An Angler Abroad

By Steve Graham

An Angler Abroad tells of all the fishing that Steve did in 2019, and what an incredible year it was!
The book describes Steve`s fishing at eight different venues, mostly in France. None of these were the commercial venues that are often written about. These are lesser known gems, often in beautiful surroundings, which are rarely fished, but still contain some fantastic carp.
Steve fished at some new venues this year too, and the chapters on the Somme canal are absolutely riveting. The fishing was very difficult, but the carp that he caught were all in immaculate condition, and most of them had very rarely, if ever, been caught before.
He has been an angler for more than fifty years, and has caught some amazing fish during this time, including many huge carp both in England and abroad. He now does most of his fishing in France, preferring the tranquillity of some of the lesser known venues, where he is often the only angler on the lake.
Steve describes all the people that he met, and everything that happened, warts and all, in a way that almost makes you think that you are there on the bank with him.
A fascinating story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steve Graham
• Release date: Nov 8, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463413449

Steve Graham

Steve Graham is a retired financial adviser, who now lives in Staffordshire. He is married to Anita and they have four children – Lynne, John, Diana and Gary, and three grandchildren – Logan, Dylan and Sami. Not forgetting their dog Stan, a Springer Spaniel / Border Collie cross, that is loved by them all. Now that he has retired, Steve spends most of his time doing the things that he enjoys most, which includes writing, walking. Carp fishing, and looking after his grandchildren.

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AN ANGLER

ABROAD

(CARP FISHING IN FRANCE)

Steve Graham

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2019 Steve Graham

All rights reserved

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INDEX

Chapter One – The Velodrome

Chapter Two – Loeuilly

Chapter Three – La Base Nautique

Chapter Four – The Big Back Lake

Chapter Five – Argoeuves

Chapter Six – Etang St. Ladre

Chapter Seven – Caldwell Pool

Chapter Eight – Loeuilly In July

Chapter Nine – The Canal

Chapter Ten – Back To Sailly Laurette

Chapter Eleven – Conty Again

Chapter Twelve – The Big Back Lake Again

Chapter Thirteen –The Canal In September

About The Author

Other Books By Steve Graham

To my daughter Lynne.

I`m very proud of you.

CHAPTER ONE – THE VELODROME

I`d done no fishing at all during the winter of 2018-2019, so by March I was desperate to get out on the bank again. I decided to go to the town of Albert in Picardie, for my first session of the year, where I would fish on a lake called the Velodrome. I know this lake quite well, and often choose to fish there early in the season because it`s relatively shallow, so the water tends to warm up quite quickly, compared to a deeper lake. Several of my friends would be fishing there that weekend too, which would make it even more enjoyable.

I always think that the worst part of going to France is the driving in England. I drive overnight to try to avoid the worst of the traffic, but despite that, I have often experienced many delays, and even road closures on occasions. Nothing that I`d suffered before had been quite as bad as what I was about to experience on this journey however.

I left home at nine o`clock on Thursday evening, which was six and a half hours before my train was due to leave at the channel tunnel. When you consider that the journey down to Folkestone should take about three and a half hours, I had plenty of time, or so I thought. All went well at first until I had travelled about fifty miles down the M1, when I saw a sign which gave me some bad news.

The motorway was closed at the next junction.

There was a diversion in place of course, and I followed the diversion signs for the next 45 minutes, until I was finally able to re-join the M1 once again.

‘Problem solved.’ I thought, but I was wrong.

I needed to leave the M1 at junction 6a, to join the M25, but that exit was closed.

I left at the following exit instead, and followed the diversion signs again, but these lead me many miles away from where I wanted to be, and it was more than two hours before I got to the M25 at last. Even then, it was some distance away from the part of the motorway that I`d been heading for. Undeterred, I continued my journey along the M25, and onto the M20, but unbelievably, when I was just thirty miles from the tunnel, I discovered that this motorway was closed at the next junction too. I`d now been on three motorways, and all three had been closed at some point.

You just couldn`t make it up.

Only in England.

I followed the diversion signs for about twenty minutes, until I re-joined the M20 again, thinking that was the end of my problems, but I soon discovered that I was now just north of the road closure, and a few minutes later I was back in the same place that I had been twenty minutes earlier.

‘I must have taken a wrong road through the diversion.’ I thought, so I tried again.

Unfortunately, twenty minutes later I was back in the same place once again, and I was now becoming rather frustrated.

I tried a third time, with the same result, and I was now at my wits end. My sat-nav was telling me that I was due to arrive at the tunnel just thirty minutes before my last check in time, but if I couldn`t find my way soon, then I wasn`t going to make it.

I didn`t think that there was much point in following the diversion signs for a fourth time, so I decided to ignore them, and just follow my nose. Fortunately about twenty minutes or so later, I found my way back onto the M20 below the closure, and I arrived at the tunnel in the nick of time.

After checking in, I made my way to the car-park, to wait for the message to start boarding, but when I got there I saw a message telling me that my train departure had been delayed by an hour.

What else could go wrong?

Fortunately once I arrived in France, there were no problems at all, and the rest of my journey went smoothly.

I arrived at the lake at about eight o`clock in the morning, and was the only person there, so I had a choice of swims. There was a light breeze blowing into the far bay, so I opted for the far platform, and soon had my bivvy set up.

The Velodrome

My friend Corentin had bought my permit for me, and he`d promised to bring it to the lake for me at about twenty past seven, on his way to work. Of course, because of the delays I hadn`t arrived by that time, so he called my mobile to let me know that he`d bring it just after midday, when he finished work. Unfortunately I had just finished setting up my rods, when two garde de pêche arrived, and they asked to see my permit.

Ooopst!

I explained that Corentin was bringing my permit just after midday, and I showed them my permits for the previous years that I`d fished here, and they were very understanding. However, they told me not to start fishing until I had the permit. It was now nine o`clock, so I had three hours to wait, but I suppose that it could have been worse.

While I was waiting, my friend Nicolas came to see me, with his girl-friend, and we talked for half an hour or so, before they made their way to a swim on the opposite bank, where they`d be fishing for the week-end.

Corentin arrived at 12.15 with my permit, so now I could breathe a sigh of relief, and start fishing at last.

The first thing that I did was get out the marker rod, and I tried casting tight to two of the islands, but I discovered that the lakebed was covered with dead leaves in that area. About fifteen yards short of the islands, the lakebed was much clearer, and felt like firm silt, which seemed like a much better area to place a hook-bait.

The Velodrome is a lake of about fifteen acres in size, and contains a good head of carp, both mirrors and commons, as well as quite a few grass carp and catfish. The largest carp are all mirrors, which I`ve caught to low-forties in the past, although the average size is probably about mid-twenties. I`ve had a lot of success at this lake over the years, but recently I`d found it more difficult, and I hadn`t managed to catch any of the larger carp on my last few sessions there.

Perhaps I`d be able to put that right this time.

One thing that I did find disappointing was that when I arrived there had been a light breeze blowing towards my swim, and that had been one of the reasons why I had chosen to fish there. Unfortunately the wind had changed direction, and was now blowing away from my swim, which certainly wasn`t ideal. When I looked at the weather forecast on my phone, I saw that the wind direction was predicted to be variable, so there didn`t seem much point in moving swims.

I was going to fish with three rods, and I baited all three spots with boilies of two different sizes. I had soaked those boilies for 45 minutes in a bucket of lake-water. I didn`t do this to wash the flavours out of them, but just to hydrate them a little. I hoped that by doing this, they wouldn`t absorb the smell of the silt so much, and that they would stay attractive to the carp for longer.

My friend Pierre-Jean came to see me that afternoon. He stayed for an hour or so, but when he left, he took some of my bait with him, to put into his freezer for the next couple of days. That would keep it frozen, so that it would be in perfect condition when I used it at the next lake. Unfortunately Pierre-Jean was working that night, but he would come back to fish with us the next day.

Corentin was set up on the same platform as me, although he was casting from the opposite side, into a completely different area of the lake. Unlike me, he had positioned his hook-baits very close to the far-bank trees, and just after dark one of them was picked up by a carp. It wasn`t a big fish, a mid-double common, but it`s always good to get off the mark.

Half an hour later he caught another. Once again it was a small fish, a mid-double mirror this time. He caught yet another carp, a mirror of about the same size, shortly afterwards, but I still hadn`t heard a single bleep from my alarms.

About an hour later I heard an alarm sound again, and I sat there waiting for Corentin to move towards his rods. He didn`t do that however, and I couldn`t understand why.

‘It`s yours Steve.’ Corentin told me.

I was so sure that the take had been to Corentin`s rods, that I hadn`t even considered that a carp may have picked up one of my hook-baits.

The fish fought hard, taking quite a bit of line on several occasions, but I took my time, and Corentin was eventually able to lift the net around a sizable mirror. When we placed the carp on the mat, we both thought that it would probably weigh in the high thirties, but it wasn`t quite as heavy as we`d thought. At 34 lbs.9 oz. however, it was a very good start to my session.

We both expected more action during the night, but unfortunately that was not to be, and neither of us were disturbed by the carp. In retrospect that wasn`t a bad thing for me, because it allowed me to catch up on some much needed sleep. I am always very tired on the first day of my sessions here in France, because with travelling overnight, I miss a night`s sleep. The lack of action that night meant that I felt rested and much better in the morning, and ready for whatever the day had in store for me.

Although neither Corentin nor myself had caught any more fish during the night, David had caught two carp, a mid-twenty common and a high-twenty mirror. Nicolas had also hooked a fish, but unfortunately he`d lost it when his hook-link had parted, after the fish had found a snag.

I baited quite heavily with boilies that morning, hoping to provoke some fish into feeding, but none of us had any action at all. It was warm and sunny, and the wind had changed direction again. It was now blowing steadily towards my swim, and I thought that the conditions looked very good, but unfortunately the carp didn`t seem to