A couple of Dutch videos

Here are a couple of clips shot by Dutch anglers Jan de Jager and Germ Bruinsma in April 2012:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Croix Blanche Seasons

Over the last three or four years I have filmed the lakes and some of the fish during all of the seasons of the year. I thouhgt is would be nice to put a clip together showing these changing seasons and some of the varied fish that populate the waters of these lakes.

French Moggies

Boilies aren’t just about carp fishing. Boilies also make excellent baits for cat fish. The following is an extract from a diary by Alan Batham of a recent fishing trip to Croix Blanche Lakes in northern France. Alan highly recommends the lakes as a fishing venue. You can check out Phil’s Mogger-don recipe on the recipes page.

Saturday

After a long ball-ache of a drive (3am start from Luton) we finally arrive at Croix Blanche at about 1pm. I’ve been buzzing about this trip ever since it was booked about 6 weeks previous and have talked about very little else to those that would listen…. and those that wouldn’t. Yes I’m a sad old fishing bore – I love it!

Croix Blanche Lakes : Summer 2011 Video

A short clip shot with Andy Lear and his friends on the Croix Blanche complex during the summer 2011.

Andy’s Carping Adventures: Tortue Lake, May 2011

Uk Carper Andy Lear shares his “Carping Adventure at Croix Blanche Lakes, Tortue Lake in May 2011. They banked some cracking fish to over 40lb..

Jeez what a storm!!!!…

I was happily eating my dinner after a spot of tench fishing, when the wind got up and it started spitting with rain… No worries, I just moved myself and gear under the tarp and finished my dinner. As I lay in the hammock, the wind got stronger and the rain heavier…and heavier and heavier.. It was a sheet of water and a violent swirling wind. When the paracord guy rope to my DD tarp broke off and it flapped uncontrollably in the wind I decided to knock it on the head and head for home.
Myself and my gear were by now totally soaked. With the carabineer ridge line and tree straps I was able to take down the tarp and hammock in a couple of clicks and bundle it into the motor. I gathered my billies and stove and was off from the lake presto…lightening was dropping all around, and we are in a thick wooded valley.
The roads on my route home were flooded and we had no electricity when I did arrive (A falling tree had taken out the power lines). So while I’ve been happily camping out so far all spring and summer in the DD hammock & tarp set up, it isn’t too clever in 80mph winds and monsoon rain.

“51″ Runs at Croix Blanche

Belgian Carper Rudy Coussens sent me this video of his week spent fishing on peg 6 of the Croix Blanche lake. He totalled 51 runs with carp to over 37lb.

Andys Carpin Adventures- Croix Blanche 2010

Here is a post featuring a video of Andy Lear’s trip to the Croix Blanche Lakes in September 2010:

Andys Carpin Adventures- Croix Blanche 2010
- Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

Zig Rigs, Weed & Bubble Floats

Few will have failed to notice that the carp spend a lot of time in the upper layers of the water during the summer months. In fact even in the winter they can often be found mid water in a comfort zone. The deeper the lakes the more this seems to be true. My last post talked about surface fishing, a technique rarely practiced in France.

If as one can observe the carp laying up or cruising in the upper metre of the water, it seems largely a waste of time presenting a bait on the bottom in anything upto 8 or 10 feet of water. I’ve seen this time and again, anglers blanking with a swim full of fish. This week I saw a couple of articles that got me thinking!
Why not present a bait in the water where the fish are?

Long Hot Summer – Don’t Neglect Floaters

It won’t have escaped anyone’s attention if you have been in France this last week or so that it has been HOT! Temperatures have soared to over 40°C….
I don’t know if other lakes are like the Croix Blanche but many of the carp can be seen up on the surface, basking in the surface layers where the water temps have been over 25°C. In the deeper waters though, the differential between the surface and the bottom can be quite extreme. This was illustrated to me this week when a Dutch angler went into the water to free a snagged catfish. While the water was like bath water in the margin, once he dived down to free the fish he told me the water was considerably colder.
It would seem then fairly obvious that the carp seek these warmer comfort layers to hold up during the heat of the day and often remain very hard to tempt on conventional carp methods. Generally we hear regularly that you can’t catch fish off the top in France. But how many actually try for any length of time? People will happily sit all week behind a boilie on the bottom, blanking … yet how many actually persist with a floater.