Dan Picksley and Nicholas Hart made their way to the Ebro last week, drawn as many are to the promise of something extraordinary from its broad, flowing waters. The setup was straightforward, four rods between them, a guide named Eric, and a coin tossed to see who’d take the first run. Dan called it right, and the rods were set.
The first bite came soon after, a tiny Carassio that flapped its way into the net, raising a few chuckles. The second had a bit more weight behind it. The rod nodded gently, and Nick wound down to find himself attached to a roach, three pounds or thereabouts. A potential personal best, had it not parted company with the hook just as it reached the net.
Twenty minutes later, the same rod went again. However line peeled off in steady bursts this time around as Nick leant into it. There was a different feel now, it was certainly a much better fish that was powering off into the middle of the river.
“That is a big carp, this is exactly what they do when they are hooked,” Eric said.
The next few minutes were steady and tense as the fish was slowly coaxed towards the boat. As the fish surfaced nobody could believe the size of the carp that they were met with, it was one of the Ebro's giants.
"When it went into the net, there was no celebration, not at first. We were all just stunned," Nick told us.
"Our guide Eric confirmed the carp was a known fish called Red Eye, one of the true beasts of the river which is rarely seen, and even less often caught," he added.
The scales didn’t take long to confirm what Eric suspected. Seventy-six pounds of river-bred common. For Nick, who’d arrived with a 19lb PB, it was more than just a personal best. It was something else entirely.
