LA BOTTE 2007-03-01
It always amazes me how much planning goes in to a France trip. In theory all I would have to take is some extra food and bait. My tackle is the same except for a few extra bits so what’s the problem?
First of all finding some where to fish you can pick up any magazine and there are loads of places. Angling Publication do a quality magazine dedicated to fishing abroad.
I always try to go on a recommendation so the lake we chose for this trip was fished last November by my fishing partner Brian and one of his friends. They both had a very good trip with loads of 20s 30s and few 40s the lake also contains 2, 50s.
The lake is called La-Botte and is part of Angling Lines.
So the lake was sorted and after few phone calls all was set to go. That’s the easy part.
I must admit I have always wanted to fish the huge lakes like Cassin, Orient and so on. I did have a lot of chances many years ago when the likes of Kevin Maddocks Frank Warwick and so on were having huge hits. Frank asked me many times to go but for some reason it never happened.
It’s only over the last few years I have started taking a real interest in France.
I think one of the reasons is that over the last twenty years or so I have been happy with my fishing in England.
The next part of my preparation is totally dismantling every bit of my tackle and making a list of everything I might need and I mean everything. The last thing I want is to find out I have forgot something that may not have anything to do with fishing but means the world to a bit of comfort. I once forgot to take a pillow, buy the end of the week my neck was in bits it would not have bothered me ten years ago but now something like this drives me mad. On the last trip I forgot my boots my feet were wet the whole trip not very nice. I have always liked a bit of comfort.
The next consideration is bait one of the most important parts of the preparation. No matter where I am fishing I do not skimp on the quality of my bait I can’t see the point in laying out all the money on a trip to end up struggling to catch due to a bait the fish do not like. Over the last 20 years I would say I have made 90% of my bait using my own base mix and sousing my own ingredients and I have done very well catching many English fish to 46lb. So making the move to ready made bait was a bit worrying.
Most ready made's are of top quality but there is something about the SBS lob worm bait that I really like it’s one of those baits you know will work. I air dried all the bait it takes a while to do it but to me it is worth the extra effort. They dried out rock hard all I do is add a bit blood worm dip prior to using them. We also took 50 kilo of SBS lobworm pellet this pellet is awesome. When it comes to pellet I have used loads of different kinds over the years simply because I can source it cheaper elsewhere. But this pellet combined with the lobworm boilis are superb every fish we caught were crapping the stuff out all over the place. That to me is the best sign you can have.
I do take back up bait just in case the poison-char are causing problems these would be a good selection of partials, Hemp, Maize and Tigers not to many tigers I do believe it’ one of the best baits you can use but if you over use it you can kill your swill. The amount of times I have seen people fill a swim in with them and blank is un-true all I have ever used a one or two pouch full and these I will scatter.
Going back to the pellet and boilis we were lucky enough to do a bit of field testing for SBS so we got the bait a bit cheaper which enabled us to take extra. Have a look at it I know you won’t be disappointed they also do a good range of dips and oils which complement the bait no end. I am certain we would not have done half as well without them.
Then comes the food as you can tell buy the pics and my waste line I do like my food but if you plan your meals right it can help your fishing. This may sound strange but it’s true. In the early days of my Carp fishing I lived of bacon sausage and anything that came in a tin very un-healthy. Within in a day or two I would start to feel lazy and a bit greasy and generally a bit un-clean and my bivi would have a smell of bacon and so on. Round about 1989 I met Brian Bevens on Redesmere and ended up fishing with him on the stream for a few days. (18 years later we are still fishing together.)
When I looked at his food compared to mine I was gob smacked.
I was eating a tin of beans and sausage with a bit of bread he was on boiled potato’s carrots peas and stake and gravy, my breakfast was bacon (for the one hundredth time) but Bri was on corn flakes or another cereal. Brian is 20 years older than me with a triple heart buy pass and he was running rings round me. So I had a re-think on the food side of things and to be honest I have not looked back.
I do feel better and a lot more active.
So the tackle bait food is ready and the lake is booked the next problem is to catch a few fish!
Like I said having total confidence in my bait helps the next thing is location. When we arrived at the lake we were lucky enough to have it to ourselves so first thing a good walk round.
The lake is about 40 acres with a triangle shape island running down the middle splitting it in two. We saw a few fish but they were all small. The wind was very strong and cold blowing straight in to the island. We were advised to fish pegs 1 and 2 but the wind was worrying us.
We decided to fish the island from the other side, the thinking behind this was the fish might be sheltering in the calm warmer water. I set up in the middle and Warren to the left of me. After having a row about and a good prod about with a long Cain it was apparent the lake was quite shallow averaging about 5ft the water close to the island was only a foot or less so I baited up about 3yrds of it.
That night I had a run and landed a fish of about 17lb Warren blanked and between us we did not see any fish.
Warren decided to move to my left and he caught a small fish the following morning.
There comes a time when fishing when one decision can make or break a trip.
I decided to move to the other side of the lake this would turn out to be a bad move. The reason behind the move was I had a walk round and spotted a few fish crashing. Even though they were a bit on the small side at least they were fish plus eight lines in one swim is a bit much when there is no need.
I decided that I would bait up four areas and stick to them. Two rods close to the island and the other two on gravel patches I had found in open water.
The following morning I got a call from Warren he had a 42lb Common in the net. As you can tell by the pictures the fish is an absolute peach. I got back to my swim put my baits back out and had a 23lb mirror then the phone rang again he had a 34lb mirror in the net. Seems like I made the wrong move he asked me to move back but I knew if I did another four rods would spoil the swim plus I was still confident I could sneak a few fish out over the week.
The fish were still not showing themselves much and none of the big mirrors had made an appearance this was probably due to the weather it was all over the place one day heavy cold rain the next bright sun shine and then some powerful winds the nights were very cold.
The fishing was steady over the next few days with us both having lots of twenties and Warren having another 30lb Common and also a stunning 20lb coi. I could not seem to get among the bigger fish.
Finally a bit of luck came my way the wind change and swung round in the opposite direction for a day. That night I had a 28lb common a 22lb mirror and an awesome 28lb grass carp the fish was like a torpedo and give me a good beating up on the mat. The following morning the wind changed and the fishing slowed up.
One thing I must say we were heavily baiting at the start of the week but buy Thursday it was running out. I started to bait very lightly so did Warren but the fish were still coming if anything we were catching more.
In my opinion it proves that if you use good bait the fish will look for it the proof being I put tigers and maize on two rods and only had one fish, all the rest came to the lob worm boilis. We ended up with over 50 fish between us if the weather had been a bit kinder I believe we could have had a lot more.
This was at the start of March and I am lucky enough to be going to Mar-Peche two weeks later so it starts all over again making the list going through all my tackle and so on.
Hopefully I can sneak a whacker out this time.
