Changing of the Season

October For Many Anglers Is Regarded As The Best Month Of The Year

The oppressive heat of the summer is thankfully behind us and it is some time (hopefully) before the really cold period begins bringing the miserable high pressure systems that sit over us killing sport for weeks. Barbel feed hungrily and those leaves left on the trees after the drought are not yet falling in heavy numbers and fouling our lines. Carp will move into deeper water and the best of the predator season is ahead of us. Autumn is also a great time to target roach and chub. With so many options open it is only the trout anglers who feel hard done by as there is no grayling season over here as there is in the UK. Trout anglers won’t be able to cast a line until March next year.

By Clive Kenyon

Chub are also a traditional autumn species and the middle reaches of the Charente and also the less well known Boutonne are known for their specimens.

The largest lake in our region is Lac de Vassivière and it is renowned for its predator fishing

Traditionally October brings the ‘second spring’ to our region when the long summer drought is brought to an end by seasonal rain causing the grass to green up and the shrunken rivers and lakes to swell. That of course has been subject to change and in the last five or six years the awaited rains didn’t arrive in October, but we had some heavy showers throughout the summer months.

For barbel anglers the choice of rivers holding these fish is very good; the Vienne river system including the Gartempe, Creuse, and Clain provide many opportunities for barbel fishing and further south the Charente holds stocks of barbel. If you are picking this magazine up on your way down to the Dordogne, Lot, or Aveyron departments, then both of those rivers hold barbel and to a quite good size too in the lower reaches.

If carp angling is your preferred option then the lower reaches of most of those rivers listed above also hold carp. They can even be found right up in the trout zone, but at a much smaller average size. There is a growing interest from the UK travelling carp anglers in the rivers Dordogne and Lot as a change from the heavily stocked monster carp still water venues that have sprung up all over France. If truth were known most of the large rivers and public lakes of our region will hold large and many of these will be truly wild fish that have never been landed. It is just a case of finding them.

Roach too will provide sport in the cooler months and there are some healthy specimens to be had in the River Charente around the Ruffec area and downstream into the Charente-Maritime Department. They are also found in the lakes of our region, especially the larger and deeper ones. Lac du Mas Chaban near to Massignac holds plenty of roach and bream and normally Lac de Saint-Pardoux would also be a venue worth exploring except that this year the lake will be partially drained for the facilitation of repairs and not reopen until Spring. The largest lake in our region is Lac de Vassivière and it is renowned for its predator fishing. Predators need feeding and therefore it comes as no surprise that the lake is also home to vast shoals of roach and bream, some of the former reaching specimen size. The lake is situated high up on the Haute-Vienne / Creuse border around 60 km east of Limoges and about the same distance south of Guéret. If you are daunted by where to start on a 10,000 hectare lake then head either for the lee bank assuming a warm wind or if not for Châteaucourt off the D43 on the south bank which is recommended by the tourist office guide as a good place to fish. But take your coat. The lake is situated at 800 metres above sea level and has its own microclimate which is several degrees colder than anywhere else in the region.

Sowing the Seeds

Sweetcorn and maize baits seem to have been around forever. But it was only as a series of accidents that the bait became so legendary. Back in the early 1970s at Redmire Pool, previously made famous by Richard Walker’s record capture of a 44lb carp, Chris Yates decided to use some sweetcorn left over from his dinner as bait after being frustrated by a lack of bites on conventional baits. It resulted in carp being caught from the outset. Unknown to him, other syndicate members of the same pool had already secretly begun to use sweetcorn and maize on Jack Hilton’s suggestion owing to him hearing of some American anglers achieving success with corn baits. Sweetcorn and maize became staple baits at Redmire leading to Yate’s eventual capture of a 50lb carp using sweetcorn, and as a result became part of the carp fishing legend. Since then there have been many captures of 50lb+ carp on the golden grains including repeat captures of the then British record carp by anglers using imitation maize on their hair rigs.

Chris Yates' partner at Redmire was Rod Hutchinson and it is to him that we owe much of what we know about using particle baits for carp. The mixture of seeds used in particle baiting can be confusing to say the least and many anglers favour a ready-made blend of seeds and grains commonly sold as ‘pigeon conditioner.’ A similar product is readily available at garden centres and bricos over here in France. The purpose of the bird seed mixes, when properly prepared by soaking and boiling, is to keep the carp preoccupied sifting through the smaller offerings until it comes across a better quality morsel which of course is your hook bait. Maize is ideal as that hook bait as it is tough enough to withstand the attentions of smaller fish when mounted two or three on a hair rig and it is very attractive to carp. I have witnessed carp beaching themselves to get to raw maize grains spilled from a duck feeder. Another factoid about maize is that it probably led to two other important tactics used by anglers today; the bolt rig and method feeding. South African anglers fishing some of the large dams developed the self-hooking rig, now universally known as the bolt rig, due to their having to cast long distances to reach feeding carp and the rods and lines of the day not being powerful enough to be able to strike into the fish with such lengths of stretchy monofilament line out. The same anglers would mould ground and boiled maize around their lead weights and used maize grains as hook baits. Ground maize becomes sticky if simmered in a small amount of water as the starches are released and will cling to a lead weight or spiral feeder until it dissolves in the lake water. This sticky maize porridge type mix was the forerunner of what we now know as the method mix.

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