Autumn in Spain

In autumn 2019 I was in Spain with my brother Mathias to try our luck on an autumn pilgrim. To remind myself of this unforgettable adventure, I would like to tell you about it today. While we were already heading towards freezing point in Germany, it was still over 20 degrees Celsius during the day in Spain. We fished at the river Ebro and wanted to try different methods to get to the catfish.

With dying weed fields we had our hands full to keep our montages weed-free. Enormous numbers of duckweed floated on the river. The first 20 hours it remained quiet. But on the following day the first waller appeared around 4 pm and the attack on one of the buoys came like a tsunami over us.

At first I thought it was a small fish. He pulled the 100-gram swimmer into the deep and stayed there. It is not unusual that often small catfish get caught unintentionally by this method. Occasionally they do not manage to break the rip line. When I picked up the rod to get close to the fish, I felt an aggressive jerk. Immediately my answer came in the form of a stop.

Contact was made! Clearly, but the fish first swam about 100 meters directly towards me. I still couldn't guess what was actually hanging on the Black Cat Gripper hook. I got into the boat with the rod to give the fish no chance to escape into the undergrowth - which in Spain is abundant on the shore. But then the fish turned around and I immediately felt its unbridled power. Holla, there was something in the suit.

In the middle of the river the action really got going: The Black Cat Catbuster bent through like a rainbow and the reel Black Cat Extreme 495 released line accordingly. After about 15 minutes of hard drill I was finally able to manoeuvre the fish happily into our boat. Because lo and behold, the fish was only barely hooked! The Gripper Ghost-Hook had caught it nevertheless. I am sure that it was precisely because of this special hook that we were able to "claw" the fussy and cautious autumn whale.

The measuring tape showed us the true size of the fish. A giant specimen of 2.41 meters length lay in front of us. Directly after the catch I and my brother quickly took some photos on the shore to release "our" Herbstwaller into his element.

For me, catfish fishing is still at the top of the popularity scale for autumn fishing. The rabid giant eats up winter fat in autumn and is thus currently on our display. This is a good opportunity for catfish anglers. Come on and get hot! We wish you a lot of fun fishing for your dream-waller in autumn...

Your
Ingo Kuprian
Team Black Cat