Angling Lines blog

by Gareth Watkins

I’m often asked

‘Hey! Gareth, Got any new venues coming up?’

Well today I can answer ‘Yes!’

I went out on the road (again) this week, to look at a new venue for 2008. Well to be honest it’s not an entirely new venue as we have had dealings with the site in the past but due to a conflict of interests with the previous owner, the relationship was short lived.

Now under new ownership the carp fishing lakes at ‘Grosley sur Risle’ will once again be available to the UK Carper.

This is a really nice venue, with two lakes of 25 and 9 acres and carp to nearly 50lb. The larger of the two lakes holds the biggest fish, where as the small lake has a huge head of more modest sized carp in the doubles and twenties.

Click here to see the Web pages

During my visit to the lake the new owner Eric Touzé introduced around 15 carp to just under 40lb and a 23lb sturgeon in the 9 acre lake to give anglers a chance of a better fish.

The site boast a bar restaurant and excellent facilities….

by Gareth Watkins

Most of my summer 2007 was spent out ‘On the Road’ to produce the 2008 DVD.

We generally get under way in April and set out a list of venues we need to cover. These are in priority the new lakes we have on our books, lakes that have seen significant changes to either the facilities, fish stocks etc and venues that we have not covered for a while.

Last year was made doubly awkward due to the absolutely lousy weather we had for much of the summer.

We were delighted to add some quality fishing to our portfolio, such as Molyneux, Commons Lake, Long Lake, Etang de Moulin and St Christophe. All these venues I’m sure will do well in 2008.

The other great thing about visiting the lakes in person is the people we meet. None of our video sessions are staged. We don’t bait a swim for weeks or re-hook fish. What you see on the clips is as it is. Some venues produce well others don’t. That’s not to say the venues who don’t throw up a biggy for the camera don’t hold such fish though.

In 2007 I was generally very mucky and on most waters I was able to capture some good action and some nice fish, even if I had to wait for them.

I think the highlight though was shooting with Shaun Harrison, what a star… not only has he never failed to catch when I’ve turned a camera on him, at St Christophe, against all the odds when the lake was fishing really slowly and many anglers blanking during the busiest holiday week of the year… he banked a fabulous 54lb 6oz mirror.