Buen Dia first day of season

This weekend was my first session on Buen Dia this season, since I did not fish so well on my last session I wanted to make amend. My new fishing mate Raul picked me up Friday afternoon and we promptly headed out to Buen Dia for a one night session. On arrival at Entrepenas the first reservoir you reach before Buen Dia, I asked Raul if we could go to the waters edge. I wanted to see the water as on my last trip this part of Entrepenas was real low, and I wanted to compare it from May to now.

Apparently the Medio Ambiente basically the equivalent to UK Environment Agency have stated that both Enterepenas and Buen Dia will not drop further, and that water levels will remain as are, which according to my sources currently stand at 17% and 9% Vol. respectively, I should think they would not drop much more, I mean they are truly low enough, anyway as expected the water on both bodies of water was lower than my previous visit in May. Actually the water was so low on Entrepenas that some boats had been stranded and now stood in a field rather than afloat on water. The fact these boats were now on dry land was a sign for me clear as the day there had been another drop in water.

The boats that are now afloat on the remainder of water are held together on this body which was once a large wing of the lake, now however it’s reduced to a almost pond. The only good point about this section/wing is that it does still have a connection with the main body of water which means fish won’t get trapped or cut off in this section and therefore are not in as much danger as I originally feared. If fish were to get cut off as I have seen at other waters then for sure they would be left for dead, unless that is I took action, which of course I would! It’s points like this which whip you to wonder about the infrastructural vary between the UK and Spain, I mean you just wouldnt get an every day Joe like me having to muck in and save fish in the UK, if disaster was too strike, yet here in Spain it appears to be – Joe do or die!

After documenting the drought and water level with photos and video, we moved 10km from Entrepenas to our quarry Buen Dia. We went to the part of the lake which is home to the ruins, the old village which is now exposed but previously was sunk underwater when they flooded the valley; the ruins are really interesting and weird.

We checked 3 likely spots and quickly found a spot with fish, the fish were clearly visible bonus. The next choice we had to make was that of bank and fish land ability, since we knew where the fish were we had been given a gift but the bank side at this point was not so good as there was a great deal of mud at the waters edge making it hard to walk in, easy to sink in and even harder to land fish in!

Finally we managed to locate a spot which offered the best compromise, these issues you should prepare yourself to deal with whilst fishing here in Spain, as often bank sides vary are are virtually never pre-prepared, Spainish fishing means wild terrain, and without question for a large part of Buen Dia your off-road in every sense of the word.

We chose a spot in about 4.5m of water, baited with a mix of groundbait, hemp, corn, betaine pellet, fish bollie, monster squid and a mixture of other bits we had, we didn’t know if it had been fished the day before but since it was Friday we assumed not. In weight we put about 2kg of bait in. The hours went by with no action, and I couldn’t help but think how slow it was, something was up. Shortly after we knew what was up, a storm was a brewing in the East, in flash the wind changed from S.W to East and soon after 9.30pm the heavens opened and a storm like none I have witness came flodding in. I can only describe it as impressive and very loud, we made a run for our tents and bivy’s throwing all our gear in and out of the rain, the rain came down in bucket loads and the lightning was so strong, loud and impressive I felt like I was in my own horror movie!

After about 1 hour the rain broke, and began to ease off, during which we retrieved our baits and took shelter in the car, we knew the storm wasn’t over; we sat for at least another hour in the car as the next wave came in, watching the visual display of lighting was something else. At about 1.00am things started to settle so we got back to the fishing.

At about 2.30am I had my first fish, a welcome Mirror Carp, not a big fish but it meant that the fish we grubbing about. One hour later another screamer of a run, which amounted to a nice Common, fish were feeding for sure. Through the night I took 5 fish the best being a lovely long Spanish Mirror Carp which I am guessing was about 24lbs, we did not actually weight it, but have a look for yourself here and tell me what you think!

It was an adventurous session where all our gear was put to the test, when those storms kick up in Spain they dont half rage, and it’s funny as the forecast didn’t even mention it! The next day when we packed up, as we were slowly making our way through the puddles and mud tracks we met a couple coming to fish, they asked us if we had done a night session, we said «yes», they said in those storms you must be mad, mad I wouldn’t say that just well up for it! It was a crazy wild session with reward in the shape of a cracking Spanish mirror Carp, I was pleased.

The session was also a chance for me to put some new Braid to the test which my friend Paco from Carpones had given to me. I was using this new Braid by an Italian Company called IndyLine – Chakchiuma, their Braid is very similar to Fox Insider, I will talk about this Braid in more detail again but I have to say I was very pleased with it’s performance, and for sure we out fished those others who arrived and fished close to us.