Angling Lines Blog

By Pat Gillett

I have just come back from an interesting weeks fishing with Paul Cooper on the Angling Lines Venue, Island Lake.

Island Lake is a mature looking Gravel Pit of approximately 25 acres in the Champagne Region of France; roughly 3 ¾ hours drive from Calais. As the name suggests it has a large island and 4 or 5 bays along with a lot of weed and underwater features.

The lake is totally different to most commercial French fisheries as it is relatively lightly stocked for the size of the venue. Most commercial French Lakes are overstocked and so the fish become virtually dependant on anglers’ baits, which more or less guarantees you catching plenty of fish. The fish in Island Lake are of an excellent average size and it would appear that they have reached and are maintaining these weights by feeding on the abundance of natural food in the lake. This can lead to very challenging fishing, but to me this makes it all the more interesting and rewarding. Read more »

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Oliver Wilkinson wrote:
Hi there I fish at my local day ticket water Birkwoods farm in Stanley Wakefield it is a 10 yr old lake holding hundreds of 4lb carp but there bigger fish my question is how do you get to the bigger fellas if all methods used bring the 4lbs in and there a few bans which are no nuts or boilies I’ve tried the method float fishing slugs corn pellets   surface fishing with bread dog biscuits cat food weetoes your help could make me a very happy lad cheers

Gareth replies:
Hi Olivier,
Silly bait bans unfortunately do you no favours in this case as my usual tactics if I’m plagued by small carp is to use the biggest boilie I can, say 25mm or bigger. While small fish will nibble away at the bait, it gives the bigger fish time to get to your bait… Read more »

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by Gareth Watkins
I often here anglers who have booked onto a commercial venue in France complain about the difficulties they face catching carp.
“It’s outrageous, I’ve paid X amount and I still haven’t have a touch.!!” Some anglers even doubt the presence of the fish in the lake!!
It is almost as if having paid to be able to fish a venue they have a certain quota of fish they expect to catch.
Unfortunately the simple fact of paying to fish a holiday venue can’t possibly guarantee that the carp will crawl up the rods. All our Angling Lines venues have good stock level and are of varying difficulty and have varying size fish. Most are however significantly more pressured than day ticket or club waters in the UK.
So What Should I expect to Catch on a trip to France, and how do I get the best out of a new venue ?

Firstly I think anglers need to appreciate that carp fishing is the same everywhere. A carp is a carp is a carp. They behave the same in France as in the UK. Most of the continental waters do contain bigger fish than their UK equivalents, but on some of the southern English waters this divide is narrowing.
What you have in fact paid for is a chance to pit your wits against some big fish…And this is where your part of the deal comes in. You have to fish well to do well. If you are blanking, then you ARE doing it wrong!! Ok, I accept there are times when the carp don’t play the game, are spawning or feeding on naturals. But the good anglers nearly always do well.
I have seen it time and time again over the last 10 years, some guys always struggled and others always do well…. Is this just good luck? I think not!!! Read more »