Carpworld Article - Catch Report 2006

During April the weather was colder and wetter than we have seen in France for some years for April, but despite the cold start, Paul Ivison from Middlesbrough still got amongst the fish, taking 30 carp. Almost  all of Paul’s fish  were upper 20s to the mid 30s mark. Other notable catches for April were from Paul Breyham from Kent. He took 32 fish from 20lb to the mid 40s in 4 days, then gave up the hot peg to best mate Jem Heys, who went on to bag a further 22 fish from the peg from 20lb to 38lb in the last few days.

bivvied on the Saone May saw a vast improvement in the weather and true to previous form the Bley came on song with Don Spence from Luton amongst the top anglers and taking some of the lakes bigger fish. None of his 20 fish were under 30lb and he took strings of upper 40s to just over 50lb.Also in May Dave Bell Chambers from Middlesex in a party of 6 others on the lake, took more than 120 fish between them. Their catch included 62 x 20s to 29lb, 48 x 30s to 39lb, 11 x 40s to 49lb and 2 x 50s to54lb. Gary Owen in the party weighed his 20 carp for a total of 719lb. The fish continued to feed well during most of June with Arron Curtis from Solar Tackle amongst the top anglers, taking stacks of carp from 20lb to the mid 40s.

bivvied on the SaoneOther notable catches for the month came from Graham Hares from Kent who almost lost count of his numerous 40s, and that’s not surprising as during his all action week he banked 4 different 40s to 48lb in less than an hour at one point.
His fishing partner, and son Joe, who is only ten years of age is our top junior angler this year, not only on the Bley for his strings of fish to 50lb, but earlier in the year he cat fished our new Etang Niroux and banked 10 cats from 40lb to just under the 60lb mark. Joe is also our top 2006 junior angler on  Etang Niroux . Well done Joe, can’t wait to see him fish in a few years time, and I can’t believe he’s only ten.

In what was probably one of the hottest weeks for July, Mistral baits carp ace Craig Waddington kept “his” cool, and was amongst the top anglers for the month with 35 fish. He was fishing with Mistrals Rosehip Isotonic, which has been the top bait on the lake this year. During August Chip Capponi from Letchworth took 44 fish from 20lb to the mid 40s. He was fishing with his wife Cath who was carp fishing for the very first time, and Cath banked several of her own carp to 38lb using only one rod.
Mel Cox from Essex was top angler for August with 45 fish from 20lb to 47lb, along with Tony Savill who fished in the same peg. Tony also bagged up with more than 30 fish of similar weights. We have recorded this as a notable catch for August as the pair only fished during the daytime, choosing to get their “ beauty sleep” at nights.

bivvied on the SaoneSeptember saw Eddie Holmes from Boston taking some of the months better bags of fish with 39 fish from 20lb to 46lb, with a good many of his fish over the 35lb mark. The season finished in October with Graham Hares from Kent, making his second visit to the Bley this year. During this weeks visit he got straight onto the fish once again. He finished top rod for 2006 with his impressive catch of 65 carp from 20lb to 50lb in six day’s, with 40 of his fish between 30lb and 40lb. Six of his other fish were mid to upper 40s. The actual tally for Graham’s 3 “hot rods” was 74, but during his short trips to see his other teenage sons on adjacent pegs, son Joe, sharing the same peg, landed the other 9, one of which was a 50lb mirror. “Sorry dad”.

We think Graham did remarkably well, as he cooked 3 meals each day for his 3 children and spent countless hours most days landing fish and taking photo grafts for them. Well done Graham, top rod and top dad.
The last carper that we have time to mention is another regular to the Bley, this time from Essex, Nigel Monk. Nigel has banked over100 carp in his 3 visits to the venue this year, showing that whatever the time of year and conditions, he and the venue remain very consistent. Nigel’s impressive list includes of more than 50 of his fish being in the mid to upper 30s, with at least 16 of those being mid to upper 40s.

bivvied on the SaoneThere have been many anglers who have caught stacks off fish this year on the Moulin du Bley, and we are sorry that we can not mention them all by name, as the catch report would read like war and peace.

Finishing off the catch report so as to try to give an overall picture of the carp catches, we report that on an average week, 6 to 8 anglers banked between 100 and 160 fish each week, with the exception of 2 slightly quieter weeks. As for the sizes, with the exception of the odd fish of about 1 in every 100 banked, all of the carp were over 20lb.The average weight for the carp landed was 34lb overall for the year.

 There were no weeks when 40s didn’t grace the banks. This year’s biggest common was 47lb and the biggest mirror was 54lb.