A Carping Year (Carp Fishing In England And France)

By Steve Graham

Steve Graham has been an angler since the age of eight, and for the last thirty years has fished exclusively for carp.
He has caught over 130 carp in excess of forty pounds during this time, but is just as enthusiastic today as he was when he first picked up a rod, all those years ago.
Steve fishes both in England and in France, but it is his French angling adventures that he enjoys the most. He doesn`t normally fish on the popular commercial venues in France however, preferring the far lesser-known venues, where he is often the only angler on the lake. These venues are much less pressured than the more popular commercial venues, but can often be very challenging. Here the fish don`t have names. On many of these lakes the stock of carp is not known, and some of these fish have never seen a hook before, which makes the fishing even more exciting.
Although the fishing can be very difficult at times, the rewards are there for anyone who dares to persevere, and in this book Steve describes some of his most recent adventures in search of these unknown monsters.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steve Graham
• Release date: Nov 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215151549

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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A CARPING YEAR

Carp Fishing

In England And France

Steve Graham

Smashwords edition

Copyright Steve Graham 2023

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INDEX

Chapter One – Crown Lakes

Chapter Two – The Somme Canal

Chapter Three – Contre

Chapter Four – Pumphouse Lake

Chapter Five – Loeuilly

Chapter Six - Valeo

Chapter Seven – A Sad Time

Chapter Eight – Montreuil

Chapter Nine – Back To Crown

About The Author

Other Books By Steve Graham

To My wife Anita.

Thank you for all of your help and encouragement.

CHAPTER ONE – CROWN LAKES

I had been a member of two syndicates not far from Peterborough, for about two years, Pumphouse Lake, and Crown Lakes, but had not spent much time at either of them. I`d fished four short sessions on Pumphouse earlier in the year, but had not fished at Crown at all, but in the second week of November 2022, I decided to try my luck there for the first time. There are two lakes at Crown, the smaller of which is known as Little Crown, but it was the main lake that I was more interested in. I had only actually seen the lake twice before. The first time was just after I had joined the syndicate, and then in the previous September, when I attended a work party there. so I didn`t know too much about it. The other lads on the work party had been very helpful however, and they did give me a bit of information, which would hopefully give me a starting point. The lake was very deep indeed, with depths of forty feet in many areas, and I`d been told that there was a good stock of both mirrors and commons, which had been growing very well, and there were now quite a few in excess of thirty pounds, and several that were expected to reach forty before too long. I`d seen photos of some of these fish, and there were some stunners amongst them, so I`d definitely like to make their acquaintance.

It`s a lovely looking lake, in the middle of a country park. Now this is a beautiful setting, but the downside is that it is accessible to the public. I`d been told about the problems with the public, especially during the summer months, when it’s not unusual to have people swimming, playing with inflatables and leaving copious amounts of litter. None of that is allowed of course, but they seemed to totally ignore the rules, and fishing there during warm weather could be a nightmare. It was now November however, so I wasn`t expecting any such problems.

I arrived at about seven o`clock on Tuesday morning, parked the car and set off for a lap of the lake. It was wet and windy, which were certainly not ideal fish spotting conditions, so not surprisingly I didn`t see any signs of fish at all. With nothing really to go on, I decided on a swim called the Dead End, which gave me access to a bay which was slightly sheltered from the worst of the wind, as well as some open water too.

I got to work with the marker float, and soon discovered that what I`d been told about the depth, was very true. I searched for some time, and eventually found three spots that I was happy with. All three spots were silty, but clear enough to present a hook-bait on nicely. The left-hand spot was thirty-five feet deep, and the other two were slightly shallower, at about thirty feet. The right-hand spot was closest, into the bay, and was slightly sheltered from the strong wind, so it looked good to me. Initially I baited all three spots lightly with just twenty boilies and four spods of buckwheat over each, and then left the swim to settle for a couple of hours before casting my baited rigs for the first time. I decided to use totally different hook-baits on each rod – A wafter on the left, a snowman presentation on the middle spot, and two bottom-baits on the right. I then catapulted another fifteen boilies over each rig, and the traps were set. Those boilies had been left soaking in lake water for two or three hours. I find that this hydrates them, so that they don`t take on the smell of the silt so much, and is something that I often do when fishing over silt.

All this had taken quite a bit of time, so it was well into the afternoon before I had my rigs in place. I made myself something to eat, and then watched the water until dark, which was just after five o`clock that evening. It had been mild that afternoon, about 13 degrees, but there was a strong wind gusting up to 20 miles per hour, which made it feel cooler. That strong wind was blowing left to right, which made accurate bait placement difficult, but I had been reasonably happy with how my rigs had landed. I did worry about what the effects of any undertow might be, in that depth of water, and with a strong wind, but there wasn`t much that I could do about it. It had been showery all day, and some of those showers had been very heavy, so I was glad of the shelter of my bivvy.

The night stayed very mild, about ten degrees, and was dry fortunately, and although the wind did drop in strength slightly, it was still blowing at about 15 miles per hour. The air pressure was very low at 998 m.b. so I was quite optimistic about my chances. If I could have chosen conditions to go fishing in during November, then mild with low pressure would have been my choice, so it couldn`t have been much better really. The only problem was that I hadn`t seen any signs of carp so far, and hadn`t heard a single bleep from any of my alarms.

I was just dropping off to sleep, at just after ten o`clock that night, when all that changed. I had a take on my right-hand rod, the one fished into the bay, and I hurried out of my bivvy to deal with it. As I picked up the rod, I found myself attached to a carp, and it felt like a good fish too.

I couldn`t believe my luck. I`d hooked a carp on my very first night at the lake!

This lake is far from easy, but hooking a carp is one thing, and now I had to concentrate, to make sure that I didn`t lose it. The carp fought very hard in the deep water, and it took me quite some time to ease it back towards me. Eventually I saw it on the surface for the first time, about ten yards to my right, but then it dived back towards the bottom of the lake, and it was at least five or six minutes before I saw it again. The first fish from any lake is always special, but I can`t remember feeling so excited for quite some time. I was literally shaking as I stood there holding the rod, and praying that the hook would hold. The carp didn`t want to give up, and although I drew it towards me on three occasions, each time it swirled away from the