4 September 2016 – Catch report from: Dave and group

The temperatures and pressure remain high but the anglers managed carp to 28lbs and cats to 86lbs.

This week we welcomed Dave Mutton of Specimen Fishing UK as well as his family and a couple of anglers on a tutorial. Dave’s a regular visitor to France and has fished many venues over the years for big carp and cats. The fishing was slow early in the week with a combination of very high temperatures, high air pressure and lower oxygen levels. In order to improve things, we changed aerators and put our most powerful unit on full bore for 48 hrs which helped turn things around.

Even Dave with all his years of experience and skill had to work really hard for each bite. Much to his frustration he lost two carp on a new lead system he was experimenting with and suffered a cut off from one of our big cats. As you’ll see from Dave’s comments, the C2’s are very active this year. We are pro-actively managing the situation and advising customers directly ahead of their trip. Our best advice remains to stick with the stiff hinge rig and fish over beds of large hard food baits.

When Dave wasn’t chasing the carp and cats, he spent a lot of time working with Matt & Hugh who had joined him for the week. A hard week on a tricky venue is not the ideal place for your first trip to France but that’s the way it goes sometimes. Hugh had a challenging session and despite his varied angling experience wasn’t able to land the big cat he hooked.

The chod rig direct off the lead and stiff hinged rig work their magic again.

Matt worked hard at his fishing and managed mid-week to stalk one off the island on a free lined lob worm! At the end of the week, Matt changed over to one of my 16mm Shrimp & Crayfish cork ballers D-rigged to a size 2 ESP stiff rigger with 25lb mouth trap as the chod material. The chod rig was fished straight off a Beausoleil lead system without a boom (the popup sits 2” off the lake bed directly over the lead leaving the fish zero room for error when mouthing the bait). In this configuration, it’s very difficult for the small carp to get their mouths beyond the super hard popup. Their top lip hits the back of the large hook which prevents accidental captures. This rig produced the first proper take of the session and he banked a monster catfish of 86lbs+! Using exactly the same design and materials, he used a more conventional stiff hinged rig with a 5” mono boom and from an open water hard spot banked a 28lb common using a Nutty Banoffee hand rolled cork baller over a light spread of 24mm Nutty Banoffee baits. Needless to say Matt was absolutely buzzing and went home stinking of carp and cats!

We all learnt a lot this week and yet again it goes to show that the devil is in the detail when the conditions are tricky. If you are booked on this year and the stiff hinged rig is a bit fiddly for you, I sell pre-tied rigs complete with a hand sharpened hook. Various companies sell ready tied chod sections but please have a chat with me before purchasing. I’m always available for rig tying tutorials and component advice for those that are interested.