Fishing report: First half of October

More action on the bank as the season changes

To begin the month, we welcomed back Mark, Steve and Stephen to the venue for their third visit to us. They had taken the tuition before and were ready to get started straight away. Mark and Steve would be fishing pretty much 24/7. Stephen was in charge of catering (a job he takes very seriously) and he only fished a handful of hours during the week but he made the most of them and caught a couple of nice carp.

On the fishing front Mark came out on top with 6 carp in total. Steve had one and Stepehen had two but that doesn’t really tell the whole story. Steve’s traps turned out to be rather popular with the catfish and he had multiple battles that did not end in success for one reason or another.

It seemed that the catfish took a real shine to his atlantic crab boilies, pellets and crumb which he’d chosen to apply via spodding. Mark stuck to the CC Moore Live System which is a milk protein based bait. By keeping the traps small and trickling in a few freebies by hand or catapult, Mark’s approach was more effective for carp and drew less attention from the catfish.

On the rig front, Steve stuck with a rig he learned on his first tuition session with me, the ever faithful Deadly D-rig. It’s still a popular choice among guests that like its robustness and its anti tangle properties. Steve used the 30lb Nash mono snag leader for hooklink. 

It was great to meet the guys again and hopefully they’ll get the chance to come back for another go another year.

First timers

First French fishing trip and what a place to start. You go through the gates 20 yards and it opens up into what can only be described as a dream…. Beautifully landscaped heaven with a lake right in front of you. No matter how many pictures you see, it doesn’t do it justice. We were met by Matt and Ren, such a lovely couple, and just by spending a little time with them you could feel how much time, effort, passion and pleasure they get from this place.

Next up we welcome Rob and Caroline  to the venue for their first visit to us. Rob is a super fan of the channel and reckons he’s watched every video we’ve ever made… if that’s the case then he’s watched a lot of videos! Caroline also fishes but she wasn’t feeling great on arrival so didn’t get her rods out until Wednesday. Rob is a very experienced UK angler but this would be his first trip to France.

I was back on Wednesday to do my mid week oxygen survey. Despite the cooling temperatures, the bloom remains persistent and we are still running one aeration unit. On the fishing front, they’d both gone down with a bug so fishing hours had been limited to short day sessions only. Despite this, Rob had caught a couple of large catfish and two nice carp. 

Bait & rigs

On the bait front, Rob uses the CC Moore Pro-Stim liver. It’s not a bait that I’ve used yet as I’ve been focusing on the Live System. One of the reasons I haven’t used the Pro-Stim is that I thought the catfish would be rather partial to it but interestingly, all Rob’s carp were caught on it. All the catfish fell for the Nash Scopex Squid and Dynamite Baits pink peppercorn. We know from our previous experience that the catfish love Scopex Squid but it was a surprise that they also liked the pink peppercorn as that’s a fruity/peppery bait similar to the Nash Citruz.

Rob’s a big fan of the multi rig and swaps hooks every reset regardless. If you’ve not fished the venue this might seem over the top but if you want consistent results, it’s the minimum requirement for success here.

Last chance saloon

I was back on Friday and Caroline was still carpless and asked for some tips. She had three rods fishing from Island Point and I suggested a bit of a rejig, just to up the chances. Two hours later, she’d bagged the best carp of the week at 35lb. Despite not feeling very well, she’d really enjoyed the trip but nothing quite beats that feeling of a last minute biggun to finish the session!

Beausoleil in October is no pushover and considering it was their first trip to France, they did very well. Rob and Caroline loved their visit. There’s a lot more to enjoy here than just catching fish. They love the P&Q, the wildlife, the atmosphere. It’s just a nice place to be (even when you’re not feeling great…). They have already re-booked for next year which tells you just how much they like the place. I’m sure that if they’d had been fully fit they’d have caught quite a few more but despite the limited hours and missing out on any night fishing they still caught some nice fish which was great to see. It was super lovely to meet them and we are already looking forward to welcoming them back next year.