Quest for a Large Common
by Samantha Collins-Ratcliffe
I decided to book a week away in France on a lake that holds big fish and the chance of landing a few good carp, so I called David from Angling lines and asked his advice. He talked extensively about Laroussi and convinced me this was the lake I was looking for, so I booked up for the last week in March. I set about doing all my homework for the lake from the Angling lines website, which was full of useful hints and tips. Then it was time to sort out what bait I was going to take with me so I called Shaun at Quest baits and decided to use liver B8 as a new bait for this year.
I headed off to France on a Quest to catch a 
big Common, armed with liver B8, 10-15mm shelf life boiles, there was no stopping me, car all loaded for the week. It took 3 ½ hours to reach Le Mans from Roscoff travelling through temperatures down to - 4°C and encountering the odd snowstorm along the way. When I reached Laroussi the temperature had crept up a little to 1°C with the odd heavy downpour but that didn’t put me off!
Mehdi, the owner of the lake, opened the gate for me and we had a good chat about how the lake had been fishing and the fish that had been landed the previous week. Then I walked round the lake looking for any carp movement, but there was very little sign of them, so I decided to go with the wind movement on the lake. I came up with a plan of action and set up in the first swim by the lodge, baiting up 5 marked areas with Liver B8. Then I put my rods on 3 of the baited areas with a pva bag of about 10 chopped B8s. It was time to then put the kettle on and sit back to watch the water. That night my middle rod screamed off but as I hit it there was nothing there, so I carefully put it back out wandering about what had just happened. It was time to then fill up my hot water bottle in a battle to forget the – 4°C that was freezing me from head to toe and admire the f
ull moon overlooking the lake. I woke up first light it was very cold, I checked my alarms and reels to see if they were frozen, but everything was ok.
Then the second night came, full moon clear sky and cold all the rods where out at the ready, but I ended up having a good nights sleep with no sign of the fish. The next morning I decided to make a move over to La Pointe, the sun had just come out for the day as I watched the water intently for some time. Around 2 hours later I saw a fish roll about 100 yards out in the middle. All my rods where ready to cast , rod 1 landed on top of where I saw the rolling fish in the middle, rod 2 was cast about 90 yards out towards the other bank and rod 3 was 130 yards out towards over hanging trees on other bank. I then waited in anticipation but the only 
thing that was feeding that day was my friend for the week he loved liver B8.
Then the next day late in the morning my left hand rod started screaming off. I leaped out of the bivvy as fast as I could, hit the rod and felt a nice lump on the other end. After playing the fish for a short while I landed a beautiful looking Mirror that was well worth the wait.
Friday soon came and I re-baited each area with about 25 boiles using a throwing stick. At 4.30pm my middle rod bleeped twice, stopped then screamed off. I played the fish for about 15 minutes knowing this could be the fish I’ve waited for. When it topped and I saw it was a common I was really excited. Then in the net it went it was a big common, the scales went to 44lb.04oz, it was what I came and I was overjoyed. Later that day I showed Medhi the pictures and he looked back on his records the common had come out last year at 36lb and he confirmed it was the biggest common in the lake. This put a big smile on my face; it was time for a nice glass of French Champagne.
A hard week but worth it!
Tight lines
Samantha Collins-Ratcliffe
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Tags: angling, Angling Lines, bait, carp, fish, fishing, france, Laroussi, pictures, Quest, roscoff, Shaun, shelf
I very much enjoyed this write up, You made me feel like I was there (I wish I was).
I look forward to more write up like this one.
Expat Kev