A nice catch of carp from the new dam.

Camping and fishing report

When not out fishing with clients I spend my spare time out exploring for new waters this report covers one new water that we have started to fish this season.

I found the water the year previous and liked the look of it. It is more like what you could be used to in England not too big, I suppose that you could walk around the dam in a little over one hour, not like our main dams that would take days to walk around!

1st trip: Graham contacted me from the north east of England and asked if I could take him out for the day, I do not usually take just one angler but as he is a regular and easy going I agreed, if he would try out a new water with the understanding that the fishing could be unpredictable. I collected Graham at 7am in Quarteira and set off for the dam that we found after a little exploring as it is not on most maps and I was going from memory.

Our first sight of the dam was good, no wind and we could see fish topping all over the place. Approaching our swims quietly, we could make out numbers of carp in the area, fish around 5lbs each swimming in the crystal clear water. This looked promising, so we set our gear up to give it a go .We had small fish from the start and ended up with some nice carp to 8lb which put up a great fight on match gear in the clear water. I had graham home by 8pm so that he could take the family out for an evening meal. Catch for the day10 fish and a few lost.

2nd trip: I collected two anglers early in the morning and set off for the dam, stopping off on the way for our traditional coffee and toasta mista. On arrival at the dam we could see no fish but settled down to the fishing. The fishing was very slow but we kept the feed going in and I kept the coffee coming. By around 4pm we started to get lots of runs and continued to catch till dusk. I had the clients home for 10pm, the catch for the three of us must have been over 50 fish, again to about 8lbs

3rd trip: From the results of these trips I was keen to give the water a serious session, as from experience I know that our waters very rarely show there real potential on one day flying visits, but respond to several days feeding. The school holidays had started and I had promised to take my daughter Corrina and her friends Charlotte and Nathan camping, so this looked like a good opportunity to combine the two. Nathan is only 9, but he has been fishing with me for the last few years and is getting good.

Nathan with his full scaled common carp from the new dam

Preparation it is vital on a 3 day trip, to be organised I make a list and take everything including the kitchen sink, fortunately my big Mazda pick up has plenty of room. One good tip is to freeze as much fruit juice as possible, this I take in cool boxes and use to keep the bacon and sausages cool, on a long trip I take a gas refrigerator.

We set of nice and early arriving at the dam about 9am, Corrina asked the farmer if we could camp near the dam, no problem! We are very careful to take all our rubbish home with us so as not to spoil it for next time. Must have been 11pm by the time we had the tent and air beds set up. Tent is 10ft square and over 6ft high so there is plenty of room and there is an inner sleeping tent with mosquito net, that takes 4 adults. (see our camping page)

Nathan and myself started to fish whilst the girls went for a swim well away from us. The fishing was very slow but by 5pm we had started to catch a few fish. As dusk came the air was alive with the most beautiful acrobatic birds swooping down taking insects from near the water, I must get a book to see what kind they were, even had two kingfishers land on my rod there one day. We continued on fishing into the night using starlights on our floats and took many more fish, but still only up to around 8lbs. I went to bed in the back of my pickup at 11pm leaving the gang eating crisps and listening to music in the tent.

Next day saw me fishing at sunrise 6am and catching a steady stream of nice fish, Nathan came down about 9 am and fished for a few hours and took a few fish when not swimming with the girls. At 6 PM I hooked a fish on the boilie rod that seemed much better and after a good fight landed a scale perfect 14lb common carp .On the match rod I continued to catch carp, mainly 5 to 7lb each until dark. Had an early night.

Last day started with lots of fish on the match rod fishing chick peas and a few runs on boilies so I decided just to fish with boilies for the rest of the session and took lots of fish again to around 8lbs

Conclusion for me is that this dam has some potential for this year and very good potential for the future. These 8lb fish will soon be into doubles and we took a few mirror carp that will be potential 30lb fish! There could well be fish to near 30lb in there now, I remember fishing the Arade dam near Silves when we first came out here, 11years ago and could only catch small carp, yet when the dam was drained a few years ago there were a few big carp left to die in the mud.

I can wait, with the fishing generally so good, there is plenty to occupy the time until they mature into monsters!

Email me:j.bate@clix.pt