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Dada dada dada dada CATMAN!

Geoff Maynard

For several years now I have been concentrating upon catching catfish. The species is a difficult one to fish for and most of the information that has been written about it is, at best, incomplete and at worst, totally inaccurate. Catfish experts simply did not seem to exist when I started to fish for them. Even the well known cat anglers like the late Bob Baldock and Kevin Maddocks seemed to be forever searching for answers. I began to suspect that a catfish expert did not exist. Until, when on a recent trip to the Ebro in Spain, I met Olivier Portrat.

The first time I heard this name was whilst carp fishing on a small French lake several years ago. The angler next to me had just landed a catfish of about 20lb and we had got into a somewhat halted conversation about the species. Using lots of gestures and sign language, I told him of the pioneering work and captures of Kevin Maddocks, whom he had never heard of, and he mentioned Olivier, whose name was a mystery to me.

Olivier Portrat, said he, was the greatest angler in Europe. I put this down to French patriotism and pooh-poohed the very idea, believing as do most British anglers that we were the "best". After all, had we not produced the very best carp anglers, Richard Walker, Rod Hutchinson, Kevin Maddocks, Andy Little, the list was endless. And wasn't it Bob Nudd who bettered the world on several occasions at Match fishing? And how about our predator anglers? Eddie Turner, Neville Fickling, Charlie Bettell, Gord Burton etc. No. I believed that there was absolutely nothing that we Brits could be taught by Johnny Foreigner. I scoffed at the sight of most european anglers, with the exception of those with bivvies and buzzers, who were obviously on the right track. How wrong can one be.

Olivier Portrat's name was heard once or twice in the following years, mainly glossed over or just mentioned in passing when discussing the feats of Bertrand Picard. Then I got into catching catfish, and the name cropped up more frequently. At a CCG slide show in Feb 97, Kevin Maddocks showed photos of a young angling guide demonstrating the use of the clonk, a catfish feed inducer. "This young man has probably caught more catfish over 100lbs than any other angler in the world today" said Kevin. The young man was Olivier Portrat. Few people at the meeting took notice of the man, but all were intrigued by his methods. He was, said Kevin, a master at the use of the clonk.

The clonk is a strangely shaped tool which is used when boat fishing for catfish. The angler strikes the water with it in such a manner as to produce a weird sound which can bring up fish from the depths to investigate, only to find themselves confronted by a baited hook. Discussing this with Andy Little recently, Andy told me that he could not believe that the clonk could work, but after seeing with his own eyes the results, he just had to. "You couldn't believe that boat fishing four identically rigged rods on a fast flowing river would produce fish to only one of those rods. And it was always the rod immediately behind the buschello". (The Spanish name for the clonk). More confirmation came from Kevin Maddocks. Drifting baits down a five mile stretch of the Italian River Po brought Kevin and his fishing partner Keith Lambert no takes at all. Then they tried drifting the same stretch using the clonk and had one fish after another. So many, in fact, that they stopped bothering to weigh fish in the 40 to 60lb region, as the big ones became their only quarry. On that trip with them was Olivier Portrat.

His business card describes Olivier as an "Angling and Outdoor Writer, Photographer and Tackle Consultant". Though I have yet to read his writings, his photos speak for themselves and I cannot think of anyone better qualified to be a judge of tackle, as the fish that he angles for test tackle to destruction. He told me "Last year I took fourteen rods to the Po. I brought back two - and one of those was in two extra pieces than when I left home".

Olivier has two nationalities, a French and a German passport and calls himself a "European". He grew up in Saarbrukken on the French/German border and speaks seven languages with equal fluency. Last year he, and the clients he was guiding, caught 1200 catfish from the Po alone, with an average weight of 35 to 40 killogrammes. That makes 75 to 100lbs an average fish for him. He, personally, also managed to land over 30 fish weighing in excess of 150lb in that one season, with the biggest weighing 190lbs. Now, just stop for a moment and think about those numbers for a second before continuing to read this piece. Thought about it? Okay.

I met Olivier for the first time when I accompanied Paul Garner on a trip to Spain, chasing the giant cats that inhabit the Ebro. A French TV film-crew had taken all the rooms in the village's little hotel and we were lucky to get the last room. The film crew, it turned out, were there to film Olivier in action on a hunt for big zander. The base for their excursions was the Bavarian Guiding Service on the banks of the huge dam-lake at Mequinenza. This highly professional camp is run with the legendary efficiency of German management. Jurgen, Peter and Marcus live at the lake and run the camp. There is little about the Ebro that they do not know, and we pumped them for every piece of information that we could glean. The best advice they gave us was to "watch Olivier".

Whilst the vast majority of anglers, German and British, fish the Ebro bivvied up and fishing static positions, Olivier takes a mobile approach. Each morning at about 9 o'clock, Paul and I watched him head off with a couple of boats, the TV entourage in tow. Each evening he returned with tales of masses of zander caught to over 20lb - and all caught on camera. He even was taking them on fly tackle! This was all very interesting, but I wanted to know about catfish. "Oh... catfish" said he. "Yes, we hooked 5 of those today as well, but we only landed two. Zander tackle is very light you know". And the biggest? "Oh, about 70 or 80 of your pounds, and the other only a little smaller". This was not a one-off conversation, he reported similar catches every day.

During the month of March 1997, Olivier caught over 1000 zander up to 21lbs. In addition he also picked up over 30 catfish to 90lb by "accident". For every cat landed he also lost several, as his tackle was too light to handle the very big ones that he hooked. In the week that Paul and I were fishing on the Ebro, Olivier caught more catfish than all of the other anglers on the lake put together. Every day a few catfish were caught by the bivvy boys. Every day Olivier caught more - whilst zander fishing! This might seem pretty good, but consider this. Olivier doesn't like night fishing and won't do it willingly. He prefers to spend his evenings with his wife Sylvia. He believes in daylight fishing with one rod and using a mobile approach. Are you sitting in a bedchair reading this with the aid of a torch?

Up until our last but one day on the Ebro, Paul and I had landed just two fish of 34 and 36lb respectively. Up until then we had fished in fairly conventional UK style, bivvies and buzzers etc. We had arrived a couple of weeks before Easter. This turned out to be very lucky, as we were informed that camping was to be prohibited from Easter onwards. We never fished all nighters due to there being a rigidly enforced ban on catfishing from midnight till 6am. The police are very hot on this and will confiscate the tackle of offenders without any warnings.

However, we were very impressed by Olivier's less than conventional methods (and of course his results) and so adopted his approach for the last couple of days fishing. Nine hours into our first day of 'mobile' fishing, five miles from our starting point, Paul hooked and eventually landed a wels catfish of 143lb. Next time I go catting Iım leaving the bivvy behind.

Oh, and... I think I found a catfish expert at last.