"Oh God will it ever stop raining"
- a Winter session at Margot.
Bob Woody & Terry, December 2002
Christmas Eve and I informed my better half that I was off to visit Margot in a few days time. She promptly replied that Margot was welcome to me for all the fun I was going to be over the festive period! (still, the old ones are the best ones)
So we set off from Dover at around 05.00am on the 27th December. It was pouring down with a fierce wind and a ferry that looked like an apple bobbing around in a barrel. Woody and Bob (hardy old sea dogs) were ready to head for breakfast but my first and only port of call was the gents to pray to the big white God "Royal Dolton"! Anyway with that part of the trip well and truly over we headed off across France in search that elusive winter carp. The journey was an absolute mare, I think that every person owning a car in France had descended on the Paris ring road for a jolly :-(
The directions were spot on but the nearer we got to Margot the more it rained. All of the rivers had burst their banks and were merrily flooding the fields, roads and houses, now we are talking rain with a capital R. We arrived at the lake side to be greeted by Philippe with a warm smile and rain coat that you could have fit a family into. He informed us that the facilities in the lodge were all working even though they had been flooded for the last couple of weeks. He gave us a quick tour of the lake and imparted some of that local knowledge that you know will save some time looking for features and headed off back to his warm dry cottage.
| We headed back to the lodge to decide on our tactics for the next four nights - at this point the lodge seemed a much nicer prospect than setting up in the pouring rain. Looking out across the lake, which was now beginning to mimic a bowl of oxtail soup, we decided to fish from the lodge bank facing directly into the wind. Bob fished to the left of the lodge near the lake outlet. He had a large sandy patch 140 yards in front of him that was about 3 ft deep and a sump/hole to his right at around 7 ft. |
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Woody fished just to the right of the lodge - he had the same sump/hole to his left and open water with slightly varying depths in front of him. I elected to fish furthest down the bank with the Island directly in front of me, about 140 yards out, and a lovely bay to my right that looked seriously carpy.
Up went the bivvies and down came the rain. I'm convinced that it rained even harder as we sorted out our gear, Bob and Woody said how could it, fair comment I suppose. It was starting to get dark so we had no time to get the boat out for baiting up the farthest points and spodding was not an option in this wind.
Night drew in very quickly and Woody's new TXi's shrieked into action. He still had his boots on so dashed out of his Armadillo and shouted "Avit". There were a few seconds of hustle and bustle as I got my boots back on and trotted up the bank ready to land his first Margot fish.
Oops! ... it was a pasty of around 2lb ! I cursed him for letting me get another soaking and returned to the sanctuary of my bivvy. A couple of hours later and he was at it again, this time I elected to stay put unless he shouted, he did - it was another pasty!
I had a pretty uneventful night other than a visit from a couple of scraggy looking felines, so headed off down to see if Bob had been any more successful than Woody and I.
Where the water was so high the lake outlet was making a right hullabaloo and you couldn't hear Bobs alarms further down the lake. As it turned out he had pretty much the same results as us with 5 pasties under his belt.
Day light arrived and Simon turned up to see how we were getting on. Having gone through the previous evenings events he advised big baits, big hooks and short hook links. I thought 18 and 20mm baits were big until he said no this is a BIG BAIT
and produced a 5kg bag of 24mm+ Margot specials. Now these were huge - we are talking golf balls, but it's his lake and who am I to question him. He gave us all a lot more tips on where to place our baits, so with a new vigour we got the boat out and baited up our chosen features, got the donkey chokers on the go and waited.
Early that afternoon Bob shouted "Avit" and from the curve in his NG's I could see he was into a nice fish. It had picked up a bait from the sandy patch and was heading off to his right with a vengeance. A few minutes later and the fish had succumbed to the pressure and was now 20 yards down to his right - suddenly Bob said this doesn't feel right as the rod appeared to jerk a couple of times and his line was slack! Retrieving his line he also brought in about 30 or 40 yards of some one else's and a rig to boot!
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We spent a couple of hours that evening in the lodge with the obligatory spaghetti Bolognese (Andy underpants style) washed down with a couple of bottles of local vino that Philippe had kindly thrust upon us. Back into the real world of bivvyman - more rain, more wind and then some more rain for good measure. A couple of hours later and Woody's alarms are away again this time I looked around the side of my bivvy and he had a bend in his road, wet gear back on and I was out ready with the net. This fish had picked up a Margot special from a baited spot at around 140 yards and was endeavouring to put a few more yards of water between it and Woody. His line was singing in the wind and we had pretty well satisfied ourselves that it was a good fish, 5 minutes later it rolled just in front of the net and the hook pulled !!!!! Woody normally a man of few words summoned up a few expletives and aimed them fairly and squarely at the lake, mumbling something about the hooks not being big enough and he returned to his bivvy to dry off. |
Twenty minutes later and I had a run from hell on the rod placed in the bay - no bleeps just a continuous tone and a baitrunner going into melt down. I had just taken my boots off and got dry, so legged it out of the bivvy in my socks (bad move), picked up the rod and leant into the take. I couldn't believe what came next ...I tried to apply pressure to halt the run, as the fish was now heading out of the bay up the margins towards the side of the island. I couldn't stop it ! My 3.5 lb. NG was now a shape that I hadn't seen in a long time and the line was singing like a canary - I found myself slackening off the clutch for fear of a broken line. At last, just as it came level with the island, it started to slow down. A few minutes later, and about 40 yards in front, there was an almighty crash and a huge sturgeon leapt out of the water shaking it's angry head at me. By this time Woody was standing next to me having a good old laugh at my new found wet weather socks. II managed to manoeuvre the fish into the shallow margins where there was a flurry of activity and .... it was gone!!! I was gutted, threw my rod back onto it's rests and retired to my bivvy for a nice can of Nelson Mandela (Stella).
I could still hear Woody chuckling to himself as we settled down to another wet evenings fishing. We met up the next morning for breakfast in the lodge, discussing the previous nights entertainment. Bob had a run free night but was in good spirit, feeling confident as ever, so back out with the boat to rebait and reposition our lines.
The day was pretty uneventful and wet, even the grebes on the lake looked as though they'd had enough of the rain, so we spent most of our time in the lodge talking about the "good old days" ... Black Prince reels, heron bite alarms, bread punches and the much maligned tackle box that doubled up as a seat. We then moved on to some of our favourite inventions used for carp fishing - the original Mitchell 300, guaranteed to get your line tangled under the spool at just the right moment, the monkey climber that snapped your line when it didn't come flying off the pin during a take and the leads on the first Optonics with a sounder box that seemed to be able to trip you up at every opportunity ...you get the picture.
Night time drew in and we got set for what turned out to be the windiest yet. Woody was first off the mark. At 01.30am his alarms sprang into action then stopped. Simon had said not to ignore the twitches so he hit it and 140 yards of line later saw him rewarded with a beautiful little common, not quite what we expected but hey .... they all count at this time of the year.
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Next up was mine with a rip snorter of a take on my left hand rod. Wellies on and out of trap no.1 like a greyhound, I was leaning into what felt like a hefty lump on the other end. It had picked up a bait from a spot near to where Woody had just had his from. It kited off to my right and I was starting to get a bit paranoid about a hook pull so eased off a bit. Five minutes later and Woody slid the net under a portly looking Mirror to the shouts of "Avit Avit Avit" - at last we had one in the net! We headed off to the tripod and weighed the beauty in at exactly 30lb. |
We took a couple of pictures and slid her back into the murky water, a nice splash of water in the face from her tail and she was gone. Woody and I decided to have a couple of Nelson's in the lodge and then retired wet on both the inside and out! The next day and evening we had a few small commons and mirrors but alas the larger ones were having none of it, so with that we headed back to old Blighty for a bit more of the same.
A few pieces of advice that I would give to prospective anglers at Margot:
a) Use nice big baits, you can get Simons baits delivered directly to the lake through Bridget.
b) Use nice big hooks, don't be afraid of a size 4 or a size 2 for a 24mm bait - these fish have got huge mouths.
c) Choose your spot carefully and don't be shy about heaving the bait in, believe me it won't go to waste they will eat the lot.
d) Don't go in monsoon season!
Enjoy
Terry
terry.seymour@rodenstock.co.uk
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