Belgian carp and catfish hunter

Hi im a fisherman from Belgium. 
I'm fishing for carp, pike and catfish here are some pictures. 
I like to know how you guy's are fishing for carp over there. 
So if you like to share bait and rig experiences let me know over here. 
I like to use boilies as bait and like to make them by myself
 
here are some pics pls share yours 
 

 
 

I've only scratched the surface of the euro style of carp fishing. I use corn on a hair rig and mix up my own method/ground bait. But I'm not using a rod pod or bite alarms or any of that. My increasingly preferred way to catch them is sight fishing with the fly rod though. Very challenging in many aspects.

I agree, 
 
I started 4 years ago fishing for catfish, 
I had heard of a place where they were big and in good numbers. 
 
the first year i tried it all, 
plomber, meat, pellets,... 
i bought a special big cat fishing rod and a big reel for it. 
but... 
no fish not even a bite i had. 
 
So i decided to go to spain and give it a try. 
however it was on a vacation with the girlfriend so i had not allot of time to spend on the water. (just 1 day time to fish) 
 
so here we where on the Ebro river in Spain, 
no shadow extreme hot and there he was a nice bite,
overexcited and happy i was a bite on my new rod unbreakable montage 39kg braid... 
heavy rod an reel... 
 
braid gets around the reel, reel bloks and i'm getting the fish directly on the rod.
cant hold the reel much longer but i'm attached to it so im falling after it in the water. 
i hold on to a tree an to my rod at last the hook breaks of, i lost the fish. 
 
after that i was so angry on myself, 
first i had to try the rod and reel and drag before try to catch a huge monsterfish. 
and second i wasnt prepared for that fight, standing ground wasn't good,... 
 
a good lesson but it hurts to lose a fish after searching so long for it.
the worst part is i havent see the fish before loosing it so it could be a huge one. 
 
so i was back in belgium and decided to stop trying to catch one here an go back later to spain. 
 
I went to the same place i tried before on catfish but now to fish for carp. 
i had lot of carps over there till some months later 
 
i was fishing there (almost forgotten the story that there are some large wells over there to) 
and i got a run in the middle of the day. 
realy strong fish i felt that it wasn't a normal run and after a good 50 minutes 
 
i got this bad boy on the side

 
1m89 ???kilo i don't know
i was allone like most of the time and it was a real struggle for me to get it out of the water. 
so here we are 4 years later we have a big catfish but... 
 
1st, it wasn't on my catfish rod :-(  ( so i still haven't got a decent fight on that rod)
2nd, i have no decent foto just a few like this i took myself 
3rd, i couldn't left it on my own so i don't know the weight i guess a good 30kilo 
 
so after 4 years i have the fish i always wanted but like you guys know 
we arent happy with that. 
 
so this year more hunting for big catfish... 
lets hope it gets better ;-)
 
 

yes it was a nice fight,
 
In Spain they grow even bigger an in italie to.
the crazy part is i didnt catch these on a large bait.
 
like i said iv tried a whole year with large bait and meat --> no results
 
and i have caught it on a 12mm fruty boillie haha...
 
sometimes you just have to got some luck

Not a big carp angler, but I'd love to go to Spain or Italy and fish for Wels Catfish. They are a predator catfish, we really dont have catfish that behave like Wels, flatheads will eat live bait and little bullheads are aggressive when protecting their young but nothing similar to a Wels that will behave like a pike/muskie or bass and attack birds and rodents on top of the water and even on shore. 
 
 
 

it's a wels catfish, they are apex predators like pike, they eat anything, including any land animal that ventures too close to the water