28 May 2016 – Catch Report from: Karst & friends

A new group of Dutch anglers had the greatest week’s fishing of their lives with 13 x carp from 26 to 40lbs!

This week we welcomed Karst and his friends all the way from Holland. They had been to France before but had only fished runs waters and were now looking to up their game. Well they’d certainly come to the right place for that! They’d only fished during the days before and still caught loads so doing the nights seemed pointless to them. At Beausoleil, although some very talented anglers have been successful doing days only, I would always recommend doing the nights. When I went to visit them on Monday they soon understood that they were going to have a complete re-think if they were going to stand a chance of catching. We spent most of Monday working on various stuff, including knot tying and testing, rigs, hook sharpening, baiting strategy and tactics. They’d simply never had to worry about any of this before. It’s these fundamentals that will make the difference between catching and blanking here. After that, all I could do was wish them luck and leave them to their own devices.

I returned Wednesday and was delighted to hear that they’d caught seven carp in total to 40lbs! They credited their success to me which was cool, but there is a world of difference between getting advice and applying it, so massive congratulations to them for putting my suggestions into action. One thing that was great to see was that they were the first anglers to actually fish from The Oaks swim. It turned out to be an excellent choice as the carp were down here in numbers and they were cacheable at close range. Catching upper thirties literally a rod length out is a massive buzz so fair play to them for seizing the opportunity.

In the end they had 14 fish which is a fantastic result. They were absolutely blown away with the place which is always great to see. They’d never caught so many big specimen carp and were literally stunned by their power. A number of times they were convinced they were into a big cat! Before leaving they told me that they’d learnt more about carp fishing in one week than they had learnt all the years they’d been fishing which is a massive compliment to receive. They also want to return next year and continue their journey in carp fishing. There is also some unfinished business with our massive catfish apparently as the cats are up 2-0! It was great to meet these anglers and I really enjoyed spending time with them.