When David Keep phoned me to ask if I could spend a couple of days test fishing a new venue called Claudette, I was more than pleased to oblige. David gave me a brief overview of the venue being a 7acre gravel/sand pit set in the French countryside just a few miles from Croan. He told me that the venue was very wild and natural and not your usual manicured lawns etc that you get at most venues in France these days, and that it was up to 40 feet deep and contained a good head of carp and possibly some catfish.
So on Saturday afternoon with the sun blazing down at an amazing 28 degrees I set about loading the car with all the gear necessary for a 48 hour session. As I had very little idea of what I was about to encounter from a fishing perspective, I packed lots of different baits, pellets, maize and of course the bait boat with echo sounder.

On arrival at the venue I opened the gate and proceeded down the sloping drive way to get my first glimpse of the lake, Well David was right, this place certainly was different. The lake is gin clear, and the far bank is a sheer drop of 40ft straight down to the far margins, now I know why he said you can’t fish from the opposite bank , but only from the 4 designated swims on the nearside. So I parked the car up, and decided to walk along the bank to look at the available swims.

Swim 1 is cut out of the side of the bank, and whilst compact affords ample room to fish the right hand end of the lake, Swim 2 is 40 yards further on and is a little bit bigger than swim 1, with access to the centre of the lake and a bay on the opposite side. It is possible to park your car right behind the first two swims so provides easy access for unloading and setting up. Access to swim’s 3 and 4 is via a pathway round towards the far end of the lake, and you need a carp porter to carry your gear round to these swims. These far two swims are close together but both are adequate in size and offer plenty of water and features to fish too. One feature of all the swims is that for 20 feet or so out from the edge it is covered in dense weed down to a depth of 12 feet, so this is going to test your angling skills to the limit landing fish safely.

As I only had two days here, I decided to start off in swim 1 for the first 24 hours, and then move along to swim 2 the next day, so that I could at least cover and experience fifty percent of the lake. So out came all the gear into swim 1, but before I started I had already spotted a few likely places. To the right at the end of the lake is a fallen down tree that looked as though the fish could be using as holding area. The opposite far margin is lined with overhanging trees and bull rushes. So out came the baitboat with its echo sounder and this was duly sent off on a mission across the lake. Well the first thing you notice is that the water very quickly drops away down to a flat bottom at 19 feet, and then as you approach the fallen tree it rises slowly up to 6 feet. Taking the boat along the far margins showed that the levels plateau out at about 12 feet.
So I had the plan. The first rod would go to the fallen tree area using the Source boillies over a bed of pellets. The second rod would go straight across to the far margin using popped artificial maize over a bed of real maize. The third rod would go into open water where the bottom starts to shelve up towards the far margin in 20 feet of water using just a critically balanced Mainline pineapple boillie, and a scattering of free offerings put out with a throwing stick.

Once all the rods were out in the desired spots, I set about setting up the bivvy for the night. Well, then came my next reminder of how wild it was. The bivvy pegs were very difficult to get into the hard stoney ground as I only had a rubber mallet. I would recommend everyone to bring a proper hammer with them to get you pegs well into the ground. So this finally done I settled down on the chair overlooking the lake with a deserved cuppa.

At 5 pm I had my first screamer from the fallen tree rod, which as soon as I hit it the fish made a concerted effort to snag me up on the submerged branches, but eventually I managed to get it into open water. Then my troubles really started as when it got close to the bank it dived straight down into the thick deep weed, and each time you thought you had got it moving again, it would lock up solid straight away. Eventually I managed to get the fish to the surface and was surprised that as it was only a small 16lb mirror carp, that had really put up a great fight worthy of a much larger fish.

Thereafter I had a run approximately every 3 hours, each rod producing fish and each one doing its best to get off the hook in the deep weed. Overnight the temperature plummeted down to a cool 6 degrees and I awake to see the lake shrouded in a thick mist, which meant it was going to be another blistering hot day. By 10 am I had managed to bank 5 mirrors in total from 16lbs up to 23lbs 4oz. I had also managed to lose 2 fish in the weeds overnight as well. So whilst nothing big at least I had plenty of action.

At 11am , after a quick visit to the mobile home , I made the move into swim 2, carrying all my gear along the bank, and set about getting the baitboat out to see what features were in front of me. Well the lake is 25 feet deep in front of swim 2 , with accompanying weed bed of course, and shelves up to 18 feet in the far margins, but remains at 23 feet in the opposite bay. So I set up the rods/baits the same as I had for swim 1, so that I could compare results.

Well the action started at 1pm with a nice 22lb mirror from the right hand rod, and followed the same basic routine of a good fight in open water and then a battle with the weed bed before safely landing the fish. This was then followed by the biggest fish of the session a 29lb 10oz mirror from the centre rod, but this time after getting the fish out of the weeds it snagged up in a small tree growing out of the water to the right of swim 2. It took 10 minutes of effort before I got the fish out of the snag and onto the bank. I thought this is a nice looking fish to photograph, so I set up the tripod and camera and was just about getting ready to take the pictures when the left hand rod screamed off. I had no option but to return my biggest prize straight back to the water and hit the screaming run going off in my ear. This turned out to be the smallest fish of the session, a 14lb mirror. Overnight the temperature plummeted again and I only had 3 more runs resulting in two more fish of 19lbs and 15lb 12ozs landed, and losing another to the weed bed.

The next day passed quietly with no further runs so at 3 pm I packed up and made my way home.
So if you like your fishing to be a bit more wild than normal lakes in France ,don’t need all the creature comforts, are prepared to work at it, and can cope with the ruggedness, the expanse and depths of the water and not forgetting the weed beds then I would recommend Claudette to you. I certainly want to go back and try out swims 3 & 4 and see what depths and challenges these swims have to offer, and of course to try and catch some of the 40lb+ carp in the lake.

Geoff Howard