Since I last fished on Rouge I’ve been out trying to broaden my horizons a little bit. This has involved taking up the challenge of fishing some of the superb French rivers, with the target of tyring to catch my first river carp. River fishing for carp is something I have never done before, and yet given the lack of decent stillwaters nearby where your can nightfish, they offer me the best chance of some sport.

I asked around a little here and got some great advice - but there was a sense that unless i actually got out there and had a go I wouldn’t start the process of ‘learning the rivers’. So with a few changes to my normal set up, an afternoon poring over maps, local regulations and more than a little ‘Google Earth-ing’, I set off on my first trip.

I’ll be totally frank and say that I was absolutely buzzing on the drive down. It was, in itself, a beautiful drive through the verdent French countryside that took me through a series of picturesque medieval towns, yet the real fire in my belly was the prospect of actually getting out there and doing something new and different. I’ve mentioned before on this blog that fishing our own lakes at Etangs des Papillon is a fantastic privilege, but lacks that certain ‘je ne sais quoi’.

Arriving at the river, I was quickly pointed in the direction of the night fishing section, and got out to survey the scene. I was delighted to find I was the only one who looked like a carp fisherman around, and relieved that the municipal campite on the opposite bank appeared not to have opened yet for the summer. The river itself was narrow, just as I had seen from the arial photographs, and looked inviting. All in all, there were no nasty surprises and doing my homework had paid off, I was going to enjoy this session.

After a quick walk around I decided to pick the obvious feature of the stretch, a 90 degree bend, and baited a slack patch on the outside of the bend, and some deep water on the inside under my feet. The rods were rigged up with the simplest rigs and popped out into the flow. I kicked back in the evening sunshine and relaxed, content that I was finally river fishing, and had half a chance of a fish. I kept my eyes glued to the water all evening, and other than some savage mosquitos didn’t see any signs of life. Trouble is, I didn’t know if that was normal or not! Do river fish show themselves in the same way their stillwater counterparts do?

As darkness fell, I experienced that wonderful feeling of knowing that at any moment my sleep could be disturbed by a fish, and one that I would regard as an enormous triumph. Sadly however, this did not happen, and I slept like a baby until first light, whereupon I packed up the bedchair and brolly and moved my rods a little further upstream to another spot I had baited the day before, where a large stump had collapsed from the bank into the water and created a nice slack.

For the next few hours I watched some large roach bobble around in the margins, and despite a couple of bleeps on the rods, I don’t really feel like I came close to a carp - it’s strange thinking just how far away up or downstream they could be. Perhaps it’s best not to linger on that thought.

Anyway, I packed up reluctantly and made my way off to meet my teamates in a nearby village for a football match - the excuse I had used to make this trip happen in the first place! We lost the match too, so on the surface it wasn’t a successful weekend, but getting that first trip under my belt was important, and I’d learnt a few things along the way. Baiting with boilies was probably a mistake, and perhaps I hadn’t picked the right spots for that day - but I was expecting a learning curve, and so the drive home wasn’t too sad. I’ll be back for sure.

Stumble it!