Great Grosley

Close your eyes and imagine the ideal angling holiday venue. Would it have?

a) Loads of fish.
b) Large fish.
c) Idyllic peaceful surroundings.
d) Plenty of space.
e) Flat grassy banks.
f) Showers and toilets.
g) Some where to shelter if the weather turns foul.
h) A lake that can be booked exclusively.
i) A large wild lake with the chance of a whacker.
j) Bar and restaurant on site.
k) Or something else.

Paul Cooper and I were invited to visit Grosely in Normandy at the end of March; the weather should be OK then, shouldn’t it? On the face of it, it would meet all the criteria above, would it match up to our expectations? Read on.

The Venue

We arrived at Grosley after travelling through the night, the journey in France was straight forward, as normal. However, the trip was not without complication as the Ferry was delayed 1½ hours due to gale force winds. We later learnt that subsequent ferries were cancelled due to the strength of the wind.
On arriving at the venue, we were met by Eric the owner and a very welcome cup of coffee in the bar. We couldn’t have been made more welcome. We quickly downed our coffee as we couldn’t wait to have a look around.

Grosely is in a deep valley in an absolutely stunning location. It consists of two lakes, one advertised at 9 acres which is stuffed full of carp to over 39pounds. This lake can be booked exclusively by 4 anglers. The other lake is around 25 acres with a centre island and has around 16 pegs. This lake is also well stocked with carp to over 48pounds, Eric thinks there are between 10 and 18 carp over 40 pounds with loads of thirties and they are still growing.

The small lake was really inviting. However, both Paul and I had decided to fish the large lake, which was equally appealing.

We just couldn’t wait to get started.

The fishing
We settled into pegs 7 and 8 and tried to cast to the island, which looked castable. However, we found that we were falling well short in the gale force northerly wind, which was blowing from left to right. The other consideration was that we intended to introduce a quantity of hemp by spodding, there was no way that we could spod to the island from these pegs. We had left the bait boat at home as we wanted to catch fish on our own terms, not by sending a boat to the horizon. After plumbing around two nice hard gravel spots were found in open water and a quantity of hemp and Quest’s ever consistent raja spice boilies were spodded out. All four rods were place on the free offering and we sat back to await some action. Later in the week we found that the distance from pegs 7 and 8 to the island was at least 120 yards.

The weather really was foul, it did not get above 40 C on two consecutive days and we had gale force winds, torrential rain, snow and heavy frosts.

One of the big problems was that it rained during the night and then froze, the line was frozen solid on the reels and to the rod rings. This happened on two consecutive nights and there was a strong possibility of loosing a rod should any action occur. With the diabolical weather we hadn’t had a carp after 4 days. Paul had caught several bream, but we hadn’t seen any evidence of carp.

Pegs 7 and 8 have the use of a chalet which was very welcome to get out of the weather. However, we felt that a move was needed and there were some very sexy looking margins features around the lake, with around 6ft of water in front of them.

We moved to a peg where we could reach the island by casting and also had some margin features close in. A small amount of hemp and boilies were scattered around the island via the spod and we both baited up spots right under our feet. Nothing happened that day, but Paul had a run early the next morning and slipped the net under a very welcome 18 pound carp. At least we were on the right lines. This was from the spot very close in. Paul had another five carp from this spot during the day all upper doubles, my indicators refused to move. I swapped from a bottom presentation to a snowman with a 15mm raja boilie and a 10mm pineapple fluoro pop-up.

The step-up is shown below:

The set up was, working down the line towards the hook:

I had my first run, off the island, at 5pm on the fifth day. After a dogged fight I slipped the net under a very welcome 21 pound mirror. I topped up the swim and cast back out. I started to catch fairly consistently and finished with 8 carp, 6 of which were twenties to 27 pound. I baited up after every fish with roughly 50 boilies and ten spod fulls of hemp. All my carp were caught off the island. My margin rods did not produce a single bleep. Paul finished with 14 crap, 12 of which were caught from the same margin spot and 2 off the island. Strangely Paul’s margin carp were of a smaller average size than the ones that I was catching off the island. Eleven were upper doubles and the other was a 23 pounder. Paul caught 2 from the island one of which was a stunning carp of just over 40 pounds. It makes you wonder if the carp were shoaled up in groups of similar size. Could there have been a spot that produced carp that were mostly thirties?

Paul and I both felt that the lakes have great potential and if it wasn’t for the atrocious weather conditions we would have caught a lot more fish. It was like fishing in the depths of winter, after blanking for the first 4 days we were more than happy to finish with 22 carp between us. Whilst we were there it was necessary to fish to snags, either on the island or down the margin. This will probably change when the weather warms up, but during our stay the pegs we would fancy were:

Peg 10 fishing along the margin.
Peg 15 fishing along the margin.
Pegs 17 a and b fishing to the island ( a cast of at least 110yds)
Pegs 18 and 19 fishing to the snags off the peninsula.
Pegs 7 and 8 fishing to the island (bait boat required)
Peg 13 fishing to the island (bait boat required).

It is possible to bait boat out to the island from any peg, but the island is small and people will have to be sensible as some pegs have a greater claim to the island than others.

General

The facilities are good, and Eric’s breakfast is well worth sampling at 6.50 euros

The problem with going the restaurant is that you just don’t want to leave as the view is just stunning and it was warm!

Well which of the original criteria do you think were met? Paul and I caught fish although the conditions were very much against us. When the conditions are right we anticipate some very big hits. The fish will put on weight, when quality bait starts going in on a regular basis. We both agree that this is going to be a very special venue and only wish we could go back and tap into its true potential when the weather is more conducive to carp fishing.

Jim Kelly jim.kelly@staffordshire.gov.uk
Paul Cooper paulcooperscfc@aol.com