Good Evening Everyone!

It is another late night blog and it has been quite a day. I have just applied some Lifesystem’s Expedition Plus insect repellent, as the laptop screen in the dark, attracts any flying insects like a moth to a flame! Fishing all year round you really notice how things go round in a complete circle. In the winter you have to put up with the cold and damp, and then as soon as it gets warmer you have to put up with the biting insects. I don’t know which I prefer or like the least. I use a mossie net on my door sometimes, and in actual fact I find it best to have it in operation during the day too. There are a lot of flies around at the moment and it’s only when you go to bed later on at night, that you realise you have fifty flies on your bivvy ceiling. I carry fly spray with me and also a racket type insect zapper! These are battery operated and they literally electrocute the little critters. These are actually fantastic! They are very cheap to buy and small enough to store in a bag. It is also good fun to zap away before you go to bed; clearing every single flying insect out of your house before you go to sleep. Plus it’s comforting to know that you won’t get bitten in the night!

Full Moon...Big Common??

Today has been a day and a half! I got up at 7am after sleeping curled up on my van seats. I actually slept well, so I must have been very tired. I wandered over to Lee to get him up to make me a coffee, and then thought about the decision I had to make. I kept looking at the point, and it kept jumping out at me. I had to go over in the boat for another look first.

I rowed across in my inflatable and saw plenty of huge thick weed beds all round the edge of the point. It looked brilliant. I also noticed a couple of small tents were still erected. I had seen these last night when I walked round to have a look. I moored the boat and wandered up to them. There were liquor bottles strewn on the floor and it looked like someone had been having a small party! I said hello quietly to see if they were awake and got no reply so I peered at the doors and not like a Peeping Tom I might add!  There were two sleeping girls in one, and a closed door on the other. I said hello again, and this time I heard a softly spoken French girl answer back. She opened the door (a little!) and I explained I was coming over with my equipment to fish. “No problem” she said! I realised she had a bloke in there with her. “Lucky lad” I thought, as I made my way back, rather hastily, to start the boat loading. That was it..point swim here I come!

The boat loading took a couple of hours as I wanted to have a quick sort out first, and I wanted to do it all in one trip, using both boats. My trailer boat is amazing and you really can get the kitchen sink in there. Lee had to nip to the supermarket and the post office, so I gave him a small shopping list for some food. I was all loaded up as he came into view..great timing. I had a quick final sort out, and left the dogs with Lee. I would collect them when I had the camp set up. I turned the echo sounder on as I made my way across and the depth at the back of the weedbeds was about 11-13ft. It looks like such a nice patrol route for fish, moving through from one small bay to another. 

A friendly bunch!

The girls were just getting up as I turned up with my heavy artillery of tackle. From the amount of giggling, they obviously thought I was staying for a year! I started the setting up process and decided the rods could wait till the evening. The girls were going for a swim in their bikinis so there was no rush! I then looked over to Lee who I am sure was watching fish through his binoculars!!! I swear I could hear him saying to Dean that he was in the wrong swim. The bivvies went up first and the ground at Salagou is not exactly peg friendly so be prepared if you plan a trip here. You need very strong pegs and a large rubber mallet. There is no chance of pushing them in quietly with your feet.

Once I was set and I had had a little conversation with the friendly bunch, they told me they were going for a walk. I decided it was time to fetch the ‘kids’ so I rowed over to get them. Charley had been good as gold, but Mr Flash had been anxious as per usual. Pacing around and having a good scratch, wondering where his dad had gone. They jumped happily in the boat and back we all went. Now it was time to get the rods rigged up and sorted out.

I am going to fish all the rods very close in. No more than 30 yards probably, and I will fish them all to the back of the weed beds. It will be very pleasurable fishing actually as I will be able to cast and flick out bait with a catapult, or by hand! As I write this I have just heard two fish, or the same fish bosh close in, so that is promising! Tomorrow when it is light I will pick my exact spots and then cast to them and clip up to recast. I will place marks or stop knots on my line, so I know I will be casting back to my spot each time, just like I did at Cassien. There is no need for markers to be honest as there are plenty of fronds of weed sticking out of the water, and these can act as a marker. I will probably go very easy on the amount of bait I introduce, but try and introduce it little and often. Maybe ten boilies to each spot three time a day, and maybe once in the night. Again because of the short distance involved these can literally be thrown and fortunately my cricket arm still works well.

They come out of the bag easier than they go back in!

The group of campers in my swim departed at about 8pm, so I now have the place to myself. They were only here for one night and I am glad to say I did not break up their camping trip; works calls for two of them, Armelle and Jessica and Julietta and Rudi are students, so it’s probably another day off for them tomorrow. It was lovely to meet you all anyway, and highly amusing to watch you try to put your pop up tent into it’s bag. I had a go to help and it puzzled me too!

I am feeling very glad about my choice of swim now I am here. It feels right and I now just need to see what materialises I guess. I have also decided to try some different flavours of Imperial Bait’s boilies. I am sticking with the Carptrack Fruit flavour, fished with a 28mm Fruit Flying pop-up, and I am now using the Carptrack Liver flavour on two rods to see if the fish are preferring something a bit more savoury. A Liver bigball on one rod, and the Liver Flying pop up on the other. On the final rod I am using the Carptrack Nut boilies.

Even Flash was trying to impress the girls!!

That’s all for tonight as I now need to eat something. I have been on my feet since 7am and that’s over fifteen hours straight. Come back tomorrow to find out how me and the lads are getting on at Salagou!

Jake Langley-Hobbs & two Doberman dogs!
Team Imperial Fishing-We love to fish!!…..
www.carp-gps.com

Tags: boilies, carp, Carptrack, echo sounder, Imperial bait's, imperial fishing, jake langley-hobbs, liver, nut, Salagou

This entry was posted on June 9, 2009 at 10:37 pm and is filed under Salagou. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.