They say there are no virgin waters in France. Well that might be true, but I’m happy to call a little lake i have gained access to ‘virgin’. I know it hasn’t been fished seriously in the last decade and has been stocked at least twice in the last 30 years. The current owner talks of it being full of fish, but when pressed on exactly what sort of fish, replies with a bemused smile and a shrug “Just fish”.

You see, he bought the lake for the lush oak and chestnut forests surrounding it, and the ways of us Carpers are lost upon him. Horses for courses and all that, but thankfully he’s one of the nicest blokes around and could see the glimmer in my eye when i asked if maybe i could fish it one day.

This was back when winter held each day firmly in it’s grip, but even then the lake looked stunning. Coated in a blanket of snow, the manicured forest cascaded steeply to the water’s icy edge, and although not a soul stirred beneath the clear, cool water you could almost smell the potential of this small 2 acre lake. The owner’s reports confirmed what i had hoped - large looking fish basking in the summer sunshine.”How big?” I tentatively asked, “About this long, and this wide” came the reply.

Suffice to say, i was fighting to control my enthusiasm all the way home, knowing that sometimes these things never work out the way we want them to i didn’t want to raise my hopes of one day wetting a line there too high. Despite my excitement, I managed to respond with some composure when asked my opinion of the water:

“I will lose sleep over that lake…”

So, a couple of months later, and more assurances that I was welcome to fish anytime, at the end of a long and gruelling week on the Exclusive Angling Holidays work party i was well and truly in need of a break. I never thought that i would want to get away from the Papillon lakes, but six days of solid cutting, clearing, digging and shifting had left me physically and mentally exhausted.

In the light of the dying embers of the last bonfire of the day, I cracked, and reached for the phone. I needed a session somewhere that wasn’t here, and i knew just what would heal be right back up. Of course, being the chap he is, the lake owner instantly agreed to let me fish the following afternoon, and even offered a tour of his forest to pick up a few pointers for Papillon.

Upon arriving at the lake, i was greeted by a very different face to the one i had seen before. No longer did the water wear it’s winter coat, indeed it seemed spring was arriving and the water looked deep and inviting - flat still in it’s sheltered foresty nook. Instantly the lists of things to make and do at Papillon emptied from my mind, now I was really fishing.

After a tour beneath the stunning, but still leafless forest canopy, i settled upon an swim and readied for my first cast. I chose a natural ‘point’ jutting out into the lake that commanded a lot of water, and based on the owner’s knowledge, a range of depths and potential holding spots.

A few casts with the marker was all it took to confirm that the bottom was flat and slightly silty, in contrast to the steeply sloping far bank, and the the gentle rocky marginal slop in front of me. One rod was fished to a sunken pier and baited lightly with particles, the other cast to a far bank marker and fished method style.

Clipping the second bobbin into place and returning to my chair, I looked up at the lake, and instantly back to my rods - surely i could expect a beep any minute…

The afternoon washed over me, and time ebbed and flowed as it does on any biteless day. Unmoving and undeterred i sat motionless that whole afternoon, watching and waiting for something to happen. I leisurely changed tactics to try and buy a bite, and had a few more casts with the marker with half an eye on my next session, but there was never any urgency to my activity.

I hadn’t known what to expect from the session, but as darkness crept up and over the treeline, and it was all of a sudden time to go home, i realised i had blanked. However i felt absolutely at ease with that; that whirring sound inside my head, reminding me of deadlines and priorities had been silenced and replaced instead by a satisfied emptiness.

I knew i would be back, and one day i would bank a Carp from this lake, but today the lake had caught me and i was blissfully enthralled in it’s net as i drove away into the night to visit again one day and return the favour.

Stumble it!