The Sessions - Nov 2024 — Julian Barnes Angling

Spanish Troubles of all Kinds

October was another difficult month; with more flooding at the start of the month, too much work meaning I only managing three sessions, but I did trip up a cracker on Kings Weir and another good fish from a new section on the Trent.

November is generally my time to go to Spain hunting the big Catfish as they pack on weight for winter and I was due to go on the 17th the day after my birthday…...

01 November 2024 – River Trent, middle

I donate a 24 hour guide session for the raffle at the Barbel Society show each year, and this years’ was won by Rupert Drury. We had been in regular contact since the show in June and his preference was a trip this time of year in the hope of a bigger fish and we planned to meet on 2 November at the chosen venue.

I drove up on Friday with the plan of getting a good swim set up for his arrival on Saturday; I wanted to fish the tidal and after a nightmare drive up the A1 with a 15 mile detour due to two accidents I arrived late at around 20:00. The car park was empty which was a good start, and I got my head torch and walked up the flood bank and all down the section. The North Muskham level gauge was at 1.04m which is low for this time of year and not good on the section I was looking at as the mud that was covered in flood water was exposed and very soft, making the fishing difficult as we’d have to wade out in mud to get to deep enough water to land fish. I did find two fishable swims at the bottom end of the section but it would mean a steep climb down the flood bank to get to the water’s edge, not ideal for a guide trip and first timer on the tidal.

I had another venue up my sleeve and it was the section I took Jamie to in October, so I phoned Rupert and gave him the choice, a long walk with the chance of a few bites and tackling Mitten Crabs, or a difficult section with the chance of a very big fish, he went for the second option straight away!!

I was back in the car for a 20 minute drive up to the middle Trent to find the area I wanted free so I set up and was fishing by 22:15, ten hours after leaving work!

It was still very mild at 13 degrees with thick cloud and very dark with a water level of .66m, it looked perfect, I put both on 18mm BBB with 8oz leads and put a spread of BBB and Asbo through the swim and could finally relax.

02 November 2024

The first bite came 35 minutes after midnight and felt heavy straight away but did not really charge off, it stayed deep and heavy and I really felt I’d got my reward for all the driving and walking, as the fight progressed I just knew something wasn’t quite right but still felt very familiar and sure enough a Carp popped up and into the net at 16-10, they have been following me all season, but still feeding fish attract others so it gave me confidence fish were feeding on my spots.

Had me going for a while until this popped up at 16-10

Four hours later the same rod went again and this was a Bream, but again with fish feeding I felt it was a good sign.

It started to drizzle at first light and never really stopped all day, I topped up my spot with 50 boilies and four pints of hemp and got ready for Rupert to arrive. He arrived at 09:00 and we got him set up and I went through my usual process of explaining and showing swim / spot selection, rigs and baiting strategy and we got him fishing.

We had a really good enjoyable day chatting and swapping stories and the time flew by, Rupert had three Bream and a Pike on his third rod and we’d been topping up his spot with a few boilies after each fish.

03-04 November 2024

Rupert had another Bream in the night but I didn’t get a bite. We carried on all the next day and apart from a low double Pike on a wobbled dead bait we didn’t get a bite. Despite the difficult session it was really enjoyable in great company and we agreed to get another trip in this winter.

I stayed and did a third night really hoping my target fish would drop down to my area and have a feed, but fishing is a lot of fine margins that sometimes go your way, on this occasion they didn’t, I blanked for second night and found the fish I was after was caught at 20-00 about two miles upstream from where I was fishing, big congratulations to capture, what a huge fish and one I definitely want.

06 November 2024- NPS show

It’s surprising how quickly a year rolls round, it was 12 months ago I was doing a talk at the last NPS show and here we were again, Julie and I drove up early and had a nice meal in Farnham and then got to the show venue to set up. I was multi-tasking as I’d agreed to do a Rig Clinic and it was the book launch for the excellent River Trent book compiled and published by Stuart Brookes so I did a lot of book signing.

It was another very well organised show with great speakers, trade stands and very well attended with 400+ people. The book launch went well and Julie and I had a brilliant night, I enjoy helping people and had a great response on the Rig Clinic and have agreed to do it again next year.

14 November 2024 – River Trent, Gunthorpe

After a ten day stretch at work I had one night before heading to Spain on the 17th, so with it being my birthday on the 16th I went for a social with Potty on Gunthorpe.

The conditions weren’t ideal with, no wind, a big full moon and clear sky but it was warm at 10 degrees. Even with the conditions I felt confident of a bite or two so baited quite heavily with BBB and Asbo.

We had a good catch up and fished until 11:00 the next morning but both blanked, I went home and he stayed on for another two nights and did have something special on the third night. I was at Luton airport getting ready to board and got a text, he’d got a fish we know well and a PB at 18-10, well done mate, what a huge fish 😃

I’d done four nights fishing without catching an Barbel, I was fishing a difficult area for three of them but that’s the first time in years I hadn’t caught a Barbel in November, hopefully I’ll put that right next month.

17-22 November 2024 – Rio Ebro, Mequinenza, Spain

I arrived for our annual get together in good time on the morning of the 17th to lovely sunny skies at 18-20 degrees not knowing what a challenge this trip was going to be, Colin picked me up from Barca airport late morning having dropped off the last clients for 2024, they’d had a great week with lots of Cats to 187 pound and after hearing all about it we were confident of a great fortnights fishing.

We got back to Meq in good time and got the gear together to get out later that afternoon, we stopped off for something to eat and that’s where we got the news we didn’t want to hear….

The authorities had decided to drop the river level to do a controlled flood to clear the silt and this could be up to eight days!! Now this sounded ridiculous but having fished in Spain for 23years I’ve seen it all and nothing surprises me, but we’d heard nothing official so we went to the area we wanted to start in and set up.

By the next morning it was clear the level was dropping quickly, we got baits out for 07:00 and Colin had a 125 three hours later but by late afternoon it was too low so we reeled in and decided to stay put until we got more information.

When we got up the next morning it was unbelievable and I never seen it so low, they’d taken the level down by 15 feet with only the old river with water in it! The talk was it would be low for a week at least so I had to consider going home if we couldn’t find anywhere safe enough to climb down to be able to fish. We spent the day driving round taking photos and tried two areas over the next four days without catching any Cats.

The old town main road normally under 12-15 feet of water!

The first area was ok until they started the controlled flood and then the water was gushing through carrying all sorts of trees and rubbish making fishing impossible.

On the fourth day we moved to a huge slack area of perhaps 3-4 acres, that seems difficult to think about when we look for slacks on our rivers to drop a bait in, but the Ebro system is huge and approx. 700m wide in that area, we saw Cats roll straight away and it really lifted our spirits.

However, the wind had been bad for days and was so strong it wasn’t safe to go out in the boat so I carp fished for the day and did have a Common at 32-00 before we were asked to leave as the club had booked a Carp match on the section, everything seemed against us on this trip. The only positive with this was they told us the level was going back up that night so we moved back to our first area, set up and hit the sleeping bags with everything crossed.

23 November 2024

We got up to find the level back up, it’s quite unbelievable unless you see it yourself how so much water can be run off and the reservoir refilled in such a short time, it’s a huge expanse of water and if you had arrived on the 23rd you wouldn’t have a clue what had happened on the days previous.

It was a cold start at 4 degrees as we rowed baits out at 07:00 both wondering how long it would take for the fish to re-adjust, the water was very clear but warm at 14 degrees. The silt had been washed away from the old river bed so it was harder to hold bottom fishing up the far shelf even with 2lb leads, as they rolled down as soon as any tension was put in the line, so we fished the near shelf covering different depths of 12-17 feet between our four rods. Even the Vultures thought we were mad and at times we had 32 circling above us 😃

It took four hours before the first bite when Colin had a take on his right hand rod, which turned out to be the hot rod all week, with a 90 pounder. He went on to have three more with Cats at 96, 151 and 166 to finish a great day. The only take I had was a Common at 34-08.

24-25 November 2024

The next two days were warm and sunny at 20 degrees with light winds with chilly nights, perfect November conditions on the Ebro, and the river level and temp remained stable. The fishing picked up with the consistent conditions with Colin having fish at 50, 80, 112, and 124, and I finally got going with fish at 60, 85, 90, 102, 144 and 163, and a Carp at 33-12.

26-29 November 2024

Unfortunately the weather changed again and went misty and cold all day and night with the temp rarely getting above 7 degrees; they started messing with the river level again letting cold water down the Segre from the Pyrenees, so the levels and temp were up and down which had an impact on the fishing.

Colin’s hot rod in the warmer water coming down from the Ebro continued to do a few bites with fish at 70, 140, 156 and a huge 185, I had a 112 and some Carp in the 20’s and 35-08 but the fishing really slowed down with one or two bites a day between us.

The river system and weather had thrown it all at us and it was a challenging trip but enjoyable all the same, I’ve been 50+ times over the last 23 years and still love it there as you never know how big the next bite might be, we have good and bad trips but the drive to keep going is always there and we’ve already planned next year’s trip for just after my 60th……

30 November 2024

We had to cut the trip a day short as Colin had to come back to the UK so we went to Barca late afternoon and checked into a nice hotel only 10 minutes away from the airport. We were dropped off by Colin’s son Nacho and as we got out the car and stood chatting I noticed Espanyol fans walking past with scarfs on…..

Now we both love football and the stadium was 5 minutes’ walk from the hotel, so after a chat to the helpful hotel staff I registered as a member on the club website and got two tickets for 30 euros each, the Premier League should hang its head in shame as ticket prices here are ridiculous.

We had a great night and Espanyol won 3-1 to finish a great holiday.

The flight home wasn’t quite so graet but I’ll cover that next month as it was 1 Dec 😃

That brought an end to my months fishing, until next month, tight lines and be lucky 😊

Big thanks to my sponsors for their continued support,

The Sessions - Nov 2024