Angling Lines Blog

72lb

Chris Griffiths had a fantastic opening week at Laroussi banking a stunning 72lb mirror plus back-up fish of 47, 38, 48, 45, 40, 25 plus a common of 25lb.

More details here.

Carp Fishing in France at Laroussi

42lb

We are over the moon with the start of the season we’ve had here at Watersmeet.  Jez has had a 42lb’er out and Grant has just had a 33lb 5oz beauty.  They have also had various other fish, photo’s will follow.

Fishing Holiday in France

George Merrit – 38.09

Back in 2007 fishing in France had been something that had appealed to me for several years, but i didn’t want to go to a complex that was hammered with advertising! I wanted a nice family, friendly complex with great sport.  And that’s when I got lucky & came across Le Monument.

It looked like a fantastic venue with some stunning scenery and best of all fantastic fish, so we gave it a go… & we’ve been going back every year since.  We’ve had some stunning carp to over 38lb and needless to say we’ve just booked up for 2011!

We’ve always booked the whole lake to ourselves so we’ve been able to move around & get on top of those feeding carp that you wouldn’t be able to do on some of the larger venues.

Mark and Angela are more than helpful when were there, bringing us full English breakfast and hot dinners right to our bivvy.  With a power shower, kitchen area and toilets on site you really have all your home comforts.

I would really recommend Monument lake to anyone that’s thinking about fishing in France! It really isn’t as scary as you think to fish in France & there’s such a friendly atmosphere here that you really feel at home.

Looking forward to next time!

George and Ed

Chas with a 46.04 mirror caught on his recent “busman’s holiday”

For the first time in several years I found I had an opportunity to spend a few days in September fishing my own lake Vaux . I followed on from a week of low numbers of fish caught, apparently weather related because I noted that several other lakes were similarly affected. Temperatures rocketed during my stay and I decided to fish nights only with a limited number of rods, using my new ‘large carp’ tactics: the usual heavy lead set-up, the end tackle being a heavy boom section whipped to the hook section with 40-50mm braided hook lengths incorporating long shank Mugga hooks size 6 and 7 or just Mugga hooks, again size 6 and 7, tied KD style.

41.08

I targetted two spots in the lake and baited one with 25-35mm carp and trout pellets plus a scattering of 25-35mm boilies. For the other area I took a different approach. Roach and dace which I had caught in a feeding situation were humanely despatched and using a food processor were then incorporated into my method mix base of wheat and maize, instead of the usual tuna. In this way a very high oil content is released into the method mix. Because the roach and dace had been feeding when caught and then incorporated without delay into the mix, I was in addition trying to establish if there is an enzyme or some other trigger within the roach and dace which would spark a feeding response in the carp.

It took three days from putting the method mix into the lake before the carp started feeding, but then over a period of eight days I banked 35 carp including 4 x 40lb+, 21 x 30lb+, 9 x 20lb+ and 1 at 16lb – plus one 42lb catfish. Of the 21 thirties, 15 were over 35lb. 71% of the carp landed were over 30lb and with a total carp weight of 1145lb 4oz, I had an average weight of 32lb12oz. On one particular night I had two lots of doubles: 46lb4oz and 41lb8oz mirrors, followed by a 28lb common and a 37lb14oz mirror.

All the larger fish were taken over the method mix, the small ones over the carp and trout pellets. For me, this first trial was a big success.

Chas

A series of Angling Lines videos that’ll help you put more carp on the bank!

Here we join Dan Phesay at Sapphire as he explains the tactics he uses to concentrate the carp in his swim, plus his stick mix rig & how he uses back-leads.