I awoke at 5.30am to the sound of piped music through the cabin speakers.
It's about the worst kind of music you can imagine....really cuts through you like a hot knife going through butter!
Still, it wasn't as bad as Chris's start to the day! He decided to get up and use the shower in the cabin for a freshen up....it went well...he switched on the shower only to have the shower head fall off the connector and then having it fly around the room like a caged wild bird! It was flipping hilarious. God knows what the cleaners thought had gone on in that cabin after we vacated it???
Anyway, on the road down to the lake and we arrived half hour ahead of owner Nick and got about the business of a walk round and make a few decisions on what works needed to be done around the lake before we closed up for the season. There had been some very strong winds since the last party had left in early October and at least 4 or 5 trees had come down around the complex. These would require some heavy works to remove.
With the daylight slipping away quickly and forecasters predicting some very heavy rain overnight, we decided to get the shelters up and get rods out before dark.
Chris and I had already decided on swims and stuck to our usual spots. We both had 2goals for the week which to be honest were exactly the same! To catch Orange Spot at over 40lbs and Louisa at over 40lbs too! A tall ask in a 5 acre venue with around 150 carp in it during November!
I cooked us all up some food and the 3 of us sat back with a beer and the boys had a smoke. It was amazing to be back out in France at one of our favourite places to be! The darkness fell quickly and before we knew it we were heading off to our bivvies with full bellies ready for a good nights sleep.
As Chris had driven and due to the incoming storm, he decided not to fish the first night but I couldn't wait to get a rod out! I put four rods out in usual spots and baited lightly with crumbed RH Nutty bait and some particle over each rod.
This turned out to be a mistake as I got plagued by Bream over the particle! I made a very quick change over just before the rain started to fall at 9pm and went onto larger hook baits. The only rod I kept different was the right hand inside margin rod which had a pair of tigers and a plastic corn topper on it. This was placed around 30 yards down the margin to my right. I climbed into my bag to warm up and settled in to watch a bit of telly on my iphone.
I started to feel sleepy around 11pm so turned off to get some sleep to the sound of torrential rainfall on the bivvy. Around 3am I had a couple of bleeps on the right hand rod. I rolled over to look at the rod tip and under torch light I could see it was just gently plucking away. I thought it was almost certainly another Bream so slowly put my wet weather gear on and boots before suddenly the tip flew round and line started to peel from the spool!
'That's not a Bream!' The fish hung deep down the right hand margin not really doing much other than just plucking away and taking the odd few yards of line...a typical big fish I felt. A good ten minutes passed by of tussle between us both before finally I sunk the net under a thick set mirror. I had this very strange feeling that this fish looked familiar???? I rolled the net to the side and on it's flank was the unmistakable Orange spots! I couldn't flipping believe it! First carp of the trip and it was the Spot!
I rang Chris immediately. 'Hi bro, I've got one in the net and it's big....' 'What fish is it?' 'You won't believe me...' 'You haven't?' 'I have....lol'
We agreed to leave her in the sling till the rain slowed up enough for a few shots. I was gutted though as I wanted a daylight shot really.
We waited about an hour for the rain to slow up and got a few shots. I had a further common of 12'8 and a mirror of 18'14 before sun rise and then we started on the lake works. I was on chainsaw duty and Chris and Nick on clearance.
Luckily Nick had acquired an electric Quad Bike and trailer over the summer and this made movements a lot easier than our previous work party trip.
We got to work on cutting down what was left of some of the over hangers from the storms and a couple of leaners that were now very far into the water and posed a hazard to fishing situations.
A couple of them were pretty big and required us to make up a makeshift winch using ratchet straps from Chris's van. We made short work of it and got the majority of the heavy stuff done by late morning.
We had some tea and got the rods out for the night. I lost a fish early evening which saw me take to the boat for a battle which ended up with my tackle losing the day.
Another bream fell foul to a pop up and after that it was a quiet night for me only interrupted by an early morning mirror of 24lbs. At this point I'm going to admit that the week kinda went mental after this point and much of what happened Chris's end is a blur! Other than to say he smashed it is an understatement! My phone was on fire from calls that he had a fish then another and another! The guy was unstoppable! He was on a mission to bag every big fish in the lake!
I think he started with Mel at 35lbs and then had Scar at 38. I think? The list just went on and on! I quietly progressed with a few more twenties including the Long Common at 26'8, The Italian Football at 26'14 and another of the A-listers 'Willing and able' at 31'12. In amongst the carnage we carried on with bankside works and got the place looking absolutely superb and by late Tuesday most of the heavy work was finished. Chris continued to obliterate his way through the stock with a couple more thirties and a few small commons! I had another mirror of 27'2 and a few mid double commons before a very quiet day on Wednesday which we spent just chilling in our bivvies.
I had a small common and lost one to a hook pull on the Wednesday. Thursday was much better though and Chris finally got to revisit his Orange Spot capture but not at over 40 unfortunately. She was a couple of ounce up since my capture on the first night and as it was mid afternoon I grabbed the chance to get a few daylight pics with here. Result for both of us! That evening I had 'De vito' at a new top weight of 34'2 and then 'Mel' up to 37lbs!!!!She'd gained 2lbs in 4 nights! We had decided to up our bait introduction early on and it was really playing into our favour!
The fish were really on it and munching their way through all we gave them. Chris introducing Sticky Krill and I was on the Rod Hutchinson Nutty bait! They were loving both! By Friday we only had about 6 of the really big ones left to catch and Chris had caught 'Mini Fridge at 37lb and 1/2 ounce in the thirties too! The guy was smashing it! We only had one fish left we both wanted though....Louisa! And It was Chris who had her on the last night of the trip! He had previously caught her at 39lb 15oz back in March and was his current PB.
He called me to say he had a reasonable one in the net. I went round to find a rather large chunk of fish in the net which he hadn't realised! I knew straight away it was Louisa and she looked big! Well, 41lb 12oz big! Chris was ecstatic and to be honest I was absolutely over the moon he'd caught her and set a new PB. A bit gutted I'd not caught her myself but to be honest I've caught plenty of bigger fish in my time and this moment was a very special one for him and I didn't care that my luck wasn't in this time. There'll be plenty of other opportunities I'm sure.
The Friday night saw me bag the Mini Fridge again for the week and up 8ounces to 37'8 and a nice fat 24'8 mirror in the early hours of Saturday morning.
We spent the Saturday morning clearing up our own stuff, washing out the cabin and kitchen and shower etc before switching off the water for the winter and our return in late March 2024. Nick bid us farewell at midday and Chris packed the van while I grabbed a cheeky few hours in the snags with a bit of left over bait.
It was a blustery day and I poled our a few baits to one of the far end snags. It produced a bonus 16'12 common before we had to call it a day and head off to St Malo for the evening ferry. Another absolutely incredible week that saw us totally smash the lake records for many of the fish and for the most caught in a week! We had 40 fish including 5x30's, 5x20's, 11 doubles for myself. 5x30's, a 41'12 and 4x20's for Chris! In total we caught over 1000lbs of carp between us! Unreal! Can't wait for March now when my other pal Simon is hopefully joining the crew for a work party trip!
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