It is Wednesday, day five of our week-long break, and our host, Fraser, guides the small inflatable boat around the furthermost point of another apparently innocuous little bay to reveal, for the umpteenth time, a winding, vast expanse of water. At this point it truly dawns on me that to catch a carp from this monstrous lake requires something more…epic, than simply ‘baiting and waiting’.
The lake is Bin El Ouidane, 7500 acres of clear blue water set 800m altitude in the mid-atlas mountains of Morocco, and it is here that two friends and I undertook the challenge of tempting one of the lake’s stunningly conditioned and enormous carp. We were booked with Morocco Carp, a new company in its first year of operating, for a week’s worth of fishing along with evening and breakfast meals as part of the ‘Bankside Package’.
Upon arrival at the quaint and comfortable ‘Hotel Bin El Ouidane’ we were greeted by warm smiles and a stunning view of the lake. Though weary from our travels, it was hard not to feel energised by the sight of the turquoise oasis, and over a welcome beer and sandwich we listened to and questioned Fraser to find out exactly what sort of a trip we were in for.
Perhaps now is the time to explain that, although a modestly experienced fisherman, the scale of Bin El Ouidane was something entirely new to me. ‘Big water fishing’ was something that had long played upon my sense of what true carp fishing really is, yet i had never been quite bold enough to take the plunge and give it a try. Until now of course.
I knew what I was expecting to gain from our trip: more knowledge that trophy shots (yet there was no doubt that i wanted dearly to catch). So then, when Fraser began by describing how tough the lake was fishing, it came as little surprise and, if anything, firmed my resolve. In my eyes, raising the difficulty simply raises the level of potential reward.
Our first night was to be spent in ‘Twin Waddies’ a well fished swim on the same bank as the hotel, and one that has produced a lot of fish over the last 6 months. However, our host had grander plans for the remainder of our trip suggesting a relatively untested swim on the opposite bank, where the fishing is harder and the isolation more extreme. The stakes continued to escalate.
With no night fishing, there remained enough light to simply set up camp and prepare for the morning, when finally we would get to cast a line. The issue of night fishing came as news to us upon our arrival, and would later turn out to be a stickier issue than we could have imagined, but for this first night we were glad of the offer of a good hot meal, some wine and the good company of, amongst others, our host Fraser, and Hotel Bin El Ouidane owner, Hamid.
As we ate a wonderful spread of fresh vegetables and delicately cooked tajine upon the rooftop terrace, videos looped on a laptop screen opposite me; fish after fish, each more perfect and shining than the last, and each captor wearing the same euphoric grin. A reminder of the prize that lay ahead, and the ever shortening number of hours before I could start chasing those wonderful fish. As tends to happen when the company and conversation is as good as the food and wine, things became later, and it was gone midnight when we finally arrived back in the swim (albeit one member short…).
The alarm sounded at 5am, i peered out blearily into total darkness - too soon to fish. 6am and again, not enough light to tackle what was going to be a serious operation of placing 6 rods at ranges beyond which any of us had previously fished. By 6.20, and after much face-rubbing and tired stirring, it was finally beginning to turn from black to blue outside the bivvy, and our trip was about to really kick off.
Although we only had a scheduled 6 hours in the swim before moving off the ‘the other side’, we had been assured there was every chance of a fish if we worked the swim just right, and fished tightly. With this in mind, 2 hours later i beached the boat between the rods for the 3rd time and set about restoring blood flow to my aching arms. Things had gone far from smoothly in the two preceding hours as we battled with boats, strong winds and a totally new scale of fishing, and although all rods were in the water lessons had been learned already.
It was a confidence sapping start to the trip, and what was designed to be a comfortable ease into this new style of fishing had become a frustrating battle against both my own limitations and the elements. Lines were laid with enormous bows, baits were dropped imprecisely on vaguely likely spots, and i think everyone of us felt a little roughed up by the lake. Still, I was learning what not to do, which is not quite as rewarding as learn what to do, but certainly better than learning nothing at all.
To compound the sense of wasted opportunity, a local fisherman boated out and retrieved his lines, which happened to lay perpendicular to our four rods and necessitated another venture into the boat to get everything repositioned after each in turn was dragged off it’s designated spot. So when the barge eventually arrived, we were ready to forget ‘Twin Waddies’ and start afresh.
Stumble it!
