For the last couple of months I’ve been searching for a regular venue to fish. Now that the season has started on our Etangs Des Papillon complex I’m in need of something local to get my regular fix of bank-time. As you can read on this blog, I’ve started taking weekends away to get into a bit of river fishing which has been very exciting so far, if unproductive. However, the fact remains that there’s very little to do round here other than work or study of an evening, so fishing is the obvious answer - but travelling an hour each way just isn’t practical for short sessions.

This led me to re-appraise a water I had previously written off. The lake in question sits right on my doorstep, but until recently had not been in my thoughts. There are a number of reasons not to fish this water, for starters there is no night fishing. More than that though, I think the biggest obstacle is a mental one - at 150 acres the lake is bigger than anything I have tackled before (Morocco aside) and is a hugely unknown quantity in terms of stock.

The lake was constructed in 1996 to retain source water and regulate the flow into the rivers, ensuring a constant flow to agriculture further downstream even in periods of intense drought. 12 years after it’s construction, the project is maturing wonderfully and the huge effort put into landscaping the banks has really paid off, resulting in a nature lover’s paradise. Due to the abunance of wildlife, over 60% of the bank is classed as a nature reserve and cannot be fished.

My first encounter with this lake came in 2004 when, after graduation, I came out to France for a couple of weeks and sought out the lake on a map after hearing a friend (now my landlord) describe it. I was amazed to discover such a huge lake tucked only a few hundred meters back from a road I must have driven down dozens of times over the years during my visits to Exclusive Angling Holidays! At that stage, the water level was very low, and many of the bays and inlets were totally dry. I had my camera with me and snapped a few pictures on my way round, with the vague notion that one day they might come in handy but once they were developed I promptly forgot all about them. The 9km walk around the lake takes around 3 hours at a leisurely pace, due to the many different ‘arms’ and bays. Of the stock, little was known at that time; local trout fishermen speculated that carp had been stocked, though not many, and they weren’t fished for, or caught. I remember at that time thinking that this was a beautiful lake, but totally unfishable: too big, too snaggy…too scary!

Four years later, and my angling ability has come on a little bit, though nowhere near as much as my desire to seek out new and challenging situations. And so, though either raw amition or desperation at the lack of other suitable waters, it was early this March that I began to think again about ‘The Barrage’ and consider it a target for the coming season. As ever, I asked around for some advice and got some really great suggestions here. The general consensus was that if I was going to do this, I needed to commit to it and do it properly.

It took a while to get that commitment concentrated on the right path. Having walked the fishable area of the lake several times, and even run into another carp angler who knew about as much as me (i.e. nothing concrete!), I got my gear ready and slimmed down so that I could bike down from my house and fish. This was no mean feat, and as my first, and last, two-wheeled expedition proved, simply not practical. I had aimed to fish an arm of the lake that would receive a warm south westerly wind, and had pinned my hopes on finding the river bed that I knew ran through.

That first expedition was not, by any definition, a success. Loading the gear onto my bike went ok, until the addition of an unhooking mat - which threw my balance off and led to more than one scary moment on the ride to the swims. Though there is a wide track all the way round the lake, the coarse gravel was far from ideal for a heavily laden bike and by time I arrived I was a sweaty mess. I had earmarked the swim that looked the most capable of accommodating an angler beneath it’s overhanging trees. Unfortunately my estimate of how much space I needed was a little off and casting was impeded so much that I couldn’t reach the bottom of the long sandy slope to search for the river bed.

I sat out that short evening session with single baits lobbed as far as possible and re-drew my plans. ‘Lessons were being learned’ I told myself (sound familiar?!) as I thought about packing up. Unbeknown to me a monstrous thunderstom had been brewing behind me, and as I turned to load the bike I felt the first drops of rain, and the black clouds from which they descended - Oh dear! Up went the 15 year old coarse fishing brolly and I gathered my gear in as best I could to weather the storm. The brolly leaked and i got soaked, but eventually I made it home in the dark: bruised that my plans needed such drastic re-evaluation, and also because it had been a long time since I’d ridden a bike (ouch)!

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