The Professional Carp Catchers

Watch how professional carp catchers go about their business. Team Bigot netted Oakview last week, here's your chance to see how they went about it and have a look at the stock the lake contains...

For more information on Oakview follow the link - Carp Fishing in France with Accommodation

Brocard Large - Updated Venue Video

Two of our field testers, Shaun Harrison and Ron Key, travelled down to Brocard Large last week. Our camera man Martin met them there and filmed some of their captures and thoughts on the venue. 

You can also view their full catch reports here.

For more information on Brocard Large follow the link - Carp Fishing France

Team Richworth Bulgaria visit Vaumigny

Bulgaria's Team Richworth recently came over to France to fish Vaumigny, as part of an upcoming film for HobiTV.

You can read their behind the scenes article here. It's in Bulgarian but Google kindly asks if you would like it translating.

For more information on Vaumigny follow the link - Fishing France

Finding Nemo at Monument

Chris Roper and two friends were out at Monument earlier this year, coming away with a common that ended up featuring in Carp-Talk Issue 969, here's the story behind their trip...

Being northerners we'd had quite a hike down to Portsmouth for the start of our holiday but once on board the ferry with a pint in hand we were soon on our way. The crossings quite an easy one but I would recommend you pay the little extra for a cabin as the reclining chair lounge was far from ideal for a few hours shut eye.

As the ferry docked the lack of sleep was soon forgotten and we were off on the wrong side of the road. The journey from Caen to le Monument couldn't be any easier all being on motorways with no tolls and we were pulling down the track to the lake in under 2.5 hours. As we drove down the track, first impressions couldn't have been any better. What a stunning lake!

Mark the owner was already on hand to greet us, and we made the most of his in depth knowledge of the lake as he gave us a guided tour of the water. No matter how
experienced you are I can't stress how much you'll learn about the venue from Mark both on the walk round and through your stay.
Armed with what Mark had told us we'd soon decided on swims... Craig set up in 'the pads', Richard a.k.a. Reg in 'double' and myself in 'the orchard'. All the pegs around the lake are very comfortable and extremely well presented so setting up was easy and before long leads were being felt down, the lake plumbed and spots marked.

The lake bed is clay with quite a silty coating in most areas and there are also a good few gravel spots to fish to if that's your preference, there was no weed to speak of which made choice of rig and set up slightly easier. I decided to initially set up with a balanced bottom bait to the left hand tree line, a mixa snowman rig very tight to the island margin and a multi rig roving that I'd cast to showing fish until I had spots established.

River Carp Fishing Tips, Pt 2 - Challenges

Rob Inns follows on from his river carping introduction with part two of his ‘River Carp Fishing Tips’, covering the challenges facing this type of angling…

ChallengesTo start part 2 of my river carp fishing tips, I want to highlight some of the challenges you will inevitably face when river carping and offer advice on how to combat them. This section is not meant to put you off but it is worth remembering that some elements of fishing are beyond our control.

The first challenge you will have to deal with on any river is the other natural inhabitants of the river, a lot of people refer to them as nuisance fish. In France you have the dreaded and ever present poisson chat in the rivers ready to swarm on angler’s baits. Now I am normally happy to catch fish of all species but poisson chat can be enough to test anyone’s patience, especially in rivers where there are no controls in place to stop them reproducing at will.

Myself, Duncan Hayward and  John Lambert with part of a Thames bream haul whilst carp fishing

On the river Thames the bream take up this role and are always ready and waiting to eat your carp baits. On one swim I have fished quite a lot in the past, we would use an inflatable dingy to drop our baits tight to the overhanging bushes on an island. I remember on one occasion my fishing partner was dropping the baits tight to the island and the bream were picking them up so quickly that I would have my rods all retrieved with bream attached before he had rowed back to the bank. On this occasion, after a while, we started putting them into a keep net to see how many bream we had before we hooked a carp and I can tell you it was A LOT.

In my experience you can’t totally stop these nuisance species picking up your baits but you can definitely cut down on how many you catch, therefore keeping your hook bait in the water for longer without having to recast. The first step for me on the Thames is to use a boilie only approach to baiting; Pellet and particle are great bream attractors.

When it comes to technical steps taken to avoid bream I find using large hooks and long hairs (not long rigs, just the length of the hair is extended) will drastically cut down on the amount of bream hooked. They will however still pick up the hook bait from time to time so it is important to use hardened or coated hook baits to avoid them breaking off the hair.

Another challenge that faces river carp anglers are the public themselves. The fact that most rivers run through public land means that you will not be able to enjoy the peace and quiet that you would experience, for example, when booking a fishing trip on a lake exclusive basis. On the Thames I have grown used to the fact that I will have pretty much constant company throughout my session.

A cracking mid 20 caught after a particularly hectic night on the Thames

By day this is normally fairly harmless stuff such as people asking what you have caught and showing their amazement that there are actually fish in the river at all. By night however, it can be a little more unsettling stuff. It is mainly pub goers that cause issues. I have lost count of the amount of times I have been woken by people letting themselves into my bivvy wanting a drunken chat or somewhere to rest on their walk home after a night out. On another occasion me and my mate were bivvy’d up a couple of metres apart from each other and a couple of guys decided this space was the best place to settle their differences and have a punch up. Which was a great way to be woken at 3am in the morning.

In my experience this is something unfortunately I just have to put up with but the river is normally quite generous in rewarding my tolerance and I have had some of my best catches following the most hectic of nights.

Lunar effectsA lot has been said about the effects that the moons various phases have on the feeding habits of carp and personally it is a theory I’ve never really bought into, until I started carp fishing on rivers.

An upper 30 caught early morning following the new moon on the river Ebro

On my first visit to the Ebro my guide talked a lot about how prolific the fishing was on the river in the days leading up to and following the full and new moons. Our next trip was planned to test this, with the new moon falling smack bang in the middle of our trip.

This Thames ghosty loved the full moon

There is no denying that the carp fishing that week was insanely prolific with the night of the new moon being particularly active right through to the morning, when I hooked my biggest of the night.

This obviously is not proof that the moon affects the carps feeding habits but it is something I take into account when planning my river sessions on the Thames and I have not been disappointed.

Be opportunisticRiver carp are unpredictable to say the least and it is important to be ready to take opportunities as and when they arise. On one occasion when set up in one swim I could see some disturbance on the surface further down the bank. On investigating, I could see a group of carp milling around in the margin. Luckily I have learnt that these opportunities can vanish just as quickly as they appear and I had my stalker rod set up and ready. I flicked a piece of slow sinking free lined bread flake into the group of fish and I was soon attached to 25lb of Thames mirror carp.

A 25lb mirror was the result of being opportunistic

On another occasion I had been watching a swim on a small river in France where everything just looked right for carp (although I had no idea if the river held any). There was a small road bridge and a sand bar that came up out of the water creating a little island.  It just looked right, so I kept visiting the spot to see if I could see any signs of carp and on one of these visits there they were, a group of 4 or 5 fish.

The little French river mirror carp from a spot that just looked right.

As always I was ready to take advantage of the opportunity and a slow sinking bread flake was lowered amongst them. When the line tightened up I instantly realised I had not hooked one of the bigger fish but a small mirror carp. However small it was, it was a great advert for always being prepared to take advantage of opportunities no matter how brief the window.

Once again I hope you find some of this information useful and it helps you put a river carp or two on the bank.

Good luck,

Rob
rob_inns@hotmail.com

For over 64 technical carping how-to videos follow the link – French Carp Fishing

New Lake Record at Nautica

60.08 -  Nicola Bruneau

Nautica's owner Guillaume fills us in on last week's capture of the lake record...

On the 9th of October at 7am, I received a text which said 'I have Nautica'.  I rushed to the lake and found that Nicolas Bruneau had just caught the biggest carp in the lake, called 'Nautica', a magnificent two-tone female.

We noticed that she had gained weight because she had much rounder belly and full cheeks. We took great care with weighing her and the result was 27.4kg (60lb 8oz). Nicholas had used a snowman rig with Krill Bill boilies, which are a mixture of krill liver and bird food, which we sell here at the lake.

For more information on Nautica follow the link - French Carp Fishing

Winter Carp Fishing - 4 Great Tips to Put More Fish on the Bank

I wrote this article some years ago, but my recent post regarding what makes a good bait has bought up the topic of winter carping, so here goes.

White out on the Mangrove

Winter carping can be one of the most sole destroying pastimes imaginable. What with the long cold nights, freezing days and with little chance of a fish anyone would be mad to fish through the winter months – wrong. Winter carping can be one of the most rewarding and exciting parts of carp fishing, if you get it right!

The fish are normally at their best weight and in excellent condition. But the million dollar question, how do you get it right in winter?

Firstly my definition of a winter carp is one caught between 1st November and 1st March just to make it clear. I have winter fished for carp for well over 20 years, with some spectacular successes and some dismal failures. The problem with winter carping is that there are few rules.

Some pointers that will help put winter carp on the bank:

1. Find the fish

30lb winter common

This is the most difficult part of winter carp fishing; the fish tend to be very localised. Finding the fish is crucial to success the fish will not move to you in the winter. Putting out a bed of bait and hoping to attract fish will not work. If the fish are found, spectacular results can be had.

Good winter swims tend to produce year after year, so the first task is to find out about past winter captures.  Failing that, observation is crucial. Start around the middle of October and note where you see fish, keep a record and concentrate your initial efforts on the last place you saw fish.

A Review of Molyneux

Nick Hilton spent the week at Molyneux in September and did a cracking informative write-up. 

After spending a week at Molyneux in France with Wally and Helen, I thought it would be nice to write a short review to try and help promote their lake as it really is a hidden gem that could always do with more people knowing about and trying to spread the word of the great work they are doing over there.

Molyneux is a 13 acre lake situated in Normandy which took us about 3 hours to get to from Calais (not counting the small deviation - French for diversion - that got us lost in Rouen but that’s another story). This lake is absolutely stunning in every sense of the word with beautiful willows, pines, and birch trees lining the lake and the islands with lots of soft fruit foliage lining the borders to keep the lake self-contained and secure.

With 2 islands at one end of the lake, this gives most of the swims something to aim for and from what we found the island margins appeared to be the one of the patrolling routes for the fish as most of my fish came to baits planted by bait boat just under the protruding trees but not too tight that the fish needed to climb up the bank to get to it.

Bumper Catch at Lillypool

34.03 - Darren

A bumper catch week for Stuart, Jamie and Darren last week at Lillypool.

Details of your catches: Darren had 33 carp to 40lb 8oz. Stuart had 24 carp to 40lb 14oz. Jamie had 25 carp to 30lb 2oz.

Your best tactics/bait/rigs: Heavy baiting.

Were the facilities what you expected? Yes, epic shower, the lodge was brilliant!

General comments: We fished hard all week, pushing for the lake record. Rick the bailiff was fantastic, helping out in the kitchen and keeping us supplied so we could keep fishing. What a hero, top lad!! 2 bottles of champagne in the fridge for you fella. The particle was constantly on cook for us, we got through around a quarter of a tonne of bait, the fish loved, they where definitely on the munch.

40.14 - Stuart

Jamie, Darren & Stuart

For more information on Lillypool follow the link - French Carp Fishing

Winter Carp Fishing Expert Tactics

For any of you that missed this post the first time around here it is again, as we're fast approaching the season and with many of you braving the colder temperatures to take advantage of our winter offers, it really is worth a watch... 

 Mehdi Daho, owner of Laroussi & Old Oaks, guides you through his methods to catch carp in Winter. He outlines the tactics he uses and then gives great detail on his preferred bait and baiting techniques. A real gem of a video for anyone considering winter carping.



57 Carp Fishing Tactics Videos

Molyneux (Belated) May Report

Wally, Bailiff at Molyneux, fills us in on a busy week at the lake earlier this summer...

A long awaited week was finally with us, our friends Dom and Gemma were visiting for the week as part of the last leg of their European motorhome jaunt.  Firstly as always on a Saturday morning we breakfasted and waved the previous weeks guests off through the gate and onto their journey home. This week we had limited the number of anglers visiting to three, and they soon arrived excited and eager to get started.

40.10, Ricky

We welcomed them with a cuppa and a chat about the previous weeks captures which soon fired them up even more.

Rick and Jake were brothers while Jason was a mutual mate. We set off around the lake for a wander and a look round. The fish were on fine form and a few showed  here and there as we wandered round. Ricky and Jason decided to fish the double swim, whilst Jake started his quest from the social 1 swim.  The guys set off for their respective swims.  Helen and I had a quick tidy up and sat ourselves down with a cuppa.

Dom and Gemma arrived a little later, the idea was they were stopping with us for the week to recharge their batteries and for Dom to wet a line and try to tempt one of or big girls to feed.  After a catch up, a few cups of tea and a  good laugh Dom set off for Jack’s swim.

Underwater at Laroussi

We managed to get hold of some underwater footage from Laroussi this year. Including footage of a known mid-fifty! 

 Most of the lake's carp are now between 30lb and 40lb, with more than 35 different forties, 18 different fifties, 4 different sixties and a huge 76lb mirror, the current lake record.

  For more information on Laroussi, follow the link - Carp Fishing in France

Forties at Vaux

Mark Owen came away from his trip to Vaux this October with a trio of beautiful dark forties...

43.01

Details of your catches: 1 x 43lb1oz, 2 x 40lb13oz, 6 x 30lb+, 14 x 20lb+, 20 x doubles, plus plenty of quality roach and perch on maggot and castors.

Your best tactics/bait/rigs: All tactics worked on their day, from pop-ups to bottom baits. If in doubt, try a potato!!

General comments: Great two weeks as ever, roll on next year, 5th visit! Definitely try the slow cooker, meals are yummy!

40.13

For more information on Vaux, follow the link - Fishing Holiday

Grumpy Old Men at Old Oaks

Angling Lines' David Keep and Paul Cooper escaped for a week at Old Oaks this September, here's Paul's write up on his tricky week there...

Sometimes you have to bite your lip and follow the flow. I didn't and I paid the price.

It was late September 2013 when David Keep and I paid a visit to Old Oaks, the smaller sister water to Laroussi. Dave was no stranger to either lake, where as this would be my 1st trip to one of Medhi's famous waters.

The secluded bay in swim 5

Now for those of you that have not been fortunate enough to fish these lakes it is hard to describe the warm and friendly a welcome you receive from Medhi and his family. Medhi knows his waters like the back of his hand and soon filled us in with the previous captures on the lake over the past few week's.

We established that 3 anglers that had just left the lake and they had really turned the water over with 48 captures and over 15 fish lost. This was a brilliant result for them but obviously we gathered that at least 1/2 of the fish in the lake had seen a hook over the past week. Now that does not always effect the fishing, but that coupled with the forecast of high pressure and 27C for the forthcoming week did knock our confidence a little.

First fish of the session

The Lake

As with any visit to a new lake I like to find out what the general make up of the lake is, and I started to do this by leading and plumbing the water. Old Oaks is around 65yards wide along the whole length of the lake and averages around nine and a half foot of water up to around a rod length off the far margin where it shallows off to around 4 foot.

Swim 1 which is the 1st swim as you enter the complex, has over hanging bushes to the right and the far margins is the narrowest part of the lake. Swim 2 has a couple of overhanging bushes with the rest of the margins having brambles along the far margin.

Swims 3, 4 and 5 are full of features on the far margins, with overhanging bushes all along the banks with deep holes in them creating perfect feeding spots for carp.

Swim 4

Facilities

At the head of the lake there is the wooden lodge which has all the requirements, including a shower room with sink, another sink and worktop, an English style flush toilet, plenty of electrical points, a huge chest freezer and a large fridge. Everything is kept clean and in excellent working order. The water from the taps can be used as drinking water and there is also a barbeque area outside with a table and bench.. The whole area around the lake is fully secure with a large locking gate at the entrance.

All the swims have vehicular access so that tackle etc can be dropped at the swims.

Vehicle access to the swims

The Fishing

Previously, most of the carp had been caught from the top end of the lake in swims 4 and 5 so this would be our first choice of swims. Dave settled into swim 4 and I chose to try out swim 5. Now swim 5 gave me little room to manoeuvre as the fishing area was at a minimum, but it had been a productive swim. Dave settled for swim 4 as he could spread his rods covering water in swims 3 and 4.

We had a good selection of bait with us in the form of Quality Baits HG All Seasons and the Patshull Park mix. Dave also purchased some of Medhi's partiblend to add to his baiting campaign for the week. My tactic was to use boilie only which to date has caught me lots of fish over the past 18 months.

From early observations I could see that the carp were sulking under the far marginal bushes well out of the reach of a cast bait. They were hugging the far bank and over cleared areas under bushes.

The far margins

Dave had had the hindsight to bring his bait boat which enabled him to put his baits under the far marginal bushes. I resorted to my old traditional casting and tried to draw a few fish out into open water. For the first 2 days I failed miserably and could not buy a bite whilst Dave picked up the odd fish with his tactics. By Monday I had decided that I was wasting my time fishing off the tree line and moved down to swim 2.

Swim 2 and a view down the lake

I had a walk around to the far side opposite swim 2 and could see large dark shapes lurking under the 2 bushes on that margin. I fed them a few boilies under the tree and had an instant reaction off the carp. A foot away from the bush in open water and absolutely no reaction at all. This was going to be a struggle.

Another nice fish for Dave

The temperature had been around 27C all week and not a cloud in the sky, not an excuse by any means. On the Tuesday Mehdi gave us a tour of Larousi and the lads on there were pulling the odd fish out.

My one and only carp

Back to Old oaks and it seemed dead, no fish in open water still with lots of huge carp still hugging the tree line. By night fall I had taken a 34lb 4oz mirror from about a foot off the far marginal tree, but that was to be my only fish of the week.

Dave's tally by the end of the week was mirrors of 43lb, two at 38lb, a 36lb, a 30lb 14oz and a 36lb common.

43lb

I was totally out fished, well done Dave. Before we set off from England, Dave had suggested that I bring a bait boat, but I dug my heals in and refused. Next time I might think about it, but it may only be a thought.

I thoroughly enjoyed the week despite struggling to catch carp. Good company coupled with fishing a water that contains mostly huge carp certainly makes up for the loss. I am sure that with different circumstances I would have had a bumper catch, but it just goes to show that we can all have a bad day at the office.

Another upper thirty

Conclusion

Mehdi has produced a brilliant carp fishing lake that looks after itself. There is a diversity of different species of fish in the lake which control any increase in his carp population, in turn, enabling his carp to grow quickly and healthily. The average weight of the carp is around 36lb to 38lb and from previous catch reports it is easy to see that there are lots of forty pound fish along with the odd fifty swimming around.

It just goes to show that every week is not the same on this type of lake. Anglers that struggle occasionally on French waters, have no need to beat themselves, it could be totally different on their next visit. On this occasion there was not too much that we could do, we were the victim of the previous week's anglers success,  but you live and learn.

Paul Cooper
paulcooper18@sky.com

Pat Gillett's September Fishing Diary

Sunday 1st September 2013 – River Dove

This was only my second trip of the season to the River Dove and I was accompanied by my brother David. Checking the E.A. River level website showed that the river level was only 0.45m (this is lower than at any point last season). With this in mind it was back to the quiet stretch that we fished on the first trip in August.

Arriving at about 4.15pm, it was nice to see that once again there wasn't another angler in sight. With this stretch being lower than I have ever seen it before I decided to have a good walk along the length to try and see if I could spot any fish. This proved to be very worthwhile, has although I didn't see any barbel, I did see some features on the river bed that had been hidden previously. What also struck me was how cold the strong wind was, hardly ideal barbel fishing conditions! (especially after two cold nights.)

A Pioneer’s Dream Lake – Field Testing Tales

Paul Cooper and Jim Kelly were out again on a field testing trip to a brand new Angling Lines venue, Nautica. Having thoroughly tested this venue twice now with great results, below is Paul's report on his time there...

The Lake

Nautica is a 17 acre wild and natural French lake set deep in rural France, around 150 miles South of Paris. With around two thirds of the lake being totally reed-lined this surely is a carp anglers dream come true.

Our target for the week. The big male at 62lb 4oz

The owner, Guillaume Rousselet, a well known big French carp angler, took control of the lake last year. He has tried to keep the lake wild and as natural as possible, and yet create a fishery that will attract keen big carp anglers to its precious shores.

River Carp Fishing Tips - Part 1

Rob Inns delivers part one of his 'River Carp Fishing Tips' series...

One element of carp fishing I have found myself increasingly involved in in recent years is river carp fishing. I think what attracts me to river carp is their wild and nomadic life style. But their ability to travel where ever they wish, coupled with the fact that most rivers do not benefit from stocking programs other than that put in place by mother nature herself, can make catching them tricky at times. I hope this piece can give you some tips that I have learned and implemented personally on rivers not just in the UK but also in France and Spain.

A group of carp around the Riba Roja dam

Features

So how do you go about finding a relatively low stock of fish that have miles of river system to explore at will?  The trick is to find yourself some kind of feature; these can be anything as large and obvious as an island or a bridge, to something as subtle as a bush overhanging into the water. What you are looking for is something that makes your swim different to the miles of river either side of it, something that may stop the course of drifting food creating natural larders on the river bed.

Bletiere Catch Record Smashed!

We have for the last week had regular guests Glen and his wife Clare here and what a week Glen has had! By the end of it he has smashed the single angler weight record.

With the weather just right for fishing and with the week ahead looking good Glen started off on the saturday and steadily caught fish every day, even while having time out with Clare.  Glen baited up steadily and kept a regulated amount of boilies and particles going in and this certainly helped to keep the fish hungry and searching for food.

37.02

By the end of the week Glen had 55 carp out for a total weight of 1182 pounds, this consisted of;
1 x 40lb, 12 x 30s, 17 x 20s, 20 x doubles and 5 x singles.

Its always pleasing seeing a lot of the carp coming out and the good thing is that most of the 20s were 25lb plus and most of the doubles were over 15lb which I believe shows the heavy feeding we do in the winter is paying off. Well done Glen on a great week's angling, look forward to your return next year and lets hope for another record week.

37.04

Tight Lines,
John and Lesley
Owners at Bletiere

For more information on Bletiere follow the link - Fishing Holidays

A Family Fishing Holiday at Oakview

Big fish angler Dave Callow takes a family fishing holiday at Oakview. The family has a day-fishing bonanza with 1 x 40, 11 x 30s, 10 x 20s and 2 teens.

6 year old Jessie is the star though. She can tie a rig, net a 30lb'er and out fishes Mum and Dad with her float fishing tally of 25.

For more information on Oakview follow the link - Carp Fishing in France with Accommodation

Black Country Carpers visit Laroussi

Back in August, Carl Sharp spent a week at Laroussi, the highlight being his capture of 'The Creature' at 57lbs.

You can watch the week unfold below...

For more information, videos and catch reports from Laroussi follow the link - Carp Fishing in France 

Lake William Island is Completed

Continuing the hard work from last weekend, the island is now complete at Glehias!

Following on from the blog post earlier this week entitled 'Winter Season Chores Begin at Glehias', the island is finally finished. It measures around 25 feet by 9 feet and stands in about 3 feet of water, it has 2 bays on the front edge and each of these has a gully dug down to 4 feet deep in front of them.

Piling on more reeds to build the height.

The fish seem to approve, I hadn't even finished piling clay and reeds up on it and curious Carp were cruising around to inspect my work, I can tell this is going to be an absolute fish haven! The water level is down by 14 inches at the moment and will look even better after the lake refills.

The new Island is immediately visible from the top of Blackberry Hill.

For more information on Glehias follow the link - French Carp Fishing