Good Evening.

This morning was stunning. That is the only word I can use to describe it and it certainly made getting out of bed worthwhile at 7.30am. I started off the morning with a cup of tea for a change and sat and watched my rods from my cooking bivvy. The sun was already shining into the tree line area and it looked really good for an early morning take. I took careful sips of hot tea and half expected the left hand rod tip to surge round at any moment. After spilling various drinks and plates of food whilst stumbling to get to the rods during the summer, I know what a frantic business snag fishing can be. You have to be quick, there is nothing graceful about extracting a hard fighting angry carp from its bolt hole, and that is what I love about it.

You may remember I tried to video a live take from the Tree Line swim during the hot summer. I did get one on video on my first long 3 hour recording and the results were classic tree line action. I managed to knock one of the other rods off the rests whilst trying to wrestle with a bent rod and unhook it from the rests. Once extracted the fish then swam through my other line causing more problems. And then there was my dog Flash, who decided to climb off the bed at that precise moment and walked into the frame of the shot and continued to scratch himself for a good thirty seconds; classic! The small carp was eventually landed and I think it was a case of the director saying: “I think we will try and get that one again Jake!”

The tree line screams carp to me!

It is nice to know that after nearly 600 day’s and night’s fishing that I still have the burning enthusiasm and I still get the rush and excitement. It certainly bodes well for the rest of my trip. I heard from Dynamite Baits yesterday that my bait is on its way to me so departure for Italy will be looking like it’s on schedule. I must say a quick thanks to my friend at ReelCarp tackle shop in Sheffield. Matt Birtles has been following my blog for a while now and I have become a friend of the shop. It is a good relationship and you will notice I have a link to his shop on the right hand side of my website. Unfortunately whilst fishing at the river my inverter finally gave up the ghost after two years of hardcore use. I use this to charge my laptop and other small electrical devices by attaching it to a leisure battery. It converts 12v to 240v dc and is an essential piece of kit for me and the blog! Matt kindly sent me a new replacement one which I received today, along with some doggy treats! On behalf of myself and the dogs…Thank you ReelCarp!

"Thanks for the dog chews ReelCarp!"

At around 11am I reeled in all of my rods. I decided to give my swim a rest and went for a little stroll with the dogs to see how my fishing companions are getting on. First stop was Tim and after a brief chat it seemed he had had more interest from feeding birds than from the carp so far. Tim as you probably all know is a very keen photographer and he has desperately been trying to get a good shot of a great tit; the bird variety I hasten to add! I left Tim to it and then sauntered round to Steve and Joan. We all had witnessed a few carp showing this morning, but as they were showing all over the lake it hadn’t really helped us and if anything, made it easier for us all to decide to stay put where we are. As I was chatting to Steve I spotted what looked like a fish on the surface. Indeed it was but not what you want to see. A distressed carp could be seen on the surface so I pointed it out to Steve and he went off in one of the rowing boats and netted it. A beautifully scaled mirror of about 16lbs was close to death. On closer inspection it had probably been tethered for some time and a large rotten rip inside the mouth cavity was evident to see and smell. It was very sad to witness and the cloudy eyes on the poor creature were bulging and its scales were lifting off one side of its body. I went to get Dan and he placed it in a small pond to see if it had any life left. Shortly afterwards we found it dead. Apart from the mouth the fish looked in fine condition. No sign of disease or any thing untoward, but as Dan pointed out, it certainly did look from the gaping slit in its mouth that it had indeed been tethered, probably for a long time, and what a horrible way to go for any fish. I suppose all lake owners have this to worry about and fish deaths are never nice but it is a fact of life; there will always be casualties. Whilst working at the WCC this year at Madine I had to bury a 15kg mirror that died during the competition and Andy Chambers found a 20kg mirror washed up on the Island before the competition got underway. It happens or should that be sh*t happens.

My rods are all out in their positions again and the rain has started once more. It has not rained much since I arrived in this part of France and I suppose it has been due for a long time. All the lakes are rather low and this will only help in filling them back up to their normal levels once again. It will be interesting to see what kind of winter we are in store for. Last winter was terrible and down at Cassien where I was based it was the worst one for twenty years. I do have a knack for picking the best destinations!

Back tomorrow with more Gigantica news.

Cheers

Jake and the dogs.

Tags: carp, cassien, Dynamite Baits, fish, france, Gigantica, jake langley-hobbs, Madine, ReelCarp, WCC

This entry was posted on November 25, 2009 at 9:53 pm and is filed under Gigantica. 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.