Carpology

Well, the annual trip to Etang De Soleil (FranceCarp) had been booked for a while for most of the boys in the office. For me, this was going to be my first fishing trip outside of the UK.

To be honest, I left packing until the very last minute (9:00pm the night before going to the airport in fact) because I am simply amazing with organisation! All clothes, bait, rigs and anything else needed were squeezed into the cases as I quickly weighed them before getting my head down for the night. It took a lot of juggling to get everything right, but they all weighed within the limits, eventually!

Before I knew it, we where off to Stanstead to catch out flights over to France. Well, the airport was hectic, with Josh losing his passport and eventually finding it under Rob’s sports package! Rob and Josh going over on their baggage allowance (which saw Rob bin valuable carp food and Josh bin some ‘H-blocks’ and a water bucket.) So far, so good! A full English was downed before getting onto the plane and we where heading for Limoges.

The flight went quickly and before long we where being bundled into Dave’s van at the airport and heading for the lake; via the supermarket for some much needed essentials. We had drawn swims in the office before going, myself coming last out of the hat (typical of my bad luck) I drew Peg 1, which I was confident in fishing although it left me on my own for the week.

Upon arriving in the swim I could see some fizzing going on out in front at around 60yds. I clocked it and got on tying up some rigs. My first approach was to fish all snowmen and vary the colour tippers to see what drew me a take. I took an early boating voyage to find some spots and place some markers. I picked three spots for the first night, with my middle rod where I saw the fizzing being my heavily baited area – I started off with six kilos of mixed 10, 15 and 20mm Dynamite Red Fish. Before I knew it I was sat back watching a stunning French sunset awaiting action from the rods.

To my surprise, I awoke the next morning at 3:00am being unable to sleep. I dragged myself outside and onto a chair to watch the water. Nothing as much as farted between then and breakfast at 9:00, the first night was a blank. I went up to the house with my head whizzing with ideas and excuses as to why I hadn’t caught. My main conclusion was location, so upon talking to Dave to find out where my boundaries where I decided to boat my other two rods right to my boundaries right around to my right hand side.

The weather really heated up during the day and upon waking up after an unexpected snooze underneath the sun, I painfully discovered I had sunburnt my back on day one – ouch! Out of nowhere. Though, the right-hand hanger picked up from my relocated spot and I was doing battle with my first French fish. The fight was quite brief and before I knew it I was looking down at the flanks of a dumpy looking common carp. On the scales she went 28lb 2oz.

We’d now all had fish but everyone was finding it slow. The rods where replaced for the night and shortly after dropping off to sleep I had a one toner off the original heavily baited spot. Upon picking up the rod I could automatically tell I was into a cat. I gave up extremely quickly on the backwind as my finger was taking a battering so I resorted to the clutch. The fight went on for what seemed forever with the sound of clutch ringing in my ears (and Josh’s too apparently, as he could hear it from the other side of the lake.) After what seemed like an eternity, it was actually about 45 minutes a cat’s head came up in the margins. After a real struggle I finally managed to concertina it into the net. On the scales it went 62lb 2oz and I have to say the self-takes where a nightmare, with a lot of embarrassing bloopers!

Part two on the next three nights will be coming soon!