Benji Brettle sent us this lovely retrospective on his first trip to a special venue in deepest France last October, where he caught some stunning carp.
After plenty of personal persuasion and having to wait 2 years to get a spot on a trip that some of my close friends had been taking to a lovely private reserve in central France, I was on my way and buzzing for my first trip across the continent!
Upon arrival all the stories off what I had been told unfolded in front of me. A beautiful reserve surrounded by eerie forest, floor to ceiling weed in crystal clear water and huge water pigs that really did love a show! The excitement! But how would we fair?!
Myself and good friend Tom were doubled up down one end of the lake which transpired to be the deepest end of the pit , 20+ feet in some places, so after a whole day of boat work with prodding sticks and scopes ,spots for all our 8 rods were located.
Some were marginal spots along one bank all hand placed with amnesia D’s tied with trusty size 4 stiff riggers and double nut hook bait’s and small handfuls of bait suited to margin traps, and the deep water spots were baited REALLY heavily with particle and cocktail hook bait’s all tied with trusty original ESP lead core, coated braid and size 5 Big T’s, it was time to now actually sit back and take it all in!
After the first night passed of the week long session and being kept up all night by what I thought were cows being dropped into the pit the action started to come thick and fast, the first being a beautiful scaly mirror in the upper 20lb bracket for myself which I really wasn’t expecting nor for it to be so pretty, and then shortly afterwards to be followed up with my next one being a lovely 40 plus mirror.
This really was starting to turn out to be one heck of a trip already, and after an endurance testing week which saw us bank more than our share between us to over 50 plus my French fishing initiation couldn’t have gone any better!
Goes to show what’s out there when you have a look!