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Viva La Predator (and not a catfish in sight)

Ian Wakeford

Flat Calm, Sunny and mountains in the distance - There be Preds out there!

For those of you that regularly read my articles you may have noticed that I have a habit of popping to Spain for a bit of fishing.  I am lucky enough to have an apartment in Spain which is a commutable distance from the Ebro.  The more I visit the region the more I learn, and the presence of the Catfish in the Ebro are well documented by myself and many other anglers and article writers.  But the Ebro, it's tributaries,  feeder reservoirs and lakes hold a wealth of other predators which are usually overlooked by UK anglers in Spain.  So what I will try to do is attempt to give you a flavour of some of these other species and the sizes that they grow to.

There are species that are primarily are sea species that do run up the Ebro as far as the weir at Xerta, which is about 30 miles inland.  I know of Sea Bass of up to 15lbs that will run up into fresh water to feed on mullet which frequent the lower Ebro.  These occasionally are caught by catfish or zander anglers by accident.  There is also a species of sea fish that I have yet to identify it's English name.  I would describe it as a saber-toothed skimmer bream that runs up the Ebro in great shoals, and in a Piranha-esk type of attack with tear your bait to bits.  Scary stuff!

Moving from the marine to the exotic, General Franco back in the dark days of fascism introduced the Black Bass into Spain.  Franco was a great angler apparently.  His lasting legacy is a modest population of these fish scattered across Spain.  There are a few Bass nuts that fish for them but generally they are an overlooked species.  But you do see them chasing small fry in the shallows and jumping.  They are generally quite small, a pound or two and can be caught on small lures or pike flies.

Small fish, big gob, the black bass.

However on researching this article I have found specimens of over 8lbs being caught.  I got this picture from a Spanish angling magazine, caught by A.J.Parish in 1992.

4 kilos, you could almost fit your head in it's gob

Moving to more familiar species to UK anglers a popular predator that is fished for by the Spanish and German anglers is the Zander, or lucioperca as it is known in Spain.  Now the Zander is a recent addition to the species of fish held in the UK, but what you have to realise is that the major European rivers are where the Zed comes from originally.  What with the warmer climate and abundance of prey fish (they shoot cormorants in Spain for sport!) it grows very big.  Most people either spin, wobble small deadbaits or fish very small livebaits for the Zander.  The photo below shows a couple of Spanish lads showing off their capture for the day at Ribarroja, on the Ebro.  These are clearly very big fish by UK standards but are not usual by Spanish standards.  Fish in excess of 20lbs are reported in the Spanish angling press on regular intervals.

Ribarroja - big Zed Country

The only problem with continental anglers is that most Zander seem to end up in the pot, they are considered excellent eating.  In fact many Spanish anglers can't see the point in fishing for sport, they turn up late, fish for a few hours, catch something for tea, then go.

I managed to find this picture of a 20lb+ Zander being used to advertise the menu at a Spanish restaurant just to show you what is possible.

Dead Zed Advert

What about Pike? I hear you say, do they have them in Spain? Well yes they do.  Pike seem to be a little bit more pressured by Zander and Catfish competition.  I am not sure but I get the feeling that they are much more common in the Upper Ebro and it's tributaries.  They are also quite common in the mountain lakes and reservoirs where zander have not been stocked.  You have to understand that Spain is a very mountainous country and the geology is not like the UK.  Most rivers completely dry up every year except for a the real major ones that are fed by mountain snow and glaciers.  Most of the rock is porous or volcanic, lakes simply do not exist very often.  However Spain being a hot country means that there are water supply problems and many large reservoirs up in the mountains, these are either stocked with trout or have populations of carp (incidentally no one ever fishes for these carp and they grow massive).  Here be big pike.

Just like the one in the UK, water is pumped up on off peak electricity, and runs down during "Who wants to be a Millionaire" (oh yes they have that too!)

Now I expect these pike went in the pot, but you can't deny their size.

The river Cinca, Segre and Ebro above where these tributaries enter the river seem to be offering the most published information about Pike fishing.  Looking at the techniques used by Spanish pike anglers on the Cinca it would seem that they favour lures and livebaiting.  

These Cinca anglers walk the bank with livebait tanks tied to their backs.  Fishing one rod only and keeping mobile.  Something we could learn from in the UK.

Err - Barbel Livebait, not exactly cricket old boy.

But Lucio seems to like it (Spanish for pike)

I suppose to summarise people think of Spain as sea fishing for Dorado and Catfish from the Ebro.  You cannot deny that the catfish is a major attraction but most predator species that we encounter in the UK grow bigger in Spain, and lets be honest, are probably easier to catch.  So next time you are thinking of going to freeze your butt off in Scotland and getting soaked in Ireland for a predator trip.  Think about going south a bit, the budget flights and car hire is cheaper than a trip to Ireland.  The booze and fags are dirt cheap.  And even if you blank you will get a sun tan.