High pressure, to be exact. Summer has well and truly landed in this part of the Dordogne, and whilst it great to have clear, hot sunny days, it’s not helping the fishing. However, that’s not to say it’s been a totally barren week.

To finish a full week of fishing the barrage, I went down on Saturday night and added a few boilies and a bit of hemp to the swim. I only had time for a couple of hours fishing afterwards, but made the most of it with this common which weighed in at a shade under 12lbs. A bruiser of a fish, and the smallest so far from the lake, in fact, the weights have been going down consistently since that first cracker at 22lbs 10oz. Still, it’s good to be catching, and as ever the fish put up a spectacular fight after picking up and bolting off with my single plastic corn hookbait.

Sunday and Monday were hot and airless days, the kind that just saps all the energy right out of you, however, I still made it down to the lake on Monday to bait up, and Tuesday evening to fish. Equally airless, uncomfortable and midge-ridden, tuesday evening was totally unproductive. With the air pressure steady at around 1018mb, and an unhelpful easterly blowing I wasn’t entirely surprised so I decided to give the fishing a miss until Sunday morning. I kept visiting to put a little bit of boiled bait out, but really only to ensure there was something there for when the carp did decide to feed - I didn’t hold my breath as the pressure rose to over 1020mb and looked like staying there.

I couldn’t keep away for too long though, and decided a little change of tack was necessary to both keep things interesting and to try and bring about an unlikely result. On Saturday night I baited up with a kilo or so of pellet and around 100 boilies with the intention of arriving early Sunday morning. A hot, sleepless night meant it was a slightly tardy arrival at 6am the following morning, yet the rods were soon in the water and on their spots and it didn’t take long before the bites started to come. The first was immediately different from a bream bite, and unusually came to an 18mm bottom bait that I had decided to try in place of the pop-up . The result was not a carp, but this fantastic golden rudd of 1lb 12ozs - what a fantastic surprise!

A similar sized hybrid followed almost immediately to the same rod, before the plastic corn rod was away - definitely not a littl’un! Another fantastic, surging, kiting and at times acrobatic fight ended with this beautiful 14lbs 14oz big-plated mirror in the net. After a couple of snaps I hopped into the shallow margins (water levels have dropped as a result of the hot weather) and waded out to let her go again. The warmth of the water on my feet was a real surprise, and added to the pleasure of watching another fantastic barrage carp slink off in the gin clear water.

By 9am the bites had tailed off and I waited an hour before packing up and heading home under an already scorching sun - well pleased with another lovely fish, and they’re getting bigger again!

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