First French trip 51lb Mirror on SSRR
20/05/2010
Last November I was offered a place on a week’s carping holiday in France. May 2010 seemed so far away but it soon came around. Before I knew it, it was time to start sorting out what I needed to take with me, never having been before on such an experience. I planned to travel with a friend whose van would be carrying all the gear needed for a week - SSRR boilies and particles were my choice of bait.
We set off in the early hours to our venue, Lac Des Lesmont in northern France. It was an effortless journey via Eurotunnel and we arrived around lunch time the same day. The entire eight-strong party had a quick walk around the lake on arrival. Some had been there a few times already so they knew the lake well. Most had decided where they wanted to fish and, as I did not know the water at all, I took a swim with the most amount of water in front of me (a week is a long time and the more areas I had to choose from, the better my chances would be). My mate opted for the next swim along from me. We both had open water swims and the opposite margin was around 140 yards away. The party had ll agreed that no one would occupy the far margin swims so as to give people a chance to fish to these areas without lines cutting from both sides of the lake.
After setting up, I decided not to put much bait out for a day or two and thought it would be best to watch for the fish closely to see which areas they frequented. I fished the first night with just PVA bags of broken SSRR boilies, hemp and corn. I chucked these to where I had seen fish showing. I intended to plumb around in front of me the next day. I sat up most of the night listening and trying to identify the areas they were crashing but it was so incredibly dark with no light pollution that it was impossible to spot them. The next day after breakfast, I started to plumb around looking for features starting with my left hand rod. I was told there was a gravelly hump around 40 yards out and after a couple of casts with the marker rod, I found it. The water went from 22ft up to 16ft on top of the gravel hump . It was around 4ft square. I marked up my lines and worked out how far I needed to cast past the hump in order to allow for the pendulum effect of a cast at night. I also added another coloured line marker in the eventuality that I would use the boat to drop my bait. My other two rods were cast to a bar which ran from left to right of the swim around 60 yards out. One rod cast to a silty gully in front of the bar and the other on top. I boated out some mixed particles, broken SSRR boilies and some whole 15mm boilies thrown in for good measure. I put the equivalent of around 8 large spod-fuls out with a boat. I also spodded around 10 spod-fuls on to the hump to my left hand rod and clipped up my spod for re-baiting. My rigs were simple KD style with a whittled down SSRR boilie topped off with a fake corn on a size 10 hook. My 6 inch coated braid hook lengths and 3.5oz leads were attached to a doctored lead clip to allow them to become free running when a fish might prick itself. I adopted a semi-running set-up (thinking the fish might be a bit cute and may have seen it all before!). I decided I would leave the water to the far margin free hoping that the pressure from the other anglers would force them into the area opposite me. I walked around to the far margin where I baited an area in front of the opposite swim, bating around two rod-lengths out at the bottom of the marginal shelf. I hoped to fish this area later in the week (Let them have some free food for a few days).
On my first full day in the afternoon, I lost a good fish from the bar in front which was disappointing. It was really odd playing a fish in 20 plus foot of water at my rod tips. Still it gave me more confidence to stick with my spots.
I had to wait until the next day to bank my first fish. This came to my left hand rod - a superb fish of 28lb at last! I was off the mark (it isn’t the sort of lake where they climb up your lines). My next take was 24 hours later on the Tuesday afternoon. The rain was lashing down and a really strong wind was blowing straight in to my bivvy, forcing me to keep my door down which I hate doing! Suddenly, I heard the buzzer rattle into life. I burst out of my bivvy to see my left hand rod bent round tight. I wound down and struck the hook home after a tiring battle. I banked a fish of 29lb...not a massive one by French standards, but I was sure that would come if I stuck to my plan.
On the Thursday morning, the weather had calmed and it was a stunning dawn. I was watching the water on the far margin when I noticed that fish were starting to show over the area I had been pre-baiting but not fishing. I decided to bait boat one of my rigs to the far margin (I just knew it would pay off - even the other anglers spotted how many fish were crashing out in what the fish must have thought was a safe zone). To make things a bit different, I squeezed a ball of chopped boilies, corn, hemp and ground bait around my hook bait. When I released the bait and the rig from the boat, I let it free fall with all the free offerings for around 10ft. I then pulled the baited rig back slightly so it came away from the main baited area when it landed. I was working on the theory that the larger fish would hang back to the edge of the baited area and hopefully I would pick up a “whacker”. Well, I didn’t have to wait long... around an hour later I had a “donk” on the rod tip and a slight lift of the indicator. As I was fishing at such range, I knew a fish could kite and give me little indication so I didn’t take any chances and decided to hit it. When I struck, it just felt heavy... real heavy... and bringing a big fish from such a distance was incredibly tiring. The fish stayed deep and even when I played it to my rod tips; it was still hugging the bottom. Finally she rolled over in front of me and looked absolutely massive. At this point I just wanted her in the net so badly but she had plenty of fight in her still and she tore off down the margin to my right and off into open water. Five minutes seemed like an eternity, but at last, she was in my net.
With the help of someone from our party and my fishing partner in the next swim, I carefully lifted her onto the scales. Proudly, I watched the needle go careering around to 51lb. It was a truly stunning fish and it gave me such a sense of exhilaration, satisfaction and contentment to have bagged such a big beauty on my first French fishing trip.
Spencer Lunn