I recently fished a week session with my friends Jan Ramp and David Vimeux. The chosen venue was a large public French lake that is classified as very difficult. Although the challenge was great, there was a good chance of catching one of its treasures.
Monday morning was spent in the boat looking for features. Jan found a nice plateau about two hundred meters out and decided to fish one rod on the slope on front of the plateau and one rod on the slope behind the plateau. His third rod was placed on a small patch of gravel that he found between heavy weed. David and I fished onto small clear spots of gravel or sand that we found between a weedbed. Our rigs were kept simple comprising of Disruption hook lengths and size 6 Continental Mugga hooks.
At 10pm Jan`s middle rod screamed off and he was in, I offered my boat but according to Jan he could play the fish from the margin. How wrong was he when we saw his line fall slack. Considering the difficulty of the lake he missed a huge chance. Very disappointed Jan decided not to disturb the swim and said he would row out the rod the next day. He was still tired from driving six hundred kilometres and returned to his sleeping bag. As he was just zipping it up, his right ATTS came to life and the line screamed off his reel. This time I stood ready with the boat. We drifted to the middle of the lake and after a ten minute fight a big mirror popped up beside the boat. I reacted fast and before we both knew the fish was in the net.
Jan released the rig that was connected with a Covert Kwik Lok and I lifted the net in the boat that we had prepared with an unhooking mat and bucket of water. Back on the bank we weighed the fish and the needle stopped just over 19kg (41.8 lbs). Very happy, we took some pictures and then we gently slipped her back in the crystal clear water.
The rest of the week remained calm, Jan caught a small mirror of 10kg from the same spot where he had had his previous bites and he managed to catch a nice 5lb tench.
I managed two runs on the second night. Unfortunately I lost my first fish but had a small common in the very early morning. David unfortunately didn’t get any action this week.
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