Hauling At Francks I first came across the Fishingmagic website whilst looking for information on Etang De Vaumigny. Dave, a friend of mine, wanted to book us on and asked me if I knew anything about the place. After reading the two articles on the site (see links at the bottom) we decided to go. We had a right result and caught in excess of 50 carp in the week. The following is an account of how my friends Dave, Mark, Adrian and myself got on. Hopefully some of you who might be considering visiting the lake may find it useful, as I did with the previous articles. I think the previous articles covered getting there and local amenities well enough so I’ll concentrate on the fishing. The Lake And Swims We arrived at the lake at 8:30 am. Early enough to make sure we had a good choice of swims. We met Franck and he gave us a quick tour around. A map of the lake can be found on the Etang De Vaumigny site. The road bank, swims 1 to 7 appeared to have been very busy with up to 15 rods in some swims, the French lads keeping their pods high up the bank, running tight lines in all directions. My friend Dave speaks very good French and we soon determined that apart from swim 1 not a lot had been caught (not surprising when you saw the amount of rods – it must have resembled an underwater assault course in the lake). Dave and Mark opted for waiting for the lads in swim 1 to leave later that morning whilst Adrian and myself decided to move into swims 8 and 9. Their choice being made on the fact that they would be fishing to an Island, were surrounded by sexy looking snags, the French lads had caught, and you could park your car inside your bivvy. Our choice was based on the fact that no one had fished the swims for a while and they were nearish to the car park and toilet (sad, I know) and that it looked quite possible to land fish from them. As Franck explained to me on a number of occasions, he likes to leave the swims ‘au naturel’ . What he meant was snaggy. As we expected to be fishing at a reasonable range it was essential that we could deal with fish which kited around. It also gave us the option of moving deeper into the woods if the fishing proved hard. We also wanted to be fishing close together, as a social thing – I only get to see Adrian a few times each year and we wanted to be able to chat without leaving the rods. The next swim we could have chosen was swim 10 – a largish double deep in the woods but this would have meant too many rods in one swim. A couple of English lads were fishing the end pegs 15 and 16 but had not had any luck in the shallow water at that end. To be honest, without getting the marker rods out there was no way of knowing what each swim held in the way of features and what might be the best place. These swims controlled a fair bit of water and left us with lots of options to move if required. If on my own I would have got the marker rod out before making a decision. And So It Begins First thing we did was get the marker rods out, big chuck and look for features (peg 9). First surprise – I couldn’t find one. A steady depth about 7 feet out to about 100m, felt soft and silty all the way. There was an obvious feature at long range – a clearly marked snag (tree), but as we did not have 60 Euros to hire a boat, this was out of range. As a personal thing I do not like the use of boats, either rowing or radio controlled and prefer to fish without them. I see it as a challenge to catch fish from the bank, even more so when their use is supposed to be essential. I always fish to a plan when in France and usually have several in mind based on what I had learned of the water beforehand and after arriving. From what I’d read and talking to people on the lake I determined that the poisson chat were a particular problem – the two English lads told us not to even bother with boilies as they would not last more than a few minutes. Also we learned from Franck and the French lads that everybody tended to fish to the long range snags using the boats with tiger nuts the only bait. On the assumption that these methods had been done to death I adopted an opposite plan. Bait would be boilies, lots of ’em, fished over pigeon feed, red maize, hemp and a few tiger nuts at about 90m range and nowhere near any of the snags. Bait Approach For the trip I wanted to keep my options open – the final plan is usually made on the bankside and is often determined by the bait taken. This often means taking bait that never gets used. For the trip I took the following: A total cost about £ 200. Some people might question the boilie choice. Having fished in France for 15 years now, and having used all sorts of bait, I can say without a doubt these have been the most consistent boilie I have ever used. They are not to be confused with ‘cheap’ ready-mades. These are quality baits. They are quite hard in nature and when meshed will withstand the poisson chats and crayfish for at least 24 hours. I wouldn’t normally take as much bait, but had several kilos left over from an earlier trip. Day 1 I picked a featureless spot at about 90m and with the use of a spod rod made my own feature. After an hour and a half of spodding, (resulting in a badly line cut finger) a couple of kilos of Mistral Remedy and Rosehip boilies were launched out with the throwing stick all over the swim and I was ready to set up a rod. The plan was to feed boilies and fish yellow and red maize on two rods and tiger nuts on one rod for the first day and use boilies from mid day on day 2. With the popped up yellow maize rod out I started setting up the second rod. Before I’d finished a drop back on the first had me flapping, fish on – you guessed it, a bream. Rod back out, back to setting up rod 2 and another drop back. Hit it with zero expectation to be met by a solid resistance – first proper fish on, only 10 minutes in. Result – a 32  When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission, which supports our community.
|
Welcome!Log into your account
