Last Knockings

It was Friday the 19th of July 2013 and around 02:00 am my alarm clock awoke me, well I say awoke me I had actually been awake for the last 7 hours since I went to bed. The reason for this insomnia was excitement. In a few hours I would be boarding a ferry and be well on my way to once again returning to France, just over 10 years since the last visit. As a child I had spent nearly every year until I was 16 visiting France with the family and I love the place. The food, the weather, the scenery, the people, the language, the atmosphere and even the smells, like when you walk into a french supermarket and it has the mixed scent of fresh Cantaloupe melon, strong unpasteurized cheese,seafood and fresh bread and pastry products. So to say I was excited would be an understatement, This keenness lead to us (Myself, my friend Barry, and my girlfriend) turning up at the port 2 and a half hours early. My pregnant girl friend sandwiched between 2 excited anglers with Madonna's "Holiday" blaring out was clearly not best pleased with the situation. In 35 degree heat, in a van with no air conditioning she did very well to nearly reach Dijon 569km south of the port of Calais before the inevitable pregnancy and hormonal induced "Mr Hyde" started putting in an appearance. 15 hours, 2 tanks of fuel, 49 Euro in tolls, 2 stone loss in perspiration and the feeling of numbness from the waist down and we arrived at our destination. As we pulled up we were met with an overwhelmingly beautiful lake, really pictures do not do it justice, you have to be there to understand.

Stunning!

Picture from dam wall

Another one to the left of the dam wall

A view from behind the reeds

The willow

The lake is a 14 acre, 300 year old estate lake. It contains 250 fish most of these are around the mid 30 range but it also has a very good head of 40's, 50's and also a couple of 60's. This lake is definitely not a runs water but the rewards are there to be had. To say the conditions didn't look good would be an understatement, the week was forecast as a scorcher, virtually no wind, no cloud and temperatures getting up to 42 degrees. On top of these unfavorable conditions there was another problem, unfortunately due to the floods in France during the spring the stock pond had managed to flood into the main lake and thousands of Carp around the 3lb mark had decided to relocate. Speaking to the anglers from the previous week we would be in for some very frustrating fishing. Only one angler had consistently managed to catch "sizable" fish and the rest had been persistently wiped out by an un-relentlessness army of 3lb Carp (pasties). Never the less we picked our swims with high hopes and the week begun. 24 hours in and we looked like zombies on Ketamine. We had managed about 30 minutes of sleep broken up into 30 second intervals in between recasting, resetting bobbins and unhooking tiny Carp. Even a step up to double 18mm bottom baits and size 4 continental longshank hooks could not keep them from attaching themselves onto our lines.

 Celebrations were to be had on the evening of day 2 as I proposed to my girlfriend and as the alcohol flowed the volume in my swim got louder, so loud that even the army of pasties moved off to a quieter end of the lake. This was not for long, as by the morning I was once again awoken by the familiar sound of a 3lb Carp trying to unplug a 2oz lead out of the silt and very soon I had added another 2 pasties to a growing list even Bob Nudd would be proud of.  At this point I could waffle on explaining how the following few days went but to be honest in the name of keeping things interesting a simple statement of "sunburnt, half cut, match angling" should pretty much give you the idea.

The bench from which my life sentence started after hearing the words "Yes" 

Wading to enable me the room to cast to the tree line to the left (out of picture)

Me with a bucket of bait

As the week moved on I have to confess to not being my normal dedicated Carp angler self, the army of pasties had broken my spirit and the weeks fishing had turned more into a "Brits in Benadorm Holiday". On the day before we left it was decided that one final push would be made to try save us from effectively blanking. I had seen a few fish throughout the week moving in the swim opposite although there were no positive signs they were the size fish we came to France for but hey I had just spent the week "Improving my course fishing" so it must be worth the effort of a move.I discussed my plans to move with Barry and he decided to sit it out in his current swim. We decided that a change of tactics was also worth a shot and we would bait a new patch heavily (25kg of mostly boillie and some pellet) centrally between us and fish either side of it, an all eggs in one basket scenario.

After I had wiped the blood sweat and tears from my face that comes with lugging a weeks worth of gear and a pregnant missis half a mile around a lake in 42 degree heat, I popped out a marker float and found a nice clear central spot between 2 channels of weed. Kindly the owner had offered to row out our barrel of free offerings just before dark and spread it around the marker float so the use of a Spomb was not required.

Dusk on the final evening

Within minutes of the bait going out I had picked up my first pastie and any renewed confidence I had, once again evaporated. I started the ritual again, check hook, check bait, put PVA nugget on, re-clip distance with marker sticks, cast out, hit clip, unclip, sink line, allow time for line to settle, clip on bobbin, switch on alarm. I sat there on the bucket watching the water just waiting for the bobbin to start its pastie dance again but it never materialized, and as the final night drew in I retreated to the bivvy so as not to become mosquito food. At around 2am I had an absolute belter of a run which made me jump out of my skin. I think I actually may have left a small amount of faeces in my underwear, with the combining factors of a week drinking beer and wine, mild sunstroke and rich food, everything was quite loose. I fell out of bed in a daze, a cloud of fart and soiled underwear and finally connected with my first "Proper" Carp of the Holiday. I can't remember the exact details of the fight but I do remember my girl friend bless her had to get up and help me get my waders on so I could net the fish the other side of some thick marginal weed. The fish went into the net and I was over the moon, It wasn't a monster but it was what I would consider a proper fish and saved me from the dreaded blank (although in reality I had actually caught hundreds but not ones I would consider a proper fish). The fish weighed 30lb exactly and was a proper munter but never the less I was happy. I radioed through to Barry and let him know I had finally had one and that the hope was more of the proper fish would be in the area. Barry sounded happy for me but I could also sense a certain amount of pressure in his voice as if he had to catch now for a pride thing. He was still a perfect angling gentleman though and offered to reel his rods in and come round to do the photographs for me. I declined his offer and told him to stay put and leave his rods on the spot in case more fish were having a pig out, because of this I had to call on the services of my tired, woken up mid sleep, hormonal, pregnant girl friend. You could certainly tell that the photographer was in a hurry to get back in bed, the pictures weren't exactly David Bailey material but to be honest I couldn't moan, at least she got up and helped me at all.

The best of the bad pictures 

Morning came round quickly and I was out watching the water just before first light. Around 7:30am a huge patch of bubbles formed over the baited patch, and several large fish started sticking their heads out, this was really going to be cutting it fine as we had to be off by 10 but breakfast was at 9 and essentially we wanted to be packed up before we went for breakfast. I couldn't believe this, all week we had sat there waiting for a scenario like this and now 90 minutes before we had to be off the fish had decided to play ball. As the clock ticked on the other anglers further along the bank had packed up and were passing me with barrows loaded sky high with gear but I was sitting it out right until the last minute. By this point I was also in continuous radio contact with Barry as we paced up and down on the bank, just waiting for one of us to have the run that we knew was coming. Which one of us would it be? This was really tense stuff, it had to happen, the patch resembled a volcanic hot spring by now. Suddenly I saw Barry strike his rod, this was it I thought he was finally in but it was not to be, another last minute pastie had buggered up his plans, at least on one rod. He radioed through to me asking if he should recast the rod back to the patch but I said no, it could spook the fish that were having it and anyway we had 3 rods between us still on it. Barry did however recast this rod just down in the margin, with the belief "you gotta to be in it to win it" most people with only 10 minutes left of fishing time would have simply just packed up the rod. This turned out to be a very good move and before Barry could even get the rod back on the rest he was in again but not with a pastie this time. I saw Barry playing what was clearly a better fish, I instantly reeled both my rods in grabbed the camera and legged it a half mile round. By the time I reached his swim a crowed had gathered and the fish was already in the net, Barry was looking well chuffed and relieved, he had saved himself a blank by literally minutes, it was Last Knockings.

38lb 10oz

This really did finish the holiday off on a high note. It had been a very hard weeks fishing, with between us guests only 3 proper fish being caught. Its worth noting that although by reading this blog it may seem like I have painted quite a bad picture of the fishery (I haven't named it for this reason) and although the fishing was very frustrating at times with all the small fish. The facilities, the food, the stories, the weather, the banter, the wine, the laughs, the lake, the biodiversity and the feeling of being made welcome like your now for a week part of the owners family, it ranks as one of my top holidays ever and subsequently we booked again for next year. Unfortunately I had to drop my place later on due to Family reasons. I should also point out that after our last knocking success using a heavily baited patch tactic, the following weeks anglers continued this to great success landing numerous big fish and very few small fish were caught.

One last look

So whats been happening in my fishing recently? Well there has been a slight delay in me writing this and I've only managed 2 sessions and quick opportunist hour. I should explain what I mean by opportunist hour, it usually means I've gone for a walk round the syndicate, or popped down for a chat and spotted fish activity worth legging it back to the van and slinging a rod out for 30-60 minutes, unless I get the dreaded call saying "where are ya? You only popped down the lake for a walk" in which case that time can be greatly reduced. Anyway the last weekend of October I managed a rare 2 night session. The syndicate had been fishing quite hard with only a couple of fish out in a couple of weeks and things weren't looking particularly promising. I turned up on the Friday afternoon with a guest, we walked the lake but no signs of carp could be seen, in the end we settled with the point swim. This swim is ideal for doubling up in and not only is it central on the lake it offers a variety of depths and features. Nothing was caught on the Friday evening and Saturday morning came round quickly.The usual musical swims took place as the other anglers started moving around the lake but I stayed put. Shortly after 9 several fish started showing in front of me, this was encouraging as the lake had been very quiet and shows had been very far and few between in previous weeks. Throughout the day the fish continued to show in front of me but I couldn't get a pick up. Just before dark the winds increased and started to blow strongly into the South Westerly corner. I had to re-adjust the pegs to ensure the brolly didn't blow away as gusts got up to nearly 45mph. At around 10 o'clock the fish switched on, I got a phone call from my mate Rob telling me he had just had one, 22lb Common, followed quickly by another a 23lb Mirror.

Rob with the 23lb Mirror 

Lez just down the bank from me also was in, the fish were really getting their heads down tonight. Not long after I'd got back into bed and fallen asleep my alarms went into melt down, I played the powerful fish for nearly 10 minutes before managing to land a 29lb Common and the first fish I had played on my new rods. I was very impressed with how the rods performed, powerful but yet so responsive in the tip, and John at http://eatonrodcraft.com/ had done a superb job, i'm still not sure how he managed to supply me with the cheapest quote out of about 10 different rod builders for a custom set of Harrison Torrix's packed full of extra features.

Looking like a right Nod with the head torch still on my head.

Beautifully built Harrison Torrix's

Following this session I attended a birthday fish'in at Suffolk water park and also managed an opportunist hour, both resulted in blanks but that's what keeps us going back for more isn't it, the challenge.

Barry with the only Birthday fish caught from Suffolk Water Park

Rods out on the deck for an opportunist hour 

With the imminent arrival of my little girl now, I expect fishing will go on the back burner for a few months although I will update you as and when I go. For now though I wish you all luck in your fishing and also a Merry Christmas.


Slack Lines

Luke