Our first half of this year’s season has come to an end; temperatures have already reached 40 deg and it’s too uncomfortable to fish in the heat. We will be taking it easy through July and August, getting back to the serious fishing in September when the temperature starts to drop.

Lee and Craig did manage to get in a couple of sessions on the Orellana before the heat really set in.
On their first session, over 72 hours, they found themselves fortunate with good weather conditions and banked over 1100lb of fish to average around the 30lb mark. Over the last few years Lee has landed many 40lb plus fish and had set his target for this year at a 60 lb´er. On the few occasions that Craig and Lee have actually managed to fish this year, the weather hasn’t been too kind to them.

However this time was different, a cracking westerly, overcast with the odd shower and the fish were on the feed. Almost straight away they were into fish and they kept on coming, enjoyable fishing with such strong powerful fish. Lee was in fits of laughter as most of Craig’s fish ran down the inside edge and around the corner. Craig had to clamber over rocks, wade through bushes and pass by a couple of trees to keep in contact with them; all Lee could see was this rod tip above the undergrowth.

Most of the fish were between 25 and 32lb so they altered their tactics by changing hook baits to try and pick out any bigger fish in the area. It paid off, more so for Lee than Craig. Lee was soon into a very powerful fish, unfortunately getting cleaned off on underwater snags as it screamed off on an unstoppable run. Meanwhile Craig got into a few slightly bigger fish around the 35lb mark; biggest of the session was just below 36lb.

Lees next run was another very powerful fish, it must have taken nearly 100 yds of line before he managed to make any headway. It seemed to take a life time for the big fella to get it anywhere near the net and when he did it still wouldn’t give up. Eventually, after nearly half an hour, the lump slid into the net. Lee sighed with relief as his arms were aching, but more was to come, he then had to lift the lump of muscle for the camera.

It was to be a new Orellana PB for Lee, weighing in at a hefty 59.5lb, half a pound short of his target for the year. Lets hope he can reach his target for the year, its gonna be difficult as we have a very busy second half of the year coming up and wont manage much time fishing ourselves.

The next session was to be a 2 day´er, weather conditions weren’t favorable and it was getting very hot. As it was to be their last they stuck at it, Lee banking a couple of doubles and Craig a couple of upper 30´s.

ROLL ON SEPTEMBER…….

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Great news for us here in Extremadura, RYANAIR are now operating flights from Stanstead to Cuidad Real. Cheap flights are available 3 days a week and transfers this end are around 1 hour 45 mins

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Back to the World Carp Classic qualifier España.

Both our pairs used their knowledge of the Orellana to take 2^nd and 4^th places.

Lee and Stu took second place. They drew the peg next to the flyer, giving the eventual winners a run for their money at times but really had no chance to compete with the good anglers on the almost guaranteed winning swim. Their peg was fairly featureless, however good angling and team work produced over 270lb of fish. Unfortunately Stu missed out on the first fish prize as he lost a couple of early fish to an underwater snag.

Craig and Chino drew a peg in a very slow section where few fish were caught. It was on a rocky point teaming with crayfish so Craig decided rather than fishing to something that resembled a feeding area at around 300 meters, he would stick it out close and try and pick off any patrolling fish. Chino thought otherwise and moved to the limits of the peg to something that resembled a feeding area.

The first night Craig presented his hookbaits over tight fairly heavy baited areas in various depths. The plan was to look for fish movement over the first 24 hours and adapt accordingly. As they drew one of the 4 pegs they really didn’t want, they decided to chill and watch for fish movement over a few beers. They certainly drowned their sorrows over a few beers and then a couple of whisky’s. Andy’s face was a picture the next morning when he paid a visit, the pile of beer bottles was enough for a party.

Now the fishing was to start. Overnight all Craig’s tigernut baits had been demolished by crayfish even though he had put around 3kg of particle on each rod. Over the course of the competition, following the pattern of the few patrolling fish, Craig moved his rods from inside the mouth of the bays mid morning to the main river for the day, then back into the bay in the evenings.

It was hard work fishing over 6 tight baited areas, if too much bait was introduced, the patrolling fish would move on, not enough and they crays would have everything. The counterbalanced baits approach using a variation of Enterprise Tackle floating plastics helped Craig picked up several fish over the course of the competition, all patrolling fish during the day. Unfortunately he lost a couple of fish, one a lump as it hugged the rocks on a powerful run and forced the hook to pull.

Chino in the meanwhile had a single run that produced a 8.9kg Common, it was to be his last as he had to leave a day early due to the loss of a close friend.

Our guides should prove their worth with good results in the competition and they certainly did. Lee and Stu banking 270lb of fish taking 2^nd place, meanwhile section C produced 170lb of fish, 90.86lb of these fish were landed by Craig alone, and 80.86lb to all the other 27 rods.

Once again well done to Peter Staggs and Andy McGregor for all their hard work, the competition went well. Good luck to Fran Granados and Jorge Sacristian, the overall winners, for the WCC final in France.

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George, Chris and Paul had a great introductory to the Orellana, on an overnight session they had around 15 runs between them, all with new PB´s. George hadn’t been carp fishing for around 20 years, Chris a pleasure angler and the only thing Paul knew about fish was that he is from Grimsby.