France 2014

So here it is. After nearly 2 years waiting, the time is here and we are off to Red Mill in Brittany. There are 6 of us going to fish this 9 acre lake with Carp to upper 50lb and big cat well over 130lb. Myself, I will be targeting the carp but if a cat picks up the bait then all fish are welcome.

So after a very rough ride from Newhaven to Dieppe and a 5 hr drive through the fantastic French countryside, we arrive at our destination. After meeting the owners Daron & Yvonne a reccy of the lake and the group talking about the best swims to fish, I chose the “Frogs” – this is a shallower swim of 3 feet all over but commands a large amount of water and was the only swim that had some pads too.

   
I opted to fish with one on the Pads, one on the island and one on the far margin treeline that went from silt to a few harder patches of what I thought was granite. I didn’t have too much of a cast around on the first day and left my marker and spod in the car and just slipped into the swim nice and easily. I had Nigel fishing next to me and he did exactly the same.

The throwing stick was out and a about 50 baits scattered over the areas was my start and with running rigs and braided hook links, it was “French fishing 2014” – now all I needed was a fish!

The night drew in and there were a few fish milling around but nothing on the whole lake as we went to bed but I had a few beeps at 3am and the bobbin pulled tight – and as my fishing in the UK has taught me to “hit everything” I wound down and felt the rod tip thumping round into my fist fish of the session.

It didn’t take long to land and Nigel had heard the splashing and come see what I had caught. It dropped the scaled at 35lb and not a bad start at all. After sacking it and waiting for another few hrs to do some better photos, it was the only fish out for the night. 

Over breakfast on the Sunday Nigel had a 40lb+ and again, we were laughing that this would be a great week. Little did we know that the weather closed in from Sunday afternoon to Thursday and the lake closed shop for me. I lost a couple more with some real odd bites and I think that the fish were “doing me” so I had to rethink my rigs and did some very subtle changes to make sure that everything was perfect and the odd bites were converted.

It wasn’t until Friday evening did the fish get on the feed and I took three fish to 28lb in just a few hrs which saved my week really! 

Again, France has been unkind to me but I will be back to crack it soon enough.

Tight lines and be lucky!