Good evening from a car park!

For the first time since I started writing the blog I have no connection at my swim; not a sausage! I have looked at my mobile phone and I have a phone connection but the 3G or edge signal is not registering. This means I will have to initially write the blog on ‘Word’, and then I will have to walk up the road to the nearest village and once I have a connection, this document can then be transferred straight onto WordPress, which means the post can be published onto the world wide web!

For this reason the blog is going to be written on a two daily basis. It means there will be more to read about and catch up on, and it also means there is less trudging up and down a steep hill for myself! My rods are not being left unattended as I have the company of Mick for the next few days and all of this will be done in the daytime, when we are least expecting any action.

So, what has happened since the Sunday post? I slept in the van that night and had a quick chat with Mick, prior to his arrival, during my meal at the restaurant. He was full of anticipation, as he had not fished this stretch of the Lot before. We agreed to meet at 8am in the car park where I was to sleep. I gave the dogs a final walk around the perimeter of the car park, put them in their cage, leaving the side door open for air, and curled up on my seats. I slept well after the long day.

Mick arrived at 8am. Top man! We had a quick discussion and very soon we were standing by and looking at the river. We made a quick plan; load up the boats, take the vans back to the village and head off for some adventure carping into the unknown. I asked Mick to bring his 6HP petrol engine with him so we could tow my trailer boat in my inflatable. We didn’t have a clue how far the place was we were trying to find, and with an electric motor it would have been a waste of the leisure battery; plus we were going upstream. Two hours later after a good sort out of the equipment we were all set. It is a safe area here and we decided to both drive back to the village car park, leaving all the gear in the loaded up boat. We knew it would be okay and sure enough, everything was in the same place, when we returned eager to get going. It was a Monday, the area we are in is very quiet, and the river runs alongside a large farm, so security was not a concern. That is always a nice thing.

We set sail and towing the boat was a doddle. I may in fact buy the engine from Mick, as it will be a very useful tool to have in my van for when they are allowed on certain waters. We looked at various possible swims along the way and nothing caught our eye. We were in fact in a very small stretch divided by two weirs. We both decided we needed to get up to the next section, which in turn meant going through one of the Locks. I have never been through or up a Lock before so the thought of it was quite exciting on a Monday morning! The actual area we were looking for has a small island in the middle of the river. A keen carper had given me some useful secret information and fortunately there are lots of islands dotted along the Lot, so this will not give my location away by any means!! Once through the Lock, thanks to the help of another boat party (well it was our first time) we were off again. The small island was soon spotted but we carried on further in search of a patch of ground that we could use as a swim. We had our bow saws if necessary to cut a little vegetation back, but as luck would have it they weren’t needed as we hit upon a lovely looking area. We had arrived!

We decided on sides and I took downstream. I had initially thought about taking the upstream section, but in all honesty the downstream side had more room for the dogs. They have to come first!

There is quite a bit of summer boat traffic at the moment but I quite like this as it does stir up the bottom when they pass. This is always a good trigger for the carp to frantically feed searching for any tasty morsels of food. When fishing the German Mosel I had two runs immediately after big boats passed by. The boats here are only small leisure boats which is a relief as the size of some of the boats on the Mosel or Moselle are scary; some resemble oil tankers!

We started getting set up. It started to rain lightly as we made our way up the river, so once we had arrived the first job was to get our bivvies up, to protect the equipment from getting wet; especially the dogs beds!! It was now about 3pm in the afternoon and the day had so far been quite tiring. The rain got harder so I decided to have a quick nap to recharge the old batteries. A quick thirty minutes was all it took, and a coffee and egg sandwich refuelled the engine to optimum running speed. Now I was ready to get the rods sorted.

Mick and I went out in my inflatable with the echo sounder and looked at the river in general. We slowly rowed across looking at the general topography and then investigated each margin in turn. The depth is around 10-15ft in the middle, and the margins slope away quite quickly also to ten feet. On the near side of the bank there seems to be a sand bar, probably caused by the boat traffic travelling on the opposite side of the water, and this looks to be very interesting feature. Whenever I fish a river I eventually look for the easy option. If you can get the fish feeding close in, then there is no need to fish the far margin. Why would you want to overlook your own margin first? Fishing the far margin generally means placing the rods by boat. You then have the flow to contend with on your way back, and you will end up with a large bow in your line. Debris will eventually collect on this and inevitably it will drag your lead. The boats will also cause you problems with the wash from the boat. Fishing far margins on rivers can be a serious headache. If possible make river fishing easy. When I fished the French Moselle I cast all the rods from the bank close in and it worked a treat.

As I have not fished this river before and whenever I fish a river for the first time, I always think the first night is more of a test. You do need to obviously see which side the fish prefer to travel along and for that reason; I fished two rods close in on my margin, left and right and then fished two rods on the far margin, also left and right. I was placing the far rods on the drop off at about 9-10ft, and the near margin rods were fished slightly differently; one on the sand bar at 6ft and one just off a bush in 11ft. That was that the traps were set. The bait I am using are the sweet range from Imperial Baits. The Fruit, Banana, Cream and Osmotic spice. I also have Nut and Liver as backups. Hook baits will be the Half ‘n Half’s fished with a 20mm bottom bait fished as a snowman using the blowback rig. I find the extra white visible side a big plus when fishing rivers. It has worked for me in the past, so it should work here.

At about 1.30am I had a few bleeps on one of the far margin rods. Then the other far margin rod bleeped. The flow had increased due to the rain fall, and this had brought with it some debris. This had caught on both my lines, and the beeps were from the line being pulled from my line clip from the ever-growing tension. I reeled in one rod, and decided to put a heavier lead on and also tie up a new rig. The time was now 2am, so I got the kettle on and got busy. I then heard a run from Mick’s swim. He was into a fish. I wandered over to see him playing carp, and then after a minute of playing the fish, all went solid. The fish had found a snag. He pulled a little and the hook link unfortunately broke. At least we knew there were carp present!

I got my redone rod back out which was now tricky due to the flow, and Mick also got his wounded rod back out. I was using the Osmotic Spice on this rod, and used my Korda Krusha to grind up some of the boilies and placed them in one of their PVA stocking bags. While I was up, I also decided to redo the other far margin rod. I was up, and it needed to be done. I don’t find disturbance on rivers has too much effect on the fishing. The fish are always on the move and if you do spook some fish, you can be sure there will be more along soon.

After the long day, I eventually got some sleep by about 4am. The mosquito’s are really awful here and we have both been bitten a lot. Repellent is working a little, and I have even been putting it on the dogs to stop them getting bitten. The little devils are aggressive though and attacked Mick and I as soon as we arrived. I think I must have more than twenty bites already; yes I do itch!!

Morning arrived and I had my head under my bed chair cover to stop them buzzing in my ears. Mick arrived in my swim and we got the kettle on. The debris had built up on one of the far margin rods during the morning so much that the baitrunner occasionally kept going under tension. I had reeled this rod in at 6am! My remaining far rod with the Osmotic Spice was still positioned and a boat then came into view. I could see the bow of line pointing well downstream, so fearing the boat might catch the braid, I sunk the rod tip. As the boat went past, and the crew waved good morning, I felt the rod pull a little. Had the boat caught my line? I lifted the rod and saw the line was still pointing downstream. The boat was now upstream. The rod pulled again. I had a fish on!! Mick came with me in the boat, and first a branch had to be removed. Now I was in contact. It was small common about 9kg and it put up a good little scrap. After the blank session at Salagou, it felt so good to catch one again, believe me!

Mick took some quick shots and the fish was returned. Mick is leading the chub competition incidentally by catching three so far, on particles and boilies. I am so far chubless, but I don’t think that will last for long.

The days it seems will have to spent fishing close in as the boats will cause us problems. At night though, it does seem the far margin will be a good bet. Mick’s fish was lost from there so that’s two takes from the far side. I had a funny knock later in the morning on the sand bar rod, which slammed the rod tip down and took a little line off the baitrunner, but on picking up the rod, there was nothing there. It does seem we have found a good spot. With the bait that went in last night, and the fish that found it, you can bet they will be back tonight to look for more. That is the beauty with these damned stretches of river. The fish only have so far they can go, and you can imagine they probably do a circuit of the stretch during each night. That is plenty of fish passing your baits every night and day.

I hope you enjoyed the first river report from the Lot. I will be back on Thursday with the next update, and apologies that there won’t be a daily update, but as I explained, without the connection, it isn’t easy and I am supposed to be fishing!!

Extra news*** Mick caught a small common at 5pm so that is good news. Plus…I tried to get a connection in the local village and it was not possible so the blog may be quite tricky over the next few days, but where there is a will there is a way! Also there is a farm track behind our swim where parking our vehicles is actually possible. I have asked the farmer if that is okay and it is. So, I have just walked back to my van with my laptop, and managed to get a connection to publish this post. The things I do! I am now going to drive back and join Mick at the swim, and tomorrow he will have to do the same walk to get his van. One thing I am not going to mention is the fact it is 8km!! I managed to hitch a lift after 3.5km so I got a lift for the last 4.5km. I think I will tell him it is just a short couple of km…I love a good wind up!!

I must get back now and get the traps set for tonight.

Goodnight!

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

Tags: braid, common, Imperial bait's, imperial fishing, jake langley-hobbs, Lot

This entry was posted on June 16, 2009 at 5:31 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.