I returned from a 6 week France trip 3 weeks ago fishing in the north east of France mainly on la moselle. My love for this river started the year before when me and a friend took out first trip to lac de st casein planning a six week trip anyway to cut a long story short we had had enough after nearly five weeks on casein don't get me wrong the place is awesome but at the time it was fishing very hard with only a few swims catching and to be honest I had had enough and we decided to fish the remaining 9 days else where.
We decided to go and have a look at madine a long drive I know but it would make the last part of the journey back to England a lot easier as we didn't have to do it all in one drive. We arrived at lac de madine about 2 weeks after the world carp classic had just finished and the place looked very nice but the wind and more importantly the floating weed was horrendous and with only a very small amount of pegs on such a huge water mostly all taken we decided a third choice was needed. We spent the night on the bed chairs in the madine carp park frantically searching the Internet for a new venue. After much driving in the area we looked at la Meuse and la Moselle and decieded on a swim fishing on the Moselle. We found a local tabac shop to acquire the carte da peche ticket and we were away.
This was the first time either of us had fished a French river before and the first thing that struck us was the size of some of the boats that ferried goods up and down the river, one was 200m long had a house 3 cars and a children's plays pen on the back lol. The spot we were fishing was approx 120 yds wide so we flicked a few rods out only to quickly reels them back in when a boat came past mmmm rods out then in again at this point we decided to relax during the day and fish at nighttime when the boats had stopped for the day. After watching the boats up and down all day it became apparent there was no point trying to do any accurate baiting as the boats would just wash the bait about anyway so just put out a big spread of bait with the boat and cast 4 rods out.
The first night was a blank for me but my friend had a one toner that resulted in a straightened out hook not good as many people say that the first run is often the big resident carp anyway not too worry. The second night I was away at 12.30am and before long had my first carp in the net all 35lb 8 oz of perfect river common which was shortly followed by a 24 then a 23 what a result my friend also caught two mid 20s. Is is safe to say at this point I was hooked(exclude the pun) and spent the rest of the week catching a few most nights with the smallest being 19lb and the next biggest was a lovely dark mirror 34lb I think on the second to last night caught by my mate. In just a week we had had between 25 and 30 carp all commons apart from the old mirror and that was just fishing at night.
When I returned home I could not get this river out of my head and just could not wait to get back for a bigger one so planned a trip for 2011 which I returned from a few weeks ago. First thing I will say about going in the summer is the catfish they are just rife this time of year and after catching one after 10 mins and many more after that we banned ourselves using the fishmeal boilies and stuck to maize and tigers which did help. One early catfish had no fewer than 50 full 22mm boilies in the back of it's throat the greedy ba/:;(-d.
I did land a big catfish that took me six hour to get in was the craziest experience ever it was 1.91m and would just not come off the bottom its good to look back on now but I don't think I want another that size on carp tackle.
We did five weeks on la Moselle fishing about 15 different swims some we would blank and move on others we had unto 50 fish in 2 days. Every swim is very different with mad currents and swells as locks were opened and shut some the river would drop 2 foot for half a day then rise back up again bringing many snags with it but it's all part of fishing the river.
Research is essential and if you can take photos from goggle earth of the entire river where you intend to fish you will find this very helpful at finding pegs and access points to the river as well as local ordanance survey maps that can be bought from pacific peche just outside Metz.
This year the best we managed was a 38lb common from the river but I did manage to catch a new pb mirror of 47lb7 from a public lake in the area on the last week of out trip. If there is one thing sure in life is that I will be back as soon as possible maybe this time trying some of the canal sections of the river which are suppose to hold some real big untamed beasts.
The river is not easy fishing and can be a total nightmare at times but all the more enjoyable when the buzzer sounds the rod hoops over and you really don't know what could be on the end.
Hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I just enjoyed writing it and please chill out people, fishing is meant to be enjoyed and it means different things to different people so what ever type of venue or species you target just enjoy it and do it for yourself not for some trophy shot.
Sorry if it's a bit long winded but one I started typing a could not stop
Tight lines bopper.
