{"id":381,"date":"2019-11-04T15:35:55","date_gmt":"2019-11-04T15:35:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tomscatch.com\/blog\/?p=381"},"modified":"2020-11-27T18:56:57","modified_gmt":"2020-11-27T18:56:57","slug":"a-recent-day-fishing-at-the-ebro-delta-with-tomscatch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tomscatch.com\/blog\/a-recent-day-fishing-at-the-ebro-delta-with-tomscatch\/","title":{"rendered":"A recent day Fishing at the Ebro Delta with TomsCatch"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently I had the chance to head to the Ebro Delta to fish with the owner Thomas of TomsCatch<\/a> and a few of his mates. The Ebro Delta is in the Catalan region of Spain, an easy two hours drive south of its main tourist city, Barcelona. I have lived in Barcelona<\/a> for the past 18 months but until recently had no idea just how incredible the fishing could be.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Ebro<\/a>

Ebro Delta fishing in October 2019<\/p><\/div>\n

The day started with an early wake up from my arch enemy, the mobile phone alarm, and after a quick call into the local bakery for a life saving coffee we were on our way to start our Ebro Delta fishing trip<\/a>. On the way down we got to know each other more and talked about what to expect from the days fishing as well as some of our own previous fishing experiences.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Ebro Delta is a large wetland area that is growing each year, it is tipped to be completely flooded in another 30 years or so. For now though it is home to agriculture pastures that mainly consist of rice fields with other fruits and vegetables also growing in the area. Along with the agriculture side of things, it is also one of the largest and most important bird breeding grounds along the Mediterranean coast with some 300 bird species visiting the area each year.<\/span><\/p>\n

Apart from the impressive landscape the other renowned fact about the Ebro Delta is the impressive fishing it can produce and this was the reason we were making the trip south from Barcelona. We had organised a full-day hire boat thanks to TomsCatch and Pescaebro Sport Fishing and were planning to target fish species including Bluefish, Leerfish, Amberjack, Little Tunny, Bonito, Horse Mackerel and\u00a0 Dolphinfish or Mahi-Mahi.<\/span><\/p>\n

When we first arrived at the boat we were greeted with an amazing morning, not a breath of wind in the air, an amazing sunrise with just the right amount of clouds in the sky and a warm but comfortable temperature for fishing. We quickly loaded up the boat with our fishing gear, received the necessary paperwork and safety instructions and were on our way out the river mouth of the Ebro River to the Mediterranean Sea.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Mahi

Mahi Mahi caught on light tackle<\/p><\/div>\n

Our first plan for the day was to troll along the beach shore line to the left and right of the river mouth in around 7-15m of water depth searching for a prized Bluefish or Leerfish. This was the fish we had our hopes set on landing today. After trolling back and forth along both sides of the beach multiple times we had not found any sign of a Bluefish or Leerfish on the fish sounder, the surface of the sea had also been causing a few issues as some weed was floating on top and then being captured by our lines and lures as we trolled past.<\/span><\/p>\n

While trolling we had been keeping a close eye on some bird activity in the distance, we didn\u2019t want to be chasing birds all day as up until his point we were focused on trying to chase our target fish of choice. After a couple of hours had passed and it was becoming clearer that the recent rain had probably impacted our chances of finding any Bluefish or Leerfish and as a result we decided a change in tactics was required. We reeled in our lines and lures and began to motor towards a \u201cfrenzy\u201d that had been slowly growing in size not too far in the distance.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Ebro

Llampo is a fishing charter that operates in the Ebro Delta.<\/p><\/div>\n

Once we arrived at the \u201cfrenzy\u201d of seagulls we found a school of fish actively feeding on and under the surface. We changed the lures we had been using to a selection of bomber lures, silver metal lures, and began casting towards the chaos that was now around us in the water. Almost immediately one of the guys on board was fighting a fish, nothing to large, but an exciting feeling after the previous period of no bites. The school of fish continued to provide us all with a great deal of fun, we were catching small to medium sized Mackerel, Atlantic Bonito, juvenile bluefin tuna and Mahi-mahi<\/em>. This provided us another few hours of chasing schools of fish and hungry diving seagulls with mixed results. We were landing some fish, losing some fish and finding some of the schools of fish not interested in anything we offered them.<\/span><\/p>\n