World Carp Classic - Official Global Website
Lake Bolsena 2nd - 8th September 2012

Back in that cold snowy winter of 2010, I was offered 3 weeks fishing at Rainbow Lake in Bordeaux France by a good friend of mine Kevin Gardner from Norfolk. Kevin has had many trips there over the last 5 years and with that in mind and he is a chef and we were using his van how could I refuse. The following is a brief account of a 1 week trip there during the first week of June.

We caught the 5.10am train (bloody Early) to Calais, van fully loaded I found myself full of excitement and anticipation. Train doors opening and we were on our way. A 10 hour drive lay ahead of us, so we shared the driving and Kevin was constantly bombarded with questions. We arrived at Rainbow a day early, arriving around 9pm so we had a bite to eat and set our bed chairs up in the lodge. Saturday morning after a shower we had a 2 mile walk around the lake looking at every swim, Oh My God what a lake. I have never seen snags, open water, bays etc, etc like it. We had swim 21 booked for us, this swim is a spit of land surrounded by water. There is a small treacherous walkway to it but all gear had to be transported by boat. With 4 rods each Kevin had his rods to the side of the swim into various islands and I was fishing off what they call the boards with rods at distances of 250 metres into a snaggy wooded area. All rods had to be boated out, the snag area at the far end of my swim could only be described as the Florida swamps.

It only needed a few Aligators and I could have been in the Everglades!

We were using kebab style rigs, a combination of Gulp tuna spice and Gulp squid and liver boilies, accompanied with gulp tiger nut and fluro pop-ups. This was then combined with a 10oz gripper lead ( a further 6 oz) gripper was added when the wind picked up as it caught the main braid line (floating) and would shift the original 10oz lead. These were lowered into areas that Kevin advised me on and finalized using a fish finder. We used a bottle to lift the rig and braid up direct back to the rod set up (high) the bottle also located your position. With both our traps set and a lovely dinner made by Kevin for the evening the wait was on.

The first fish came at 8.00am on Sunday morning for Kevin a mid-30lb mirror. The rods are locked up so indication is via alarm and banging on the rod tip (extreme banging) The butt of the rods were locked down with clamps as many rods have been taken in at Rainbow. I followed this at 11am with the furthest snag rod a lovely 32lb common. First fish each under our belts I was feeling a lot more confident on this style of fishing so let battle commence.

The weather during the week was all over the place, red hot for the first day 24hours of rain on another day and two storms during the week.  At the end of what seemed such a quick week we ended up with 32 runs and 19 fish landed, as I said this is extreme fishing. Two main highlights of the week, Kevin had a 72lb 8oz mirror (an amazing mirror) and I beat my PB common with a 51lb 10oz. I can’t wait to

get back in 4 weeks-time and back to swim 21, but for two weeks this time.

72lb 08oz Mirror for Kevin

51lb 10oz Common for me!

I have attached a couple of pictures to show the extremity of the lake, a picture of Kevin with his 72lb 08ox Mirror and one of me with my 51lb 10oz Common. Also my new buddy for the week coypu attached with a write up below and the damage that he caused.

My new mate Bert!

These little fellas or maybe lasses lived in our swim at night. Coming and going as they pleased as many as 10 were there one night. Making themselves at home in particular my bivvy!!!!!!!! But on the Wednesday @ 4.00am pitched black and pouring with rain my right hand rod to one of the snags went into action. I walked to my rod to connect with the fish and wound down making my way to my boat at the same time putting my life jacket on. As I got into the boat which had to be pushed around various snags in my swim the largest coypu of them all (we named him Bert) was in the boat, one hand on the outboard the other trying to control the rod I could only shout at him to leave. But Oh No!, he wasn’t going. He thought he would try and find the actor within himself and re-enacted the scene from titanic at the front of my boat. After we had travelled towards my fish at around 50metres and after he had had a casual wash he finally got out and left me. God Bless Bert!!!!!!

Below is an example of Bert's handy work!