After two fish in two sessions, I was understandably keen to get back out on the bank as soon as possible. The hectic social schedule of an eligible young man in the rural Dordogne meant I had to wait fully 24 hours until a window opened up.

Passing the lake on the way to and from work, I decided to call in at lunchtime to show my Dad exactly where I had been catching these fish from, and just why I always sounded so pleased with myself. Whilst I was there, it seemed foolish not to top up the spot with a little more bait, and 100 boilies were put out in the throwing stick (which i’ve yet to master, but the results are improving…).

Arriving that evening to fish, I quickly had the rods out on their spots and before the third lead had even touched down I was getting attention from the bream on the other rods. I eventually got all three settled and pondered what to do about bait. I had some hemp and pellet ready to spod out, but if fish were already in the swim was it worth it? I mulled it over for a while and decided to go for it, since I didn’t want to be ‘cleaned out’ by the time the carp arrived later on. 15 spods of pellet and hemp later and then each rod recast with a small PVA bag of the same, and I was confident of another bite.

The bream bites dried up for an hour or so, as I suspect they concentrated on the spodded bait, ignoring my hookbaits placed around the edge. However, a typical breamy bite eventually came on the middle rod and I retrieved another little skimmer - by now the sun was setting and ‘bite time’ was approaching. I quickly put on another bag and recast, the cast was not well placed but I let it sink down anyway before deciding what to do with it.

Moments after the donk of the lead hitting the bottom, my right hand rod signalled a bite, and not a bream one. I quickly downed the middle rod and lifted into the fish. The rod lurched and the fish kited to the left, then to my confusion, my middle rod started to scream away. I lifted it up and felt resistance - with a rod in each hand, for a split second I wondered what the hell was going on. Suddenly the rod in my right hand went slack, then the same for the one in my left. Blast!

On the trudge (and that day it was a real trudge) I kicked myself for leaving that recast rod where it was - I believe it was too close, or possibly crossed over the rod that got the bite, and the fish then fouled both lines and snuck off the hook. Entirely my own fault. Gutted.

When I got home, I opened my diary and reshuffled a few pressing engagements (defrosting the freezer could wait, I decided, in dramatic fashion) and was planning on being at the lake again the next evening. When 6pm rolled around I shut down the PC and made a dash for the car, It had been a long day of pruning and felling trees at our own lakes and I was hot and sweaty from the dry heat of summer which finally seemed to have arrived. However, I had an ace up my sleeve to help with the walk from the car park.

The secret of the rosy colouring of the barrage carp - crayfish!

Dad had dug out his old match fishing trolley for me and between us we’d worked out a way I could strap the gear on there and save my aching shoulders. The run to the swim was much easier now, and it was only just gone 7pm by the time the rods and bait was all out ready for a bite. This was probably the first session where I hadn’t forgotten something, broken something or done something stupid - and sure enough I blanked! The conditions weren’t ideal with high pressure arriving, a wind pushing away from my feed spot and sunny clear skies, but I would have expected more than I got. The sole action on the rods was a nice roach of around 10oz who took a fancy to my single pop-up corn. His lucky day, to be landed by a non Roach-eating Englishman!

Come Friday night, after another day of hot and sweaty work at our lakes, I slumped in front of the PC and nearly committed to watching the football, but rescued by the pain of England’s absence at the tournament, I forced myself into the shower and out of the door. After the previous evening’s blank I went easy on the bait, only adding about 20 boilies and a couple of spods of hemp and corn. I took it as a sign when after two spodfulls my shockleader cracked and my spod drifted off into the massive expanse of water (‘I’ll get that back tomorrow, on my bike’ I thought…stupidly) that two spodfulls alone was the perfect amount.

With all the fishing, my origina pole elastic line markings had moved about a bit, and I wasn’t confident I was fishing all three rods on their exact marks, so each was paced out again down the bank before being cast out onto the shelf. By this time, it was much later than normal and I couldn’t keep my eyes open long enough to watch the water; before sunset I was drifting off into a hot, sleepy haze.

The new, much lighter set-up

A few beeps from a bream brought me back to reality an hour later, just as bite-time was approaching. Sure enough, just before 9.30pm the left hand bobbin dropped to the deck and then rammed back up into the blank. I leant back into the fish and then grinned: ‘carp‘. The smug smile was almost wiped off my face when the fish launched itself out of the water at 30 yards in a shower of spray…carp, or corn eating trout?

After a dogged fight that lacked the fireworks of my two previous captures from the lake, I was able to draw a lean common over the net and up onto the bank. My first common from the lake, and I was well pleased. The hookhold was, again, very good and there was no way that one could have slipped the hook. Inside it’s huge mouth my gamakatsu hook was buried about a cm back, and was very clearly the only hook this fish had ever seen.

After a couple of snaps and returning the fish to the lake I looked over the photos with a contented grin. That was obviously a fish that had spawned and grown on in the lake (unless there had been stockings aside from the inital one), and although it wasn’t massive at 13lbs 14oz, it was another lovely barrage carp to add to my expanding collection!

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