Good Evening.

I have arrived at the Lot! I turned up about two hours ago and drove straight to a parking place by the river. The dogs and I needed to stretch our legs after the drive, and I must admit my first impressions were one of relief. It was just how I imagined it would be. Fairly wide and gently flowing with lots of marginal snags and big tall trees lining the banks. My first thought was to get the rods out, but then I took a breath and realised there is no rush. Mick is arriving tomorrow morning at first light, and to be honest I need a night off to regain my thoughts and gee myself up for the coming week, or so!!

I left Salagou at 1pm in the end. The packing up was going really well. In fact all of my equipment was back by my van by 10am, but then the distraction of two anglers in the swim next to my parked van, and the promise of a coffee or two, and before I knew it, it was 11am. “I must get on” I kept saying!

The loading up of the van got underway and I then noticed Dean was stood in the water and it definitely looked like he was playing a fish. Hugo and Jonah were the two anglers next to me, so I pointed it out to them to. “Are you sure” said Hugo? Dean then suddenly lunged forward as the fish pulled him into the water. “Definitely” I said!

Dean clambered into his boat, and Jonah also shot across in his own boat to video the action. Dean looked in control, apart from nearly losing an oar at some point during the fight, but it was great to see a bend in his rod. We stood and watched him as he scooped a Salagou common into his net, and he then let out a loud war cry of relief. It really has been that kind of session at Salagou, and I could feel his joy from across the lake. It was a good moment.

The carp weighed 33lb and the photos were duly done. Hugo also had a small common this morning and Jonah had a 12kg common at about 2am, so it does seem that some of the fish deep in the bay were finally throwing caution to the wind. The weather had suddenly gone quite overcast and this could have switched on a short feeding spree.

Hugo then had to nip to the local market to get some of his favourite things! I carried on with the packing and once again was getting things done. Then the only rod that Hugo had left out, and left Jonah in charge off, was away. It was a tiger nut that had been out for three days. Jonah was on the rod quickly and giving the fish some stick but I could see the line was caught in some weed. “We must go out in the boat mate, as you won’t drag it through that lot” I said to him, as we both clambered into his inflatable and I rowed us out in the direction of the fish. The line suddenly cut through the surface weed as we got closer and he was back in direct contact. “It is just a small one” Jonah told me as we got close to the fish. The small one then suddenly grew in size dramatically and slowly turned away from us under the surface. “No, its a very big fish” he suddenly shouted. It was indeed and at first I thought it was a big mirror judging by its very pale flank, but then a big common could be seen nearing a large weed bed. The fish managed to bury itself in it, so I steered the boat away gently, as Jonah extracted the fish from its new found home and soon we were free from the danger and back  in open water. The big common was starting to tire a little and I got the net ready by the edge of the boat. The fish came to the surface, but was not quite beat and it turned away suddenly and lunged hard down into the water. The hook suddenly pinged free of its mouth and the fish slowly sank from view. Oh no! I am not going to say how big I thought it was, but it would have beaten Jonah’s personal best carp of 21kg, that is for sure. There is not a lot you can say when someone loses a fish. I felt gutted for him, and also sad for Hugo who had not been present to deal with his rod. You could probably come to Salagou many times hoping for a fish of this size and then that happens. As Hugo rightly pointed out, that’s why they call it fishing and not catching!! “Did I play it too hard” Jonah asked me? “Not really, but it could have maybe done with one more minute, but then the hook hold may not have been that sound, so we will never know”. All I can say is better luck next time Jonah, your time will come.

So did I catch last night then? I did catch a carp, but not really one I was after. It was in fact a fish that is known as a gibble, which is very like a crucean carp. It was caught on two tiger nuts and it weighed about 4-5lbs. After that I thought a real carp might turn up, but there was no disappointment when the morning came. I already had the Lot in my mind and I was raring to leave as soon as I could.

The drive here took much longer than I anticipated. Someone mentioned to me yesterday that it was only 5 minutes up the road! I punched in my destination into the sat nav and got a bit of a shock when it read 356km and 4.5hrs. Hang on, that can’t be right. You should always check the info your sat nav gives you as sometimes it does get it wrong. Most sat nav’s have a fast and a short route. I tried the short route and I got 275km but with the predicted speeds of the quiet roads the journey time was actually longer at 5hrs. I decided to take the short route and it actually took me 3.5hrs with a couple of stops for the dogs, so it wasn’t too bad after all. There were also lots of police around today, doing random stop checks on vehicles. I passed two of these controlled lay-bys, escaping the long finger of the law both times. Can you imagine the look on my face if I was asked to empty the entire contents of my van and my boats onto the roadside. If you know me well, you will know I would not have found it that amusing, especially with two dogs in the back.

I am actually now sat in a small restaurant typing this post. I thought I would treat myself to a small meal before the session starts and I also thought I would write my blog just in case tomorrow is a very long day and I don’t manage to write one because of extreme fatigue!! I hope to be back tomorrow with a late evening post and there will be some pictures of the new home and a run down of the day’s events.

I have to give a final warm mention to two of my good friends who got married a few days ago and because of the fishing I totally forgot to send them an email or text. I don’t attend weddings because I am fishing for five years!! Dan and Sue Dawson…and little Jessica of course…congratulations x

Till then.

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

Tags: carp, imperial fishing, jake langley-hobbs, Lot, police, Salagou

This entry was posted on June 14, 2009 at 7:55 pm and is filed under River Lot. 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.