France - carp mecca!
Richard Turner wrote;
Hi there, A group of us are going to France in august for the first time its only a 4 acre lake with an average depth of 5 foot with a gravel bottom with patches of silt.
In your opinion out of your baits which one would you take as your main hook bait and what size?
The owner has boilies for sale at the lake but I’m not sure about using a strange bait, what advice can you give us? Thanks.
Hi Richard,
I have been involved in the French carp scene for around 17 years, and one of the most difficult decisions is around bait.
First of all get in touch with the owners and try and ascertain the size of the carp that are stocked in the lake, and what other fish are in the lake. In my experience, most of the French lakes are stuffed with other species of fish, Bream, Tench, Rudd the dreaded Poisson Chat.
The species like Bream, Tench and Rudd are easy to get around. Increase the size of your baits. I always use a minimum of 18mils, usually 20 mils. This eliminates most of the problems that you will encounter from these nuisance fish, but even so you will still pick up the odd one or 2.
Now if you have a lake with poison chat, you have a major problem. I have fished lakes that have been infested with the dreaded little fish which rarely grow above 8 “ in length. From fingerlings to fully grown these little brats can whittle down an air dried 25 mil boilie to the size of a 4 mil trout pellet in around of an hour.
There are ways around this, such as netting the baits, or using Tiger nuts. Shaun Harrison of Quest baits has developed the pineapple crush boilie for this purpose, the chats don’t like them. There’s something in the bait that puts the Chats off but encourages the carp to feed. With Pineapple crush it is best to fish small pockets of boilies to attract the carp. There is no need to fish mass beds of this bait. Here’s a video which gives you more ideas about how to combat the dreaded chat.
Hopefully you have a poison chat free lake.
Another consideration is whether or not there are freezer facilities at your lake and how much bait will the freezer hold. I would look at taking between 8 and 15 kilo of boilies per person to the venue, so you will need a freezer with a capacity of at least 50 kilo for the 4 of you.
Don’t panic if there are no freezer facilities, you can air dry your frozen baits which reduces the need to keep bait in a freezer, or as I have been doing for the last 18months, use shelf life baits.
The Quest range of shelf lifes are as good if not better than frozen baits. Over the last 12 months I have been using shelf life 20 mil Rahja Spice and the new Liver B8. The Quest Shelf Lifes have a similar texture to the frozen baits and are a good food source to the carp, and not just a container for flavour.
I have had the privilege of testing the Liver B8 for Shaun, and have had some excellent results, both in England and in France. This will without doubt be one of the best sellers in the near future.
To supplement the boilies take at least 10 kilo’s of trout pellets each or particles such as prepared hemp.
I hope this has helped your decision.
Regards, Paul Cooper.
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