ESP’s Sean Trafford spent a week fishing in Le Val Doré, France along with his family and Oxfordshire match angler Mick Denton. Here’s his report:
Le Val Doré in France is just a stones throw from Calais!
I took my annual trip to France this year with my Dad, Mick, brother Michael, with the addition of Mick Denton who is a very accomplished match angler who fishes for Drennan. Mick had never carp fished in this way before so it was going to be a steep learning curve for him but after getting him a set up sorted he was soon getting the hang of things.
Val Doré was a new venue for us which I previously had a quick walk around several years ago whilst fishing another venue down the road. It’s in the North of France, just over an hours drive from Calais, and being over 40 years old it’s very well established. With not much more knowledge about the location it was off to the internet and a few phone calls made, to try and gather as much information as I could about the lakes, features etc before we set off. Val Doré’s set up is very similar to a day ticket lake where you can book in for 3 to 4 nights at a time (providing there is space on the complex). Fortunately we had already booked our pegs (7 & 10) so we knew exactly where we would be fishing before we even set off for Dover.
Once we were at the venue and signed in we soon took the short drive to our pegs, and after a lead about the swim we all had our spots marked down but decided against fishing them for the first evening to see if the fish were showing anywhere else at night. instead we opted for single bags cast to likely looking areas which proved to work as by the following morning both myself and Mick Denton had both caught fish.
Sean with his 30lb 4oz Mirror Carp
Fishing seemed to be quite hard through the week but we all caught frequently throughout the trip however things did slow up towards the end of the trip. Mick was sorting through his stuff when he found an old can of Stink Stuff Spray, with nothing to lose (as none of us had really used this stuff before) it was decided that we would all give it a try and it certainly proved to work!
A nice 21lb 12oz Mirror Carp
Within 4 hours of Michael using it he had 4 fish on the bank (1 being a new PB catfish) from an area that he had only managed to pick the odd fish up from (picture below), I managed to net myself a new PB in the shape of a 40lb catfish and Mick landed himself a new PB sturgeon of 43lb.
By the end of the week we had caught over 30 fish between us with carp to mid-30s, grass carp to mid-20’s, catfish to 40lb, and sturgeon to 43lb, so all in all a very productive week with everyone landing one or more personal bests.
Sean’s French Rig: ESP Two Tone to an ESP Curveshanx hook, with a high-vis ESP Pop Up
All of the fish were taken on a variety of baits including ESP Artificial Buoyant Sweetcorn, Drum N Baits “Dark Mix”, Cell, Tiger Nuts & a variety of ESP Pop Ups. Tackle used included ESP Leadcore (Original Camo & Silt), ESP Two Tone Hook Length tied to either ESP Curve Shank Barbless or ESP Raptor Big T Barbless hooks.
All in all it was a great week’s fishing.
Sean.