France reflections

If you’re lucky enough to travel to France each year, you’ll understand the buzz that surrounds it! The planning, the excitement, getting away with your mates for seven days and carp hunting in the sun. This year I was travelling to the famous Moorlands located an hour south of Dijon, owed & run by Keith Moors. Keith has been based out there for nearly 15 years now and in that time he has built one of the finest fisheries in Europe. A beautiful tree lined lake of 15 acres with stunning carp to over 70lb, plenty for us to get excited about!

We arrived at the venue late September, the tradition drawing for swims commenced and I found myself located in a swim called the Oaks for the next seven days. The swim had loads of options to go at; I soon found my three spots for the week, with a few back up options if they didn’t become fruitful.

Simple tactics was the order of the week, tried and trusted rigs & bait. The famous Multi Rig was my weapon of choice along with the ever-faithful Live System boilies with matching cork ball pop-ups.

The lake was quite shallow with the deepest part I had in front of me being 3.5ft. This was due to a very dry summer over in the south of France; this area would normally be about 6ft. I was fishing at about 70 yards so the cast had to be bang on the money each time. With this I mean hitting the clip nicely about six inches above the water, so the rig is in position as soon as it hits the water. You had no time to ‘’feel’ the lead down because of the water being so shallow, you never had the feeling of the lead swinging back through the water and touching down. The rigs had to be anti-tangle, almost self-setting. All rods were set up on running rigs, as no lead clips are allowed at the venue.

After all rods were cast out on the mark, boilies were applied over the top and the first night was under way. In the early morning I landed my biggest fish of the week at 51lb, a cracking mirror carp called Black Spot, one of the gems in Moorlands. The rest of week played out to the same tune with more or less one or two fish each night. I ended up with 12 fish for the week with at least 4 over the 45lb mark.

My favourite memory was the last bite of the week that came 2 hours before we had to pack up on the Saturday morning, a lovely muscle packed common of 47lb! Watching the broad backed carp slowly swim back to the depths was the perfect end to a cracking week of fishing. You can watch the whole weeks adventure by clicking the link below. Enjoy,

Thanks again
Dean Watson.