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I've never been overly enthusiastic about fishing overseas, my own experiences being limited to fishing in Ireland on a few occasions some years ago with a group of close friends (a good excuse for drinking copious amounts of Guinness...). When I got the invite from Ben Woodhouse & Chris Naylor during September 2008 to go to the French venue of Lac Desire (www.carpedor.co.uk), after obtaining permission from the good lady wife, I made plans for a week long excursion with a group of eight lads, who had booked the entire lake on the fishery's 'drive & survive' package - planned for early July 2009. Ten months later, armed with over twenty kilo’s of boiled bait, Ben arrived at my house in his ‘tackle wagon’ at around 3:00pm on the afternoon of Friday 3rd July. Once we’d loaded the car & I’d bid the wife & kids farewell, we met up with Andy Harris & his young son Matt as we headed south to Dover. At the first opportunity, we arranged to meet up with the remaining members of our party at a designated motorway service station, where once we’d exchanged the obligatory handshakes with Chris & ‘Yam’, I was introduced to ‘Tom the chef’ & Nick.









The lads - Me (Neil), Ben, Andy, Chris, Yam, Matt, Nick & Tom

After the long drive to the south coast via the M6, M40 M25 & M20 motorways, we eventually arrived sometime around 10:00pm & we were fortunate to be placed on the earlier ferry at 12:00 am, so we kicked our heels for a while whilst we waited for the ferry to leave port. On arrival at Dunkerque, we began the next arduous two hundred plus mile journey to the venue around forty miles south of Reims, where after many doses of Pro-Plus & Red Bull, we managed to stay alert long enough to guide the four vehicles to the gates of the fishery close to the town of Vitry-le-Francois at sometime around 10:00am. After a quick chat with fishery manager Andy, we sat around in the searing heat for a couple of hours whilst both Andy & Marie prepared the lake & facilities for our arrival. Once the initial introductions had taken place & Marie managed to save us all from certain heat exhaustion with several cool drinks, Andy took us on a guided tour around the lake & filled us in on the latest events at the fishery. The draw for swims duly took place with me in peg 2, Ben chose peg 3, Chris opted to go in peg 4, next to Andy in peg 5. Tom selected peg 6, Nick in peg 7, with Yam & Matt choosing pegs 8 & 11 respectively.

The lake itself is stunningly mature, sixteen acres in size & has a vast array of features including gravel bars, gullies, silt pockets, sandy spots & clay areas. The total of fourteen well thought out swims are all on one side of the lake (by not having swims around the entire periphery of the lake, this ensures that there will not be someone fishing opposite you), where swims 1 – 11 are all located close together making it an ideal social venue & in essence, that is how the fishery has established itself. With a glowing reputation in international circles, the fishery is held in very high regard.

Once the lads had completed the task of setting up in the ever-increasing temperatures, the evening arrived with a welcome barbecue performed by Tom who did us proud, feeding all eight of us in style! Ben, Chris & myself had all opted not to fish the first night & this was not a difficult decision as after having gone thirty-six hours without sleep, I was determined to get a good night’s rest before I ‘got my fishing head on’. 

Around 8:30am the next morning & after a full & uninterrupted night’s sleep, I awoke to another hot & sunny morning, ready to do battle with some of the lakes inhabitants. After some light plumbing of the swim, I opted to fish my favourite ‘flourocarbon chod rigs’ at around 110 yards toward the tree-lined far margin, where there had been many good fish showing throughout the evening of the previous day. With over 20kgs of boiled bait that I’d painstakingly rolled myself, I began to air-dry it as required to deter the Poisson Chat that some of us were having real problems with.

It soon became apparent that the ‘chat’ loved anything fishmeal based & in particular, anything that was presented just off the lakebed! I began to leave some hookbaits in the sun to make them as rock-hard as possible to deter the pesky creatures. During Sunday, the chat continued to give all of us a serious headache, where it seemed that keeping a bait out in the lake for long enough seemed the key to getting takes from the carp. Eventually after the long wait, Chris hooked & landed the first fish of the trip – a double figure fish in the evening that signalled the beginning of a truly awesome week. Once Chris had got into his stride, both him & Andy began to notch up a few captures from their ‘double swim’ & although these fish were all around mid-twenties, it was enough to give the rest of us some much needed confidence. With the weather eventually relenting around Monday, the water temperature had begun to drop quite significantly & although Chris & Andy had continued to keep a steady stream of fish visiting their respective unhooking mats up to low thirties, the remaining anglers were all still to bank a single fish between them. During the small hours of Tuesday morning I weighed & took some pictures of a stunning 33lb common for Ben & by 8:00am I’d managed two takes – managing to lose both due to hook-pulls. Having discussed this with Ben, we concluded that it was possible that the very short hooklink was possibly too short for these fish that weren’t particularly finicky feeders. After calculating the amount of bait I had remaining, I decided to introduce 2kgs of bait to the area I was fishing, twice a day. Once I’d settled into a rhythm of introducing bait into the swim first thing in the morning & again in the evening, the ‘chats’ became less of a problem & I begun to have more confidence that I was doing the right things in order maximise my opportunities within swim No.2. On Wednesday morning, a ‘one-noter’ had me out the bivvy in a rush & after a few heart-stopping moments Ben netted my first fish of the trip at 23lb 8oz.










Ben netted my first fish of the trip...

Upon checking the hookhold, both Ben’s & my suspicions were confirmed – the hook was only very lightly located in the edge of the bottom lip. After a couple of quick pictures & a treatment of Klin-ik, the fish was returned & a new rig change was adopted - taking a leaf out of Ben’s & Chris’s book, I adopted a similar approach to theirs – fishing 3oz leads, 8” hooklinks & a ‘snowman’ arrangement (14mm pop-up & 14mm hardened bottom bait) mounted on blowback rigs with a relatively long hair.

The next day, Marie paid us a visit in the early morning & proceeded to explain to us that Wednesday was normally a good day… she was dead right. During that manic day, both Andy Harris & Chris continued to catch taking several fish over 30lb’s, Nick had a new personal best 25lb 12oz 'grassie', Tom had two fish including a personal best 30lb+ mirror, with around ten fish over the magical thirty pound barrier between us. The rig change I had adopted had an immediate effect when at sometime around 3:00pm, my right-hand Delkim fizzed into life. After the usual arm-aching 10-minute fight Ben peered into the net & said “you’ve done it son, you’ve got a thirty!” As we transferred the big common to the sling, Ben suddenly heard the clutch ‘melting’ on my middle rod & hit it straight away. As I left the common in Andy’s capable hands, I took control of the rod from Ben & played out & landed another big mirror. With the common going 34lb 12oz & the mirror weighing in at 34lb 6oz, I was determined to get some good brace pictures! With the help of all the lads we managed to get some good shots done in the evening sunshine before returning the two wonderful creatures back to their home.

"You've done it son, you've got a thirty!"

The hectic action continued through the day & I even had another thirty of 32lb 4oz in the evening that made the day complete. As we sat around the fire-pit on Wednesday night enjoying a freshly cooked pizza & a bottle of French red, we assessed the events of the week so far. Both Chris & Andy Harris had had fish to over thirty pounds, Tom had beaten his personal best with a fish of 30lb+. I’d also beaten my personal best with a fish of 34lb 12oz. Nick had taken his first ever twenty with a simply stunning 25lb grass carp. Ben was sticking to his ‘big bait’ method & held faith that his method would yield the bigger fish.

The following day I was completely knackered, as Ben had kept waking me up periodically through the early hours of the morning to do netting & photographing duties! After having a little bit of a ‘lie in’, I eventually wound in all three rods sometime around 9:00am, then spread another two kilos of bait around the marker. Once I’d recast the rods I had a take around an hour later which I soon discovered was no carp… Whatever I’d hooked moved very slowly to the left of the swim then stopped. After applying a bit of extra pressure, the fish suddenly decided to move very slowly to the right of the swim, staying tight to the far margin. On a 3½lb test rod & using 12lb monofilament, I had the rod bent virtually right down to the butt, but the fish just kept going! It had passed peg 4 & was heading through peg 5 when the lads frantically scrambled the boat from the other end of the lake. Ben manned the oars while I clambered in, still attached to the slow moving ‘beast’ which began to drag us toward the far margin in front of swim No.5. By the time we’d made it over to where the catfish had decided to sulk, the leader was wrapped round a maze of tree branches & just as I felt I was beginning to gain some line, it decided it didn’t want to hang around & with one kick of the tail I felt the line grate against the branches before everything fell slack. I honestly don’t know who was more relieved – me or the cat!








Ben manned the oars while I clambered in...

To add insult to injury, both Ben & I had got damn painful insect bites for our trouble too! Later that day I hooked & landed a 35lb 8oz mirror (a new personal best) & a stunning 27lb common, which ultimately eclipsed the earlier dramatic ‘cat’ episode!









A stunning 27lb common...

The penultimate day of our trip again yielded a steady rate of fish to Andy’s & Chris’s rods in pegs 4 & 5. Ben had again kept me awake through the night performing weighing & photographing duties with some good twenties & occasional 30lb+ fish. I managed a 20lb mirror, an odd-shaped 27lb mirror, 24lb common, 22lb mirror & another smaller mirror that I didn’t weigh. With that, I’d taken eleven fish in total – biggest 35lb 8oz with the highlight being the brace of thirties. During the afternoon, Andy Harris let out a loud ‘woo-hoo’ & we knew he’d landed something a bit special… At 43lb 12oz, the big brute of a mirror was a fitting end to our week. With just enough time for Andy & Ben to sneak out a fish each on the final morning before we departed, we did a rough calculation of what we’d caught – over eighty fish, with around twenty of them being 30lb+ with the biggest at 43lb+  & we didn’t catch anything for nearly two days! After a trip to the local supermarket, I treated the lads to a bottle of Champagne as a way of saying ‘thank you’ for such a brilliant week.










A fitting end to our week...

For anyone planning to go to Lac Desire in the near future, my advice would be firstly to respect the Poisson Chat. If they’re in front of you & devouring every hookbait you present, it can really test your mental resolve. I actually went unprepared, so in retrospect I should have taken some rock-hard, air-dried baits & either ‘meshed’ them or better still, used ‘bait armour’ (shrink tube). Bait quantity & quality is also very important. The lads using the bait supplied by Five Star Baits caught relatively consistently & I believe their stamp of fish was significantly better too.