Premios Trofeo Valdecaballeros 2007

I spent my weekend fishing a match Trofeo Valdecaballeros 2007 in Extremadura.

We drew peg 9 slap bang dead centre of the match. I have to say the organisation by T.Crespo and the Carpmad team was the tops!

As for the location the water was a real stunner, our vista was really special. Within moment’s of arriving I was spotting all kind of quality bird life Golden Oriels and Cuckoo’s, it was defiantly one of the most clearly abundant spots I have ever fished , really a very beautiful place. It’s nice to know that for 30 euro you can night fish (legal) and with 3 rods, come on!

We had two casual teams fishing for CARPdiem. We didn’t gun at it, for us it was more of a social strole than a heated competition. To my knowledge almost all teams caught fish, this is a bonus as the last match we fished we qualified but the carp were thin on the ground, ahem!

This time 18 pairs of Spanish carp fishermen took to the bank to pit wit! Actually I should rephrase that and say «Spanish carp women», as we had a mixed bag and several girls fishing in the match including a pair who managed to pick up a trophy. It was great to see the girls getting stuck in and and competing and catchiug a fair share of the fish to take home a prize! As I said, I think most teams at least caught a fish but many were less than the 4kg weight needed to be qualify. That’s right, any fish less than 4kg was not counted!

Below right is my mate Raul (sorry no tilde), from the CARPdiem squad and my partner in crime for this match. Raul is sporting one of our new proto-tpye CARPdiem Tutti Frutti T-shirts (nice arnt’ they?), the fish in hand is a typical from the match with a weight of about 3.75kg. We just couldnt for love nor money catch something bigger

The first and 2nd place were very close weights, with just a few grams to separate the prizes. It was also a similar story for 3rd, 4th and 5th. The other British lads in the match were Matt and Miles from Fat Angling. They were gunning away all day and night and set a fine president, actually they fished in the swim to my right (peg 10). Their attitude and team work was nothing short of pro. If the competition had been based just on weight and all fish counted the FAT boys would have won it!

All night FAT alarms were ripping off, I think they banked 20 or more fish, it was just a shame the fish were mostly less than the 4kg required. Finally they took a 5th position with two fish one of 5kg and another of 4kg. The CARPdiem crew’s Raul and myself plus Tony and his team did what we could we managed to bag a few fish but sadly all of them were less than 4kg. Tony lost a decent fish at the net which was a shame and would have probably got CARPdiem a trophy but it wasn’t meant to be and so did not make the score board. Not to worry, we did manage to spread the gospel about our new magazine CARPdiem and socialise so all in all, a good time was had!

Actually a brilliant time was had especially eating, my god did we eat well!

The winning team took the match and the best weight so they got double prizes! I am sure Pedro y Juanjo who drew lucky or unlucky peg no.13 are more than happy with the result. They bagged a lovely carp of 12kg plus another of 4kg. to take the booty, arrgh, you can see the better fish they caught if you click on this video link here.

The total winning weight was just 16kg. All it took was a fish like the one in the video for the boys to clinch the match and at any time it was any one’s game. Well that’s my brief run down on the match. It was a cracking little event and I hope and wish for others to be held soon.