There was a time when I didn’t much like Spain. When I was a boy my father would bundle us all into his Sunbeam Rapier at the onset of the school summer holidays and we would set off, drive down through France, over the Pyrenees, and on to Spain. He would then drive round for 5 weeks before we returned home, he didn’t stop much, it was always, “the next town son”. That was our annual holiday….. every year!…… I still have the large map that he used to mark on all the towns we visited, he would scribble comments alongside the location and the names of people he had met.

Today my memories of these trips extend only to; the seemingly endless winding roads over the mountains and eagle counting, seeing a wolf drinking from a stream, catching a rather large snake with a forked stick on a rocky beach, peering into a small brook thick with elvers, spotting my first ever Hoopoe, and the rivers, oh yes, I remember seeing all the rivers from my prison in the back of the car.

I was pleased to reach an age where I could stay home with my older sister and not partake in the annual torture. I did not return to Spain for many years.

Fast forward then to the BS annual conference of 2001 and John Bailey giving a brilliant talk on barbel fishing Iberian style, I was fascinated and promised myself I would give it a go sometime.

“Sometime” arrived in October of 06 when myself, Chris Pearson and Ian Hobkirk boarded a plane for Madrid, we were off to fish the mighty Rio Tajo for a week. Richard Wager had been kind enough to send me essential information about how to get your licence and his experiences of a spot or two, I needed nothing else.

To cut a long story short, we had a good laugh, caught nothing but small carp and little catfish, crashed both hire cars, and it rained, and I mean rained, every day except the day we decided not to fish but to go to a bullfight instead.   It finished up matador’s 4… bulls 2.

Since that first fruitless trip on the Tajo I have been visiting the system of the Rio Guadiana in the region known as Extremadura. I have been seven times this past 18 months, sometimes alone, and have learnt something new each time about the ways of Spanish barbel.

Let me say this right now, if you know how to catch a few and think you can hop on a plane and translate your experience of catching barbel in this country to success over there, forget it, you cant, they are an entirely different animal.

There are two ways to go. You can, if you want, pay one of the English guides out there a few hundred pounds a week to show you how to go on. These guys know the score, know where the fish are, have your swims pre baited for you, and you will catch plenty of nice Spanish barbel I’m sure.

Or, you might just believe that the actual learning is all part of the enjoyment. If so you would wish to go it alone as I have. Too many want to be instant anglers these days and I think they become poorer fishermen for it in the long run as they can’t adapt. The most wonderful thing for me about barbel fishing in Spain is that it has been like starting all over again, it’s a great adventure.

Now your typical Spaniard is not into fishing in the same way we in the UK are, fly fishing is huge, they like their Bass and don’t mind a bit of Piking. Carp fishing is gaining in popularity but Barbel come way down the list and many folks still eat whatever they catch. The fact of the matter is that there are literally hundreds of miles of rivers and dams that never see a barbel angler, and that’s just in Extremadura. You can wander wherever you want in the main, down farm tracks, through woods, whatever. All the fishing is free, mostly, as the state owns all the rivers in Spain.

Imagine wandering around in a land the size of Belgium and being able to fish wherever you want whilst hardly ever seeing another angler, that’s Extremadura.

There are areas, mostly in the towns, where the Spanish do fish the odd match etc, in such spots it is relatively easy to catch carp and barbel on basic methods such as ledgered sweetcorn. The main problem I have encountered away from the towns is that the fish just do not know what bait is. When you can see 20 nice fish in front of you and they turn their barbels up at every bait you try it can get a bit frustrating after a while, on one such day I resorted to ledgered grasshopper, even then the bites were very tricky.

At another such spot I watched a few barbel coming up in the water, they were clearly feeding on something, it was half an hour before I realised they were taking bits of silkweed that were breaking off a raft some way upstream. Trotted silkweed soon saw me landing a fish,….. how Crabtree is that!

Spanish barbel grow huge, three species go well over 20lb with the Comizo attaing weights getting on for 40lb. You might think then that the rivers are full of doubles, you would be very wrong. In my experience most rivers are stuffed with barbel in the 2 to 6lb category, the bigger fish tend to come from less populated areas and the really really big fish are mainly found in the huge dam systems that exist.

It was one such area that myself and Ian Hobkirk found ourselves in October 07. It was another washed out trip, the river was in flood and so we had a jaunt to the vast Orellana dam system and caught a few pike. To give you an idea of scale Orellana has 60 miles of bankside.

We came upon an English lad who was out there on a guided trip and he had caught barbel of 19lb, 18lb and 14lb that very day. He showed us where the baited area was and revealed that halibut pellet was the bait. The next morning, with the river sadly still in flood Hobby and I set out for a bit of monster Stillwater (sort of) barbel hunting. We knew the lad from the day before was off elsewhere so headed for the baited area he had shown us.

I soon found that in order to cast to the baited area with a 2lb test rod and a 3oz lead I had to take a run up and my Abu 55’s spools were almost emptied. I had scoffed the previous day when the lad had told us that the channel where the fish were was 80 feet deep but I could have had a smoke in between casting and my lead touching bottom, this place was as deep as the sea.

It soon dawned on us that we were seriously under gunned for this type of fishing but we were there now so would give it a go. With baits in place we sat down amongst the ants and waited,….. and waited. It was 5 hours later when Hobby’s rod went off, the hours of inactivity meant that he sprang upon it with all the agility of an arthritic octogenarian…… and he missed it……by miles he missed it……

I have never seen a huge Spanish barbel but I might have seen a bite from one.

My most productive trips have all been in the spring and summer but it has to be said that my two autumn visits coincided with floods of huge proportions. I have not been able to catch a Spanish barbel in a flood, I would be rubbing my hands together in such conditions on the Trent but on the Guadiana and Tajo the pesky little catfish find their light sensitivity is not an issue in the coloured water and eat whatever you cast in straight away.  Hobby decided to “fish through them” one day on maggot feeder. He caught 28 in an hour and a half before giving up.

We tried crayfish as bait in the floods too, on Spanish advice, and had no difficulty collecting a load as they all seem to leave the river and walk up the bank to escape the rushing water. Unfortunately the gun toting Guarda Civil chose the time of our crayfish catching expedition to descend and check our licences, I’m sure they thought we were bonkers.

A word of warning, don’t keep 20 crayfish in you hotel room as they tend to keep you awake all night, noisy little blighters they are.

Most of my success has come on maggot and pellet but the latter only comes into its own after a few days of introducing the fish to this new food source. Spanish barbel will respond to the “dropping” of a large quantity of maggots into a swim, much like our own fish do. They are much more predatory that our native barbel and will take the fly or a deadbait readily. I haven’t tried these methods yet, I can’t quite get my head round deadbaiting for barbel though I am told by the Spaniards it works a treat and sorts out the better fish. I am quite fancying having a go on the fly for them but one thing at a time for just now.

I must mention the wildlife, its simply stunning. Eagles, Vultures, Kites (in fact Extremadura has the highest density of raptors to be found in Europe which tells you much about the biodiversity lower down the food chain), Golden Oriole and Rollers, Snakes and Boar….. it goes on. I even watched two Otters mating not 10 meters from me one day.

I have tried to give you just a snippet, a bit of broken boile if you like, of my barbel fishing in Spain so far. I have a long way to go and much to learn, but more importantly to me I have more than a lifetime’s supply of new rivers and venues to explore that are to all intents and purposes devoid of barbel anglers.

Fishing in Spain is to angle around the corner, it takes you by surprise, full of moments lost in wonder, and more besides.

It has caused me some distress to see the way barbel fishing has gone in the UK this past few years, the banks seem fuller every year with catch at any cost fools who think Stella is an essential part of a barbel anglers kit.

I have called myself a barbel angler for 30 years, I now find I am not wanting to be associated with many of those who now call themselves by the same name.

So, if you’re an angler looking for a change who appreciates the finer, less obvious, aspects of this thing we call a pastime but is so much more, then get a cheap flight to Madrid, hire a car, buy a map, and head west to a place where unnecessary shadows from rod pods are unknown.

These days I can think of nothing finer than wandering around Spain and stopping off for a while here and there,………… its funny how we turn into our fathers as we get older isn’t it.

Some pics from Spain……..