Articles: Maison Du Lac Bleu - Where Dreams Can Come True - By Steve Milner
Saturday 29th September 2007 we got to Maison and drew swim numbers out of the hat. I pulled out 9th and there were two swims I was looking at on lake Joly. They
where no mans and a peg just along the track from the restaurant by the hopper. No mans was taken so this left me the hopper swim along the track.
Prior to the draw I had taken a look at the hopper swim and seen fish moving around at about 70 yards from the bank and 30 yards from the island.
Having got all my gear together Nick dropped me off at my swim. Taking my time to set my gear up as I was there for the week and there was no rush to put a line in
the water so i set my bivvy up and got all my gear out so it was all at hand so the bivvy set up and all my gear in there what i may need. I set my spod rod and my
marker rod up. Setting my rods up and having a look at the hook links that were on them I decided to make some new ones. Having had a lot of success with the Korda
hybrid coated braid I made some hook-links up with this for the first rod. Second rod was made up with Sufix kameleon and the third rod was made up with Sufix camo
skin.
The hopper was on my left hand side at about 35 yards this is where bait is sprayed out in the winter to feed the carp so it’s a good spot to put bait as the carp
will visit that spot a lot. I spodded out about 5/6 kg of mixed particles with about 50 boilies.
Second rod was put out at about 75 yards where I had seen fish moving and using Korda funnel web i made some sticks up about 4 ins long with very fine chopped
boilies almost like a powder packed tight and pulled down the hooklink, so there was no hook showing . With 60 free offering around it.
Third rod was put just about 30 yards from the island with just a pocket bait chopped boilie in funnel web. All 3 rods were now in position. The evening came round
and the lake was flat calm. About 8.00pm there were a number of bleeps from the middle rod, whilst I was chatting with two just close by. Then it turned into a full
blown run, I hit the rod and felt the resistance of the fish kiting to my left. The only fear I had was that the fish was heading to the hopper where there is a rope
or chain holding it down, so I put side strain on the fish to see if this would pull him away. He was having none of this and I felt grating on the line. Putting
more side strain on the fish I got him away from the snag. Ten minutes later I netted him. At 42lbs I was made up. I put my bait back in the same spot, and
attempted to sleep as the journey had been long. Around 1.30am 2 bleeps and the rod jumped, I came out of the bivvy and seeing a little bobbin movement I struck.
This fish was not doing much it was dead weight, slowly moving down the lake. It was like trying to bring in a sack of weed on the line. After 25 minutes it was in
the net, on the scales at 52lbs 3oz now I was over the moon and a new PB. I didn’t get much sleep with having more bleeps on my rods over the rest of the night.
Monday day time was slow there was no sign of fish in front of me. The evening soon come round and about 11.30 there was a number of bleeps on my centre rod then
nothing so it was time to get some sleep. At 1.30 a slow take on the centre rod jumping out my bed and hitting the rod it was a fish on holding bottom it was
fighting hard after about 25 minutes the fish was in the net on the scales at 45lbs I was made up . The rest of the week was slow for me I lost one fish due to a
snag out in front of me what turned out to be fishing line round about 25lbs it was more like sea fishing line. So having got that out my swim I was now free from
snags. I had one more run through the week what turned out to be a crayfish hooked on my hooklink and the only thing that it might have been was a carp had taken
the crayfish while feeding on my baits as they are a natural food for them.
It was a good weeks fishing and meeting new friends out there that made up the weeks fishing. Thanks to all of them that were on the trip.
Thanks to Nick, Cindy and Sam food was great and weather was good too.
Thanks to Ashford Tackle for there part in the trip
