Have been back from our annual trip France (Moulin De Bley) for about a week and just had a chance sort the pics outs. So thought I would share a bit of a catch report on here with pics as my waters over here have strict publicity bans.
My mate Justin and I have been going to Bley for about 16 years, so know what to expect. Over the years we have seen the lake turn from a prolific runs water, to a water where the fish have wised up big time but if luck is with you big hits are still possible.
Over the years we have been every month from April to early October but this year we thought we would give the last week in October a bash for a change.
We arrived at the lake around around midnight on Friday night, having been going for years the bedchairs were the last items of tackle to be loaded, so we could easily get to them to set up in the communal barn area for a few hours kip before the owner Tony turned up at around 8 in the morning.
Tony turned up and woke us up, told us we were the only ones on the lake for the week and that the previous group had left late Friday evening so the lake was free whenever we wanted to get on there.
When we first started going our kids were young so these French trips have always been more of a social than anything else as Justin lives in Dorset and me in the Colne Valley. Being as it is a social thing we decided to both fish swim 4 that is a large double at the deeper, far end of the lake.
We always fish as a team when fishing a double, so we each had a rod to the normally prolific tree line, one each on a baited spot in open water and our third rods were fished to some willows on the far bank.
The fishing was certainly not the easiest week we have had on there, the weather was very inconsistent, heavy rain for a couple of days, a couple of sunny days, a couple of overcast days and the odd frost at night. The fish seemed to come onto the feed for a few hours every couple of days, so we tended to catch 2 or 3 fish in quick succession then it would go quiet for 36-48 hours. So not the most prolific of the weeks but we still up ended up with a total of 16 carp between us, 8 each which included 2x50's, 5x40's, 9x30's and 1x20. I also had Barry the black sturgeon at 44lb, 3 times during the week.
53lb 5oz
43lb 10oz
43lb 1oz
42lb 15oz
39lb 15oz
37lb 9oz
35lb 4oz
29lb 5oz