8 August 2015 – Catch Report from: Antony & friends

A very successful week’s carp fishing for this young group with PB’s all round for their first trip to France.

This week we welcomed another new group to the venue that boldly crossed the channel for their first ever fishing holiday in France. Party leader Antony and his twin brother Michael were the most experienced of the group and Julia and Kunal the least. In fact Julia had only ever been fishing once before and blanked! Kunal had been a few times and had actually caught a carp before. Michael caught a lovely 32lb mirror on Sunday which was some 13lbs up on his old PB. The rest of the group were yet to get off the mark so I spent most of the day with them on Monday getting them on the right path. It was a pleasure to spend time with them and their thirst for knowledge was insatiable! Tuesday night I found myself back at the lake as Michael lost a rod! He was fishing a tight clutch on bank sticks that were inadequately secured. He was only a few yards away from the rod when it went but the rod went plunging into the lake before he got there! Fortunately I found the rod very easily and as I was winding down felt a kick and it was fish on! I was out in the boat and the carp was boring hard under the cover of the snake bank trees so I had no choice but to play the carp from the boat. The carp had recovered plenty of energy and towed me round the lake for a good 5 minutes before I netted him to shouts and whoops from the guys. Antony had a funny take shortly after and I ended up playing a carp on one rod and then another as he’d swam back towards his swim some 60 yards and picked up another line. Once I’d worked out what was what Antony was able to safely land his first carp too!

Over the next couple of days, they took the tally from 1 to 9 between them! Julia caught her first ever carp of 28lbs and followed it with a 32lber! Kunal had blasted his old PB into oblivion with a 28lb mirror and Michael had upped his PB again with a 36lb mirror. Antony had landed one of our 70lb cats which after being bust up a few times was a massive relief.

They ended the week with 15 fish total including 3 x 30’s and 3 x cats over 50lbs which when you consider none of them had ever even broken the 20lb mark is incredible! They caught fish of a lifetime and have many exciting stories to tell which is what Beausoleil is all about. It was genuinely a delight to meet them.