Hi again folks, February has been a bit of an up and down month here in Extremadura. We started the month happy to welcome our first Dutch client Ralph. Ralph being in the fishing game himself was an experienced angler with many trips abroad before under his belt. Ralph began his holiday with us in scorching sunshine on Orellana, we spent the first two days on this lake with Ralph bagging a 24lb Orellana common. After that, as things were a bit slow on Orellana, we moved up to Sierra Brava for the remainder of his stay with us. Things went well right from the start on Brava, with Ralph loving the fishing and banking some cracking fish up to 36lbs. Over the week on Brava, Ralph had over 20 runs and managed to put at least 10 of them on the bank whilst also finding out that you really have to be on top of your game and have a little bit of luck when fishing for the monster carp that lurk in Brava. He was beaten up badly by one big fish in particular and looked like he was going to be sick afterwards….. never mind mate, you’ll have it next time, looking forward to it.
In the latter part of the month Catch Carp Spain were pleased to welcome Bob and Steve for their first visit here in Extremadura. The day the lads arrived was a lovely sunny day and so was the following morning when we headed out onto Brava to begin fishing. Bob is an experienced carp angler, whereas Steve is very new to the game and had never caught a carp before. Things got off to a great start on the first day with me helping Steve get his rods out first. We’d only just finished putting his last rod out when his middle rod went off. Steve being new to all this never realised to start with what was going on as it had happened so quickly and after some vigorous prompting from myself he grabbed the rod and was into his first carp.
His first will definitely not be one that he forgets, for after picking up his rod he walked a few paces back, tripped over his gear and landed on his back, but like the true trooper he was, the rod was kept up and 5 minutes later he had his first carp in the net, a 17lb Sierra Brava common. Well done mate, an absolute classic. Unfortunately, this was to be the highlight of the trip as all hell broke loose an hour later. The lads were then unlucky to experience the most extreme weather that Extremadura has had in the last 20 years. To begin with, an hour after Steve’s fish we got hit by very scary thunder, lightning, hailstones and gales that came out of nowhere and ended up with Bob’s brolly being obliterated and Bob taking the full force of the storm head on. One he’ll NEVER forget. 
After that it was torrential rain and gales more or less for the whole week with the lakes flooding beyond recognition. Needless to say the fishing was wrecked with the water in the lakes the colour of chocolate milkshake. We did soldier on, but realistically there was very little chance of catching fish. Although the fishing was terrible, the lads still had a good laugh, with loads of great banter about the conditions and Anne at Catch Carp Spain coming up trumps as usual with some incredible meals. Cheers again Anne.I’m glad to say as I’m writing this that the weather has calmed down and they have opened up the dams so the water is coming down all the time and things should be back to normal in the coming weeks. Will keep you posted next month.