Steve Howard

SBS Consultant, Media Officer for Angling Spirit

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In life, we should be grateful for the long-lasting relationships that we forge along the way, but as far as angling friends go, it can add a new dimension to the term, ‘friend’. Friends, of course, drift in and out of our lives, even close ones, and yet angling friends generally remain as close friends even if we rarely see them. Not only is that because of the shared affinity for angling but also because we are often drawn into angling itself because of our deep appreciation for nature and the great outdoors. For me, being by a lake or river, together with good angling friends is something quite special, as we are kindred spirits thriving in an environment that we deeply appreciate, whilst sharing our passion for angling.

It was with a great deal of gratitude on my part when one such close friend, Tom Wright, invited me to fish with him here in France. Of course, I accepted his most generous offer and the fact that he also wanted to place an Xboat (bait boat) and Tolson GPS system at my disposal was completely unexpected and a truly humbling gesture. My one wish is that karma will repay Tom this kindness, as I myself may not be able to!

On arrival at the lake in northern France, I immediately felt comfortable; it was a lovely venue, just as Tom had suggested it was. After setting up camp for the week and being shown the basic settings of the Xboat and Tolson GPS system, I set out to look for features that might produce a carp or two. My mission, however, was to fish in a specific way in the hope of attracting 20kg plus carp.

I decided that the information I had listened to might provide the key to success and by doing something slightly different to every other angler on the venue, it might help me in my quest. It was clear from what others had said that boilies were mostly being avoided by the carp, so what to do then?

The decision that most made was to fish over particles, lots of it, and it would have been easy for me to do the same, of course. However, I decided that I had enough variety in SBS bait to produce a groundbait mix that these fish were extremely unlikely to have ever seen before. I gathered my products together in excited anticipation and worked out my plan.

I had a good amount of SBS premium pellet, groundbait, flumino groundbait and pva bag mix. I also had a selection of dumbbell-shaped 8-10 mm boilies in various flavours and of course a bucket of 10mm M1 boilies which I never go anywhere without! I had a small amount of prepared tiger nuts too, and along with C1, C2, M1 and other SBS boilies ranging from 10 mm – 24 mm, plus wafters and pop ups, I considered that I had everything that I needed to produce a potentially irresistible mix!

Having mastered the controls on the Xboat and logging the gps waypoints of several interesting spots, I set about putting the mix together and, in my estimation, what I had concocted was a veritable carp banquet. Of the fish that I caught, they all came to SBS wafters in M1, Phase1 and Ace Lobworm tipped with either plastic corn or two 10 mm M1 boiles tipped with corn. Basically, I mixed and matched my hookbaits to what was within the mix itself. Oddly, tiger nuts only accounted for one fish, the Grass Carp…. Which instantly prompted me to stop using tigernuts as a hookbait because I wanted to avoid catching grass carp (in preference to other carp) in attempt to be more selective. That worked, and although I did land a couple of smaller carp and a 30 kg sturgeon on a double 10 mm M1, I never caught another grass carp. I never took a photo of the sturgeon as I wanted to put it straight back… They can be fragile creatures at times.

After drawing a nice 48.02lb mirror carp over the cord of the net, it confirmed that my tactics were working, and that the spot I was fishing to with that rod could be productive. Later that same night I was woken from a very deep sleep to the sound of my ATT alarm in meltdown!

I picked up the rod still unsteady on my feet from the shock of being woken from such a slumber and I soon had the situation (and the fish) back under control. I was concerned that this fish, no doubt a very big carp, had gone over the top of a mussel-laden bar when it tore off with my hookbait. Unfortunately, this was to be confirmed when the fish neared the bank and net, when the line parted! On close inspection, the line had been badly frayed by the mussels and it was very unlikely that I could have landed this carp no matter what I did.
Feeling dejected but not defeated I pressed on and landed a lovely common carp of 36.08lb in the early hours of the very last morning.

It had been an extremely tough but rewarding week where the pleasure of the great company of good friends was perhaps more important than the fishing itself, just as it should be, but make no mistake here, we had put everything into our angling, just as we do with our friendships.

Until next time, be lucky and take care.

Steve