A carp fishing trip to France can mean anything. There are thousands of venues you can fish and all of them are different in their own way. Unless you have actually been to a venue there is no way of knowing exactly what your in for. I hadn't researched much about French venues when I was asked by my Friend if I fancied going to the Nash Resorts for a week. Needless to say two days later I was booking my flights and destine for Lac Château Cavagnac. The social alone was enough to get me away. While on the phone to Keith Jones I mentioned I was off to Cavagnac for a week and I asked what it was like. He compared the lake to an old english estate lake, which for me sounded amazing. My impression of Franch lakes were quite low. I've seen plenty of over stocked wholes in the ground with a mindless amount of huge carp. All well and good if that's your game but it's just not for me. I was looking at the photo's on Cavagnac and the lake looked amazing but still the photo's didn't do the lake justice when I arrived there. The lake is 50 acres in size and everyone has loads of carpy little features to keep out occupied for a year let alone a week! There are pads everywhere and shallow bars, deep silt, hard patches. The whole place is very carpy.
After a trip around the lake in the boat I was utterly confused about what swim to fish but my friend Josh had heard "The Channel" swim always produces a lot of fish. We decided to fish together until we get our bearings. Josh had a theory that if the water had been pressured week in week out then there will be lines in the water 24,7 so he decided to get all his rigs tied up, bait some spots, let the fish have a rest and have a good kip without the rods in the water. Me on the otherhand, I had other ideas, I decided that that although that was a brilliant idea I thought I would just fish a very slack line and put a large PVA bag into the gap of the lillys. That night I had a screaming take which fort like a demon, ripping line of the spool uncontrollably making me look like I was playing the fish like a roach. I've never had a fish fight quite so hard in my life. After what felt like an eternity I slipped the net under the fish and with help from Josh we weighed her in at just over 32lb. I was delighted to have caught because I was safe in the knowledge that I wouldn't blank the week. Quite possibly my worst nightmare.
The kettle was whistling, screaming out for my first French cuppa - which I later found out the teabags are bought in the UK because the French don't do “real” tea – anyway back to the more pressing issue, the morning. The morning sun was rising and Josh decided to row the rods out and get acquainted with the water. Josh managed to bag his first fish quite early after putting the rod out.
I was fishing on the right hand side of The Channel swim and throughout the day there was very little action on my side of the swim. Something was telling me I should move and I desperately wanted to but thought to myself “I've just had a lovely 30lb+ common WHY would I want to move.” The trouble was the fish clearly were in the bay to the left and if the fish were moving out I would undoubtedly have a very good chance of intercepting one of those moving fish BUT they had no good reason to move whatsoever. The fish were very content on milling through the pads and sunning themselves in the shallow water in the bay. After racking my brains I then decided to stick it out in The Channel for another night while I primed a swim called Flowers with 4 kilo's of 20mm Cavagnac Special Boilies in the intention of moving into that swim. I though if I put the bait in I would be creating a spot which the fish would get a chance to feed on for the next 24 hours hopefully drawing the fish in and getting them to feed.
The morning broke and the rods had been motionless for me while Josh hauled an amazing 5 fish even having a double run. One fish went practically solid in the pads and the rod next to it screamed off. I was handed the one that went solid and I adopted the same tactic I use on Carthagena to coaks the fish from the pads. Letting the fish slack and feeling the line for it to move then putting pressure back onto the fish as soon as it moved. Miracualously I managed to free the fish from a completely solid position. Josh was busy landing a stunning common and once he landed that he took back control of the rod I had while I fetched the other landing net. We got a glimpse of the fish and quickly it was in the net. We could tell it was a big real kippersaurus but we let the fish recover in the net while we weighed the first one. The first fish went ( insert weight here ) which defiantly put a smile on Josh's face and his smile only widened when the second one was weighed in at whopping 42.8lb. The plan was to sack the fish for a few hours and wait for morning for the photo's to be done. When we got the fish on the mat again in the morning we could see how stunning the common actually was. It was pretty much mint condition with immaculate colouring. A truly quality French fish!
Breakfast was calling - I must have worked up a real appetite playing gilly boy for Josh – after the mammoth full English I put about a kilo of bait over the spots in the flowers swim ready for the move. I really should have listened to my gut instinct and moved the night before really but hey, that's the beauty of hindsight isn't it. I found a few nice spots and placed my 3 rods at different distances fishing against pads in deep silt opting to find the harder patches. I used the boat and a landing net pole to find the hardest spots in the silt to put a lead on but some spots were deep silt all over. I clad my hairs with double 24mm baits and bedded down for the night. The morning sun came up and the rods had been still all night long with nothing more than some small liners from the resident wildlife. I doubted myself again and contemplated a move to another swim further down because I had seen a few fish down there the day before. I went back there watching the water but I didn't see any more signs of the carp anywhere do I decided to stick it out in that swim and keep the bait going in. I couldn't see why I didn't catch that night and I just felt I was doing something wrong. Then, after seeing how much silt my baits had taken on after a single night it suddenly dawned on me that maybe the presentation of my rigs wasn't very good in the deep silt. I was using a leadclip set-up with a coated braid as a hooklink. I though to myself maybe the depth of silt is causing the lead to sink into the silt and the coated braid to kick up off the bottom or even to sink the bait completely into the silt. With this in mind I decided to make a helicopter rig with a bead set to the correct depth of silt. I did my own tests in a boat to see how deep the lead was sinking and set the bead accordingly. I ditched the coated braid and wielded the Armour Braid which is a ultra tough braid with semi stiff properties but still supple enough to sit nicely. I used the Twister hooks because I know for a fact that the hook holds are amazing and I would have the best chance getting the fish from the pads with the Twisters.
I kept the bait going in on the spots and was thinking confidently about my approach. As it was getting dark the right hand rod had a funny run which I didn't hit in the end thinking it must have been a liner or maybe a Tench or Roach having a play with my hookbaits. After a few hours the same rod rattled off and I hooked into something which darted for the sanctuary of the pads almost instantly and I came back with a rig with no hair on the rig which I found very odd. I though it must have been a pike. The rod was repositioned on the spot with a touch of midnight rowing. I thought it was strange because when I reeled in on the second night I had also came back with a hairless rig. The spot was baited lightly some more just to make sure the fish defiantly had some food on the spot and I like to introduce bait at different times because I personally think that a bed of baits that have been out there for hours will look suspect when a fresh hookbait fresh from the bag goes over the top. The other baits are washed out and your hookbait isn't so I tend to introduce bait little and often so fish can't suss me. I'd like to think it catches me more fish but who knows. It's all the little things that can make the big difference.
I was in slumberland when my right hand rod cried out, I ran from the bivvy and kicked my bait bucket then managed to fall over it smashing my shins on the side, pumped with adrenaline I didn't care I had better things on my mind. The fish toyed with me in the pads and then came into the safety of open water. The fish tried several times to take my other rods out but thankfully I managed to steer the fish away and into the awaiting net. I looked over at the fish and saw a stunning looking mirror which I could tell was reasonably big. I weighted the the fish using my landing net as a prop to get accurate weight and the fish went dead on 39lb's! Very nice. I was very happy with it and the fish was stunning too!
I sacked the fish and got my head down until the morning to do some photo's but once again my sleep was short lived when yet another fish woke me which spurted through the centre of the pads causing my hooklink to get cut off by abrasion of the pads. That's why they call it fishing and not catching. Josh then came round and did the photo's for me after he had poured a bucket of water over me claiming he missed the fish. Yeah RIGHT! and I even jumped in for a few “in water shots” as ya do.
I was pleased because I knew my tactical change had defiantly helped me and the helicopter rigs were the way forward in that particular swim. After I had baited up a bit more I went for breakfast still elated from the fish I'd just caught and had a good chat with the other lads who were fishing. All of the people were top blokes and we all shared our carpy ideas with eachother. It was a real social atmosphere one which I thoroughly enjoyed throughout the trip. A interesting conversation cropped up about fishing with natural baits which spawned from a discussion about a thing me and Josh learnt at a Nash open day, where somebody fooled some wary carp by fishing a snail shell filled with foam over a snail bed. On the last night one of the lads tried fishing a snail shell over partical and managed a stunning big scaley mirror. Crazy stuff.
The next night I redone my rigs and did pretty much the same as the night before but the temperature had got up and the conditions weren't as good. I managed three runs one went straight into the pads and the other two I actually landed. I landed a mirror of about 20lbs which I quickly returned. My furthest left rod which was fished on a large PVA bag filled with the contents of a teabag to take up mach1 dip and had added pellets and crushed boilies suddenly dropped back. I hit into the fish quickly as I was right next to the rods at the time. The result was a very long common of 35lb which made us late for breakfast but I certainly didn't care about that! When I reeled the other rods in I found yet again a rig without any hair on it. I was again astounded and seriously confused. Being assured by David and Tom that the lake had no crayfish in the lake I couldn't put my finger on it. I even thought it could have been cat fish but again none were present. The mystery was only later to be unravelled when the rod rattled off and I struck into something which threw the hook as it smashed into the pads. Going back out to the spot as the darkness was setting in I noticed 3 crafty little ugly looking things with teath and long flat tails which I later found out were musk rats. So these little rodents were picking my baits up in the shallow water and munching them. Once I'd realised this I tied a D rig up and the problem went away. Pesky little things!
The final night was approaching and I was determined to bag myself a few fish. D-rig at the ready and a pair of helicopter rigs I put the rods out for the night and opted to do a night under the stars on top of my rods. The middle rod was put on the deep silt patch and the right hand rod was placed on the shallow spot were the musk rats were causing anarchy. I was texting my mum and girlfriend to let them know I was surviving when the bobbin on the middle rod lifted and I was on it in a flash getting the fish away from the pads of disappointment and into open water. Another fish trying desperately to wipe my other rods out as it darted left to right but I walked to the side of the swim and managed to net it before it could cause me to much trouble. I peered over the mesh to see it was a nice big mirror. I unhooked the fish and put it straight into the sack ready to weigh in the morning. I quickly rowed my rod back onto the silt spot and sat basking in the beauty of the lake for a while. I was sheltered from the rain deep in the sleeping bag when my left rod tore off peeling line on a tight clutch as I steered the fish from the pads into open water. The fish had me all over the place and ended up in the pads to the left of me I managed to free the fish but I got dangerously close to my middle rod and the fish then wiped my middle rod out completely and the fish returned to the pads where it went solid. I managed to free it and brought a massive great log up with it which it must have snagged me on. I finally got the nut under the fish and I was in a right state. The net was caught on everything and I couldn't get it back to the unhooking matt. I unhooked the fish and tried to get the net back but I couldn't get the net far enough to put the fish on the matt. I just about managed to slip the hook out of the fish and I made a estimate on size in comparison to the other fish I had sacked and I guessed it was a bit bigger than the one that was sacked. I didn't want to pick the fish out of the net and walk it over to the unhooking matt because I didn't want to compromise the safety of the fish. I'd rather leave the fish healthy and fighting fit for someone else to catch than risk it just to get my smiling face behind it.
Josh came round soon after first light to do me the pictures and help weigh the fish I'd had sacked up. We put the fish on the scales and the needle swang round to a staggering 36lb. I was delighted with the fish but then it made me ponder how big the one I slipped back would have gone. My pondering was short lived as 5 mins later I was up to my plums in Cavagnac water being pushed down the shelf by a freedom bound carp.
Picture
I would have love to have done the fish justice with a photo but it just wasn't worth it. It's still there ready to be caught on my next French excursion. Hopefully...
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good article callum 
