never being on a fishing trip:?:
id say try closer to home bud.

whys that?

Frank
such a shame that you were another victim of cashmaster at least you had the added backup of a car to salvage some thing and have an adventure
just goes to prove if you advertise enough you will get a bite
i had a couple of mates out at the same time on DIY and they said the same thing it was rock hard which is not unusual at this time of year and they only had a couple of low 30's
did he give you a gas canister and kettle for your drinks or is he still doing the tiny thermos flasks for 8eur ( about £7.50p ) ?
i will take a guess and say you were told the layby swims were the dogs do dah's and started there
as colin likes those as the guide can be back in bed by 8am lol
yes the layby can fish well as any swim can on its day
but with the cold weather they generate a lot of electric which increases the flow with cold water from the dam and the carp tend to move to a more settled enviroment
the other downside of the layby is its like fishing in a goldfish bowl everyone can see you and if you do catch chances are you won't keep those swims unless getting there at 4am

we were fishing the ramp at xmas 2005 and doing well but getting a lot of people visiting and looked like we would lose it
so my m8 slept in the car on the ramp in -5c and woke up at 5am to find 3 french guys had carried all there gear around the car and had set up what can you say ????????

we have found in the winter months the carp like to spend a lot of time in depths of between 35 to 55ft of water obviously you need a boat and echo sounder to be find these spots as they can be several hundred mtrs from the bank but not always again its a question of homework

night fishing (illegal) is not all its cracked up to be in winter with most of our bites coming between 8am and 11am and then tails off by 2pm
the fish kill certainly killed 1000's of carp up the segre to over 60lb but by the time it got downstream it had dilluted
so a lot of the carp population survived but the biggest problem for carp anglers are the cats as these are active all through the winter and a lot of the time its a cat sat over your bait that stops the carp feeding
a 150+ pussy will put any carp off from coming to close to your baits

when it comes to planning a trip to the ebro all i can say is do your homework as there are plenty of company's out there
try and speak to people on forum s etc etc
at the end of the day you pays your money and take your chance
but it can be done on a DIY basis and can work out cheaper but requires a lot more work