Sep 2007

Combo carp/catfish fight!, 1st Sep

I was fishing from the left side of the 'le plage' swim on Laroussi, it was the sixth night of our holiday and the fishing had been quite hard due to the weather allthough we had all caught some very nice fish up to 62lb.

The wind had turned west slightly, a subtle change but the difference in lake activity was very apparent with fish crashing an moving a lot more all over. As darkness fell I was getting more an more confident and with all the movement I just knew it was only a matter of time.

Plastic corn fished with an oily stick over particles, etc was the trap and at 2am the right hand rod fished at 90m on a gravel hump was screaming away. As I lifted into the fish my Century fbs 3.5lb tc arced round and the fight was on.

Twenty minutes later the mirror was tamed and photo's taken, she went 45lb, well pleased I was and got the baits back out there quickly for more action.

Confidence was sky high and I decided I was staying up watching my rods with the odd brew to keep me awake. Little did I know what was about to happen..!

At 4am the right rod was away again, lifting into the fish it felt heavy and after gaining a dozen or so turns of the reel everything went slack. Thinking I had pulled out of the fish I cursed, as you do, and lowered the rod when all of a sudden the rod bent round to the max and the clutch ticked away Applying pressure with my finger on the spool the 3.5lb fbs was in full curve but there was no stopping him, 100 yds at least was stripped from the reel, the fight of my life had began.

Every time distance was gained on the fish he kept turning me and was off again, the fbs cushioning every lunge, time ticked on and my mates were now all up and watching this battle, my back was killing me, full pressure was on the rod but this thing on my line would not tire. It crossed my mind that this was no carp I was fighting. After 2 hours I still hadn't seen the fish, I'd had him 10m from the bank and seen swirls but just could not surface him.

A change of plan was needed so in the water I went up to my waist, I waded round the large bushy tree on my right and into my friend Rod's peg. His peg was wide and shallow and my idea was to walk the fish back up the grassy bank and attempt to beach this animal of a fish.

Everything was working now to plan and the fish was tiring, I felt for the first time I was gaining the upper hand. With the fish only metres from the bank now in only 2ft of water I sent 2 of my mates in to get round the back of it with landing nets. As they got close to it I felt a change in tension on the rod and 1 of them shouted 'it's a carp' followed by 'Jesus what the hell is that' as a massive swirl boiled up next to his legs.

Then the rod went heavy again as this 'thing' grabbed the carp once more only to let go seconds later. Large waves and boils washed against the bank as the predator made of into the lake and the carp was landed. At last the battle was over. We all were amazed at what had happened. The carp had been taken by a massive catfish that would not let go. 

The carp weighed 43lb 8oz, it had scratch marks down both sides from a good third of its body to its tail and some scales missing. We treated its wounds with klinic after taking some photos and released her back into the lake letting her swim off when strong enough......I was shattered, 2.5 hours of battle I had the cat beaten and would have landed it if it had held on a bit longer. All done on Century FBS 3.5lb tc rods and 15lb line. 

Talking to Mehdi that afternoon there is only one cat big enough to be the culprit and this was last caught 2 years ago at 97lb, he had estimated it to be 120lb now in weight but now we think it’s a lot bigger than that to be able to take a 43lb carp.