Tag: carp fishing in France

This report covers our first week back after the summer break for 4 weeks and has revealed some interesting points despite the angling conditions being far from ideal.

The First is that the heat of the summer with water temperatures reaching 30 degrees seems to have resulted in the carp feeding but not as heavily as we would hope in “normal” summer conditions. The result being that the fish are fit and fighting hard but still well down in weight.

 The next point is that, with the water temperature now dropping, the fish are feeding very heavily again and it seems to be essential that the anglers get a bed of bait in very early and keep feeding it every day. Tom did exactly this and reaped the rewards, ending with 22 fish including 5 forties (3 of which were 47lbs or bigger) and a fifty at 55lbs 8oz in the shape of Galileo. Well angled mate.  That also leads on to the choice of bait. I know Tom arrived with the plan to use Dynamite ComplexT on one rod with his own choice on the others. The ComplexT took off so quickly that he abandoned his other bait after 2 days and hammered the swim with 55kg of BoiliesI must also mention my good friend Pete Gower who always enjoys his holidays with us but often doesn’t get the rub of the green, well this year was different and he arrived with a mid forty as his PB and ended with three carp of 47lbs plus and then put the icing on the cake with Half Lin at 60lbs 11oz. Well angled mate.In total, the group banked 51 carp which included 11 forties, six of which were over 47lbs, 2 fifties plus the sixty. Good start to the autumn period and it’s still August.

 I’m going to skate over the last three weeks as the weather has been ridiculously hot and with air temperatures reaching 42 degrees and water temps at 30 it isn’t surprising that the fishing was poor. Even in the poor conditions the lads still managed two 50lbs plus carp but both were well spawned out at 54lbs and 56lbs. On the positive side we’ve still seen plenty of feeding fish but, and this is a guess, the warm water has probably generated the bloodworm to pupate and in so doing have produced a lot of amino acids which are likely to be the feeding trigger for the carp. Yesterday we saw two very violent storms, one of which fried our internet and phone, and the carp have been kicked into life with the first night of the new week producing two 38lbs fully scaled, plus mirrors of 41lbs, 42lbs and 44lbs.

I’m not going to waffle on about last week but I will let the photos do the talking. What more can I say than well angled fellas. It was a pleasure to be a small part of it.

Totals for the week were:-

68 carp banked made up of 27 forties, and more than half upper forties, and 5 fifties.

I will start this review of last week by saying that it continues to amaze me that carp anglers try to avoid June, because of the risk of spawning fish, and prefer May. I understand that you could catch them at their biggest in May but you’re also much more likely to find them spawning. Generally by June they are back on the feed, as this review shows.

With just 5 anglers on the lake I was invited to fish and, after their swim choices, I was also able to fish First Pontoon. This made the job of setting up etc. much less hassle and also kept me close to the house and lodge for meals plus exercising Porscha.

It became obvious, within 24 hours, that the fish were looking for food and the Dynamite ComplexT was far more attractive than particles. I chose to bait up 4 spots and fish 3 while keeping an eye on the fourth as a sort of reserve. I purposely ignored the aerator and Lillie bin and fished at 8 wraps maximum with my first fish coming to the rod at 5 wraps.

Everybody caught and everybody caught at least one forty. Unfortunately some of those upper forties were well spawned out and would have been mid fifties, or bigger, before spawning. However, we ended the week with 48 carp between us and that included 15 forties and 3 fifties. Most enjoyable for everyone so a big “well angled”.

I will end this with the list of carp that I managed to fluke out, just to show that we all need luck to be with us when it comes to which fish we hook.

in order of appearance;-

42lbs 8oz common, 37lbs 6oz common, 49lbs 8oz common, 37lbs 10oz common,       34lbs 5oz fully scaled, 46lbs 6oz common, 49lbs 9oz mirror, 43lbs 11oz common,                56lbs 12oz mirror, 36lbs 5oz mirror, 46lbs 1oz common.

11 carp including 6 forties and 1 fifty. I’ll settle for that.

Last week was simply an exhibition of angling prowess. 5 lads turned, having never been to Moorlands before and showed just how angling without using bait boats can be a massive advantage. I’ve been saying for a while now that bait boats on shallow lakes work against you rather than for you. The noise of the motor running definitely spooks the fish and the bait dropped lands in a totally unnatural pile and carp don’t do “unnatural” without avoiding it.

Anyway, last weeks lads decided that all baiting patterns would be by throwing stick, catapult or wading and, my word did it pay off.

By the end of the week they had banked 79 carp including 17 forties, 7 fifties and 2 sixties. There were personal bests all over the place and we made five new friends very easily. Great week and well angled fellas.

The last couple of weeks have been strange, to say the least, so I’m going to try to cover both weeks as a single report.

SUNDAY 14th APRIL 2019

The forecast is for the weather to improve rapidly this week from Tuesday on so let’s hope these rolling fish start rolling over people’s landing nets.

The week just ended was very quiet and mostly because of poor weather conditions but Roy did manage to bank 3 forties to 49lbs so it wasn’t a complete disaster.

Last night saw much better results so we are hoping that it’s a sign of things to come and the numbers of fish feeding this morning are underlining this hope.

The photos here are a mirror of 42lbs 2oz which has got Scott’s week started, Chris with a new PB in the shape of “Bungle” at 45lbs 8oz and Keith with his new PB in the shape of a common at 54lbs 8oz. Well angled one and all.

SATURDAY 30th March 2019.

Be lucky.