World Catfish Classic 2012

This coverage of the World Catfish Classic 2012 is part of the Learn To Catch Catfish ongoing coverage of catfish tournaments. If you would like to have your tournament organization or event listed on Learn To Catch Catfish contact us for more information.

The World Catfish Classic doesn’t really fit into the realm of catfishing information we cover on Learn To Catch Catfish as it doesn’t involve fishing for blue catfish, flathead catfish or even channel catfish for that matter. Despite it being a little different from items I normally discuss and cover here on the site it is a cool even and very interesting, and involves catfish so we are rolling with it!

The World Catfish Classic event coordinator, Ross Honey, sent me an email the other day they they were preparing for the 2012 event so I agreed to provide some coverage of the upcoming event..

The first World Catfish Classic was held in 2011 from May 31st to June 3rd in Chiprana Spain. Fishing is done on the River Ebro (Rio Ebro) for the famous big cats. Fish in the 200 lb range are commonly caught fishing this stretch of water.

Fishing is done from the shore but boats are allowed where one member of the fishing team can carry baits out on the boat (similar to kayaking baits out when fishing in saltwater). This is not some drive up and plop a cork down on the bank style of bank fishing for catfish though. These guys are using high tech fishing gear and landing some MONSTER catfish.

In the 2011 event the American team of Phil King, Tim Haynie and David Shipman led the event in weight the entire time right up to the last ninety minutes of the event. It was at that time that the Dutch team of Arnout Terlouw and Ron Beugelink came from behind and won the event by just over 1 lb beating Team USA.

The 2012 World Catfish Classic event will be held from May 23rd to May 25th in the same location.

There are going to be a few very slight changes for the 2012 event and these are:

• The draw at the opening ceremony will decide the competitors peg  for the first day and the zone order for the event.  There will be a draw on each night for the two following nights to see what the peg numbers competitors will fish the following day. The zones will be decided on the first draw and follow on from that so for example if peg B5 was draw  at the opening ceremony then on day 2 the competitors would fish in zone C and day 3 zone A.
• Teams can comprise of 2 or 3 anglers and all 3 can fish .
• 50kgs of bait can be used per day and this can be either squid or halibut pellets or Boilies
• If a fish is snagged competitors can call the marshal and it may then be allowed for one of the anglers to go out in a boat to free the fish from the snag. The rod must stay on the bank at all times. The freed fish will count in the event.

Here is a great video that outlines some of the catfishing techniques, rods and reels used fishing for these big cats on the River Ebro.

For more information on the event visit the World Catfish Classic website.

I wish I could figure out a way to scrape together the cash and join in on the action fishing these waters for these monster cats. Now I just need to convince the Misses we are taking a vacation to Spain and then spring it in here that we are going catfishing when we get there!