once again upon us. My partner in crime Brett White and myself were joined by our good friend Daniel Clemens for what was going to be a trip that we weren’t going to forget anytime soon……
Big carp on the Ebro can be hard to come by as I’ve found out in my last couple of visits and I’ve been praying since I started visiting the river that one of its “River Buses” was going to make an appearance.
Full steam ahead for Skipper White and First Mate Clemens.
Once we touched down in Spain and picked up the hire car we were soon bombing down the motorway in 25 degrees with the tunes blasting making our way to Brett’s house. Once we turned up all memories of a freezing cold blighty were soon gone and we were on Whitey’s boat scoping out the river plotting their downfall.
A quick bait up on some likely looking shallower areas in the middle of the river was where we decided to focus our efforts to start off with. As is often the case out there the weed gets right up come the start of spring all the way down the middle of the river and the carp seem to frequent this area ahead of spawning time so we knew we weren’t going to be too far away.
Anyone who has any experience of river fishing knows that your end tackle has to be up to it and the Ebro is just that but x10! Sunken snags and even sunken buildings are just some of the obstacles that you are up against out there and when you’ve got one of those “buses” pulling your arms off you need to know the tackle is up to it.
I’ve been recently testing the new range of Cryogen hooks and Tungsten Loaded hook links back home and I thought the Ebro would be the ultimate place to really put them through their paces.
Size 4 Cryogen Grippers and Tungsten Loaded links combined with large balanced pellets did the business
Armed with size 4 Gripper’s and some black Tungsten semi-stiff in 20lb I was anxious to see how it would hold up. Well…… 16 fish later on the same un-sharpened hook I decided I better change it just for the sake of it!! The hook link still looked brand new too! Even old Whitey and Dan were starting to take notice and dipping into my tackle box!
The fishing was hard going. Not many bites on the river during the day in the hot sun and at times it seemed all we could do was just kick back drinking ice cold beer. What a horrible life we lead eh!
Mark’s first Ebro carp – 40lb 8oz!
We moved about the shallows during the day just trying to nick the odd bite but it was all about sundown. Our first night on the baited spot resulted in 15 bites and lucky old me managed my first river bus! I won’t go on too much about the fight because nearly every single fish out there leaves you wanting a new pair of arms but after the battle was won I was slipping the net under a real chunk. 40lb 8oz the needle pulled round too.
Unfortunately that was the biggest fish of the trip too but plenty more carp were coming our way. Over the course of the week I think we had about 60 bites between the three of us with rakes of 30’s including a river p.b for Dan at 39lb 8oz.
After a tough week and at times a beating from the river we walked away with our heads held high and eager to get back for some more action on another Whitey tour’.
For more information on the ESP Cryogen range of hooks:
https://esp-carpgear.com/news/e-s-p-cryogen-a-hook-revolution/