Measels at 44.04
Saturday 17th November;
I arrived at Villefond just as the sun was rising which at this time of year is about 8am. By 9am I had all three rods in the water. My left rod was a small piece of meat on the bottom, my middle rod was a cut down 15mm pop up and finally my right hand rod was a 10mm white pop up. As with all my fishing I use size 8 hooks, flying back leads, back leads and tight lines.
My left hand and middle rods were dropped on a gravel spot at about 120 yards with my row boat out in the middle of the lake. My right hand rod was chucked out to the right at a patch of bubbles, hopefully a feeding fish.
38.08
10.15am just as my dad was walking round the lake to see how I was doing my left had rod with the meat on bleeped, once, twice, and then I struck. The fish kited straight to the right and as most the fish in our lake they don’t seem to really fight hard until they get into the margins. I knew from the jerky runs and seeing the fish fighting near the surface it wasn’t a big fish by Villefond standards. It topped the scales at 38lb 8oz’s which I was still very happy with as I knew I still had one more bait on the spot with a good chance their was other fish feeding down there.
I boated the bait back out and as I was sinking the line and putting on my back lead my middle rod took off on a screaming run. Immediately as I struck I felt a much heavier weight on the other end of my line and the slow really deep motion of the fish indicated this was a bigger carp. During the fight as the fish kitted to the right in went under and got caught round my right hand rod. I always put a lot of effort into pinning my lines down so I know somewhere out in front of me there must be a gully or deeper hole along the bottom of the lake.
In the margins the fish fought really really hard still just hugging the bottom which had me and my dad thinking this could be a nice fish. Eventually I pulled the fish over the net my dad was holding for me and our suspicions were correct this was a bigger fish. The fish went 44lb 4oz’s and I recognised it as fish known as Measles because of a small cluster of tiny scales that resemble spots on its tail, it was a nick name that stuck.
Shortly after getting my rods out again I had a run on my left hand rod. As I struck I didn’t tighten the bit runner enough and as I lifted line just span off the reel. This small error was all the clever Villefond carp needed and it quickly shook the hook before I could set it properly and left me cursing myself. The two fish before helped to lessen the pain of this escaped fish so I wasn’t too annoyed at myself.
Just a baby at 10.04!
All went quiet and I got my rod back out, my dad left and I laid on my bed chair and had a few hours shut eye. At 2:30pm my dog saw me stir and came over to say hello. As I reached out my rod began to scream at me again. I struck and felt a small carp which I quickly had in the net. It was a 10lb 4oz Villfond baby, offspring of our monster carp and looked a really solid little tank with massive shoulders, a real future monster.
Shortly after I packed up so I could run my dog before it got dark and I left looking forward to my next session on the lake.
Carp fishing in France at Villefond
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