Marrakesh – The Kingdom of the Wind

Marrakesh – The Kingdom of the Wind

Carp fishing in Morocco on Bin El Oudaine

Most pictures enlarge on clicking

During a period of particularly miserable winter weather I decided I needed something to look forward to.

I had read snippets of info and seen a couple of YouTube bit’s on the lake.

That was it! This was the place. . . I just had to give it a go. A quick phone call to my mate Damo and yep he’ll give it a go. Sorted.

I emailed Alex Perrin from Angling International who are the UK agents for Marc Vergauwen who is the owner of the company www.moroccocarpfishing.com. Now I must just digress here. Marc and his company are the ONLY company that have legal rights to fish the lake. There are a number of other people who are trying to set up and take advantage of the many years hard work that Marc has put in to establish his business. These other people have had bad reports put up on the forums and could have damaged the reputation of fishing at Bin El Oudaine. So if you want to go then Marc’s people are the only ones who can guarantee what they advertise and you will not be disappointed.

Right, back to the trip.

After a sleepless night and few too many beers we landed at Marrakesh and soon spotted the other carpers on the trip. I think the camo and green ruckers gave it away.

For anyone who has travelled on the roads in Morocco it might cause a few raised eyebrows. I mean they could make a video game of it. It would be like Need for Speed, Crazy Taxi and Burnout all mixed together. I can’t believe that there can actually be a driving test to pass that endorses the driving we experienced. The general style is to lean on the horn continuously, fiddle with the mobile phone and drive where you want. The bigger and louder your horn the more space you get. It was great, I loved it, everywhere should be like this, it certainly makes driving more fun!

Right, back to the trip.

Promises and dreams of gold

Now the Atlas mountains rise up out of the desert, the sun-baked peaks hiding the promises and dreams of gold that lay ahead. Our minibus huffed and puffed its way up the mountains; I was glad about this as the hairpins were getting tighter and tighter and the drop was, well, breathtaking, and would done you a lot of good. The scene at the end of the original Italian job kept springing to mind.

OK, fast forward before I bore you to death.

My first glimpse of the lake was a massive Dam just stuck between two mountains. Damo seemed suitably impressed and it was hard to imagine how much water was being held back. As we viewed the parts of lake stretched out before us it became apparent just how massive and beautiful the place was. The lake is over 6000 acres with mountain peaks breaching the crystal waters like Jurassic turtles. Pictures could never do justice to the desolate and rugged beauty. I was well and truly under the spell of the lake.

We arrived at base camp and met our Moroccan guides for the duration, all were top blokes, always smiling and helpful.

Time to get to the swims as everything was sorted at base camp. All gear is supplied; rods, bedchair, bivvies, mats, sling, all cooking equipment for food and bait, bait (maize) was supplied as was a 2.3m rib with life jackets and echo sounder. The only kit you need to bring with you is your terminal tackle, reels, buzzers and kipping bag. Swim choice wasn’t a problem, as only ten of us were fishing the lake, so we had plenty of room as you can Imagine. Owing to the fact that neither Damo nor I had had any kip for 36-plus hours and it was getting dark we picked a spot in the distance nearest to an area that has produced a few fish the weeks before. My main thought was just to get my head down for the night as I was starting to see purple elephants out the corner of my eyes. It was a tad breezy and setting up an unfamiliar bivvy whilst in a state of sleep-deprived madness was unbelievably difficult. The air was blue but finally the bivvies were up and I managed to pull out the legs of the bedchair! WHY? I just sat there drooling for an age and eventually managed to rebuild it. Right, off for a kip, with the Toad’s rhythmical croaking floating on the breeze.

I awoke to the sound of something big

I dreamt of being a Jedi, fighting to save the giant Toad People and was awoken by the sound of something very big crashing out on the still morning water. This was followed by another sploosh. CARP! S**T I’m not a Jedi I’m here to fish. Let’s get on with it.

We got the boat sorted and I went for a row-about to see what’s what. I went to where I’d seen the carp, the echo told me that it was about 6m rising to 4m (ish) then it dropped off fast. I marked the spot and did the same for a few other areas. Most of the fish we saw were over the shallower areas, so these were targeted first. Its been a long time since I’ve had butterflies in my guts whilst rigging my rods up, such was the anticipation and excitement. Rigs were simple, lead clip system with 5oz flat pears, knotless knot job with a few grains of Maize and plastic Maize. I only put 1/2 kilo to 1 kilo of Maize over each hookbait, for we thought that just fishing for a bite at the time was the way to go as the fishing had been patchy.

My rod ripped off

I was just sitting down to relax and eat a melon when my rod ripped off. Blimey, I didn’t expect that so soon. The fish got snagged almost immediately. Luckily, as I was getting the boat Damo said it had come free. It was a cracking 16lb common, but I didn’t care about the weight, I was off the mark. Damo followed shortly with a 20-plus fish. Next a few lost fish. Now I won’t bore you with fish capture/loss descriptions, I’ll just tell you how we got round the problem of losses and let the pictures tell the stories of success.

The losses were mainly down to the lead not discharging from the clip, despite the swivel being pushed home fully. The bottom of the lake was very rocky, the swivel was pulling free and you ended up trying to play the carp through a snagged lead clip, which just snagged worse or the fish came off. Simple solution was to superglue the swivel and to just push the tail rubber on. Also in the snaggier areas I put sliding bubble floats on the mainline and then had a stop-knot 20 foot up the line.

This, and by having the rod’s pointed at the sky, kept the mainline out of the rocks. Also, we used mono, when I go again I will be using braid for the obvious reasons of bite indication at long range and zero stretch around snags and its lower diameter for cutting through the heavy waves and wind.

The raging wind but otherwise it was Heaven

The wind for four days also made fishing very effectively almost impossible. Three foot and bigger white-capped waves were smashing rocks up onto the margins. It made rowing a dangerous business, not to mention the problem of accurate baiting, etc. The noise from the wind was relentless and made fishing and sleep fruitless. I have been lucky to fish the Ebro top and bottom dams, the St Lawrence and a few big waters but I have never experienced changeable mad weather that you get when you’re 3000 metres up in the sky.

In summary, both me and Damo had PB’s. I managed a 42 and Damo a 44, plus I had a low 30 and we both had some cracking 20’s. These ain’t big by today’s standards but to catch such quality fish in breathtaking scenery was more than enough. The rod-caught record for the lake is 30kg and local fisherman have had fish in excess of 36kg in their net’s. You never know what’s gonna be on the other end when the rod rips and that is special and rare in these days when nearly every big fish is known.

The food was superb. Every morning bread jam, eggs and goat sausages would be brought to the swim by boat. If any water or beer was required we just gave the dude in the boat a list and then in the evening he would come by with the beer and a Tagine of beef, chishe, goat with olives, potatoes, etc. They were delicious and we reheated them on the stoves provided. This was washed down with ice cold beer. Ahh…. Heaven. There was so much food we struggled to eat all of it so the stray dogs that befriended us ate well.

All in all the service and set up was perfect, much better than I expected. The food was spot on and nothing was too much touble for the guides. The only extra money you need is for beer, fags and water, everything else is included in the price.

The water is not easy; you could easily blank or you could have a catch and a fish of a lifetime. If you fancy fishing one of the most awsome places on the planet then I urge you to give it a go.

www.moroccocarpfishing.com

Tight lines

Steveo