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

At Carp Italy in February this year, I met with our Italian team of test anglers and the Italian JRC brand manager Sabino Civita. This year, two anglers from our Italian team are competing in the WCC at Lac de Madine. As they had never fished the magnificent lake before and I had already participated s

everal times, fishing there frequently over several years, they fired away hundreds of questions about the fishing style and techniques being used.

As we all know, practise is the best teacher so I invited them for a mutual session at the beginning of

May, on the official night fishing zone on the big island “Ile du Bois Gerard”. My good friend Jean Noel Muel prepared the spots weeks in advance with several kilos of Squid & Liver boilies from Berkley Gulp! Carp.

The week we chose to fish arrived faster than expected and different telephone calls between Sabino and myself were made in the weeks prior and we decided to meet up at the “chalet des pecheurs” on Saturday morning the 7th of May.

The Italians, Filippo Modgrandi and Andrea Campanini, who would participate in the WCC in September came with Riccardo Braga who would fish with me and also Sabino, who joined us for this session as our Italian Chef. I looked forward to spending a week on an island with 4 Italians, but not speaking a single word of Italian and their English being not so good, was promising to say the least. But this is definitely the way to learn a language, after a week on the bank I could make myself clear in Italian. Certainly, in fishing language, not to mention the swear words, I learned a lot that week.

My Italian friends planned of arriving on Friday and to stay the night on the nearby campsite,meanwhile, I left home at 5 o’clock Saturday morning to be there at around 9, with the car stuffed full the previous evening.  Just one hour underway and, suddenly, in front of me a car towing a caravan decided to wander off, sliding sideways over the highway totally blocking the complete road. Luckily nobody got injured and with the help of a 4x4 the caravan was removed from the highway, completely ruined, end of the holiday for those people.

About 2 hours from home, white smoke and fumes came out from under the bonnet of my Defender and there I stood, 200 km from my destination with an overheated engine. I called Landrover assistance and one hour later the towing service came to tow the car. No problem sir, the guy from the towing service said, a replacement car is provided in your contract... A nice Ford Fiesta. Perfect for the missus shopping for groceries, but never ever would I get all of my tackle and bait in that car, let alone the inflatable boat.

After some discussions on the phone with the leasing company, they said that they could get me a somewhat bigger car so I could reload all my fishing gear. After losing almost 4 hours, I could finally take on the rest of my trip, having some very impatient Italians waiting... or not, as they had already been taken over to the island peg.

Upon arrival I was in such a hurry - unloading the gear, inflating the boat, attaching it to the Alain’s

boat, who would take me to the island - that I slipped in the water as the trailer ledge was very slippery with all the algae. This was really not my day, “Murphy’s law” strikes again.

When I finally arrived on the Island the Italians were already putting up camp. As it was a very sunny and hot day, I opened a few beers to salute a hopefully great week. Setting up camp didn’t take very long and very soon I was on the water checking out the zone in front of us, and with several nice spots found and, already, with some fish seen rolling over the pre-baited area, my confidence was very high.

Riccardo was very eager to position his rods, so we jumped in the boat together and went out placing his four rods in different depths up to 200meters out. After setting up all the traps we were treated with a nice Italian dish prepared by chef Sabino. We opened a nice bottle of Italian red wine and that really did the trick for me, and I was soon off to bed after an exhausting day.

I did not sleep very long, though, as the first fish woke me at about 2o’clock and even before I dragged myself out of bed Riccardo was already sitting in the boat, powered with adrenaline. He could not stop talking about the fantastic

surroundings and nature this wonderful Madine has to offer and, to say the least, all four of the Italians have a big

crush for this lake now.  After a short fight, I dragged a nice mirror of 17.5 kg over the cord of my landing net. Not bad for a first fish.

We positioned the rod again and went back to bed. We agreed that we would share the fish, so it was Ricky’s turn now. At 4 o’clock we had another run on the same rod, and still awake I was very quickly by the rod shouting Riccardo - who was not showing any signs of life.  I woke up the nearby village, I think, with my shouting, but could not wake Riccardo. So, I went out in the boat myself and after struggling with the weed a few times I finally landed a 22kg beast, again a beautiful mirror. I would sign up for a session start like this every time!

Over the moon with this fish, and it being already somewhat light, I stayed up to enjoy the sunrise with some strong Italian coffee and a cigarette, waiting for the others to wake up and take some pictures. I walked over to Filippo and Andrea, who were 100meters away but next to us, and they were also still fast asleep but in the early morning light I could see two sacks placed in the clear water in front of them.  The first night and four fish, a good start I would say.

After the photo session, Filippo and Andrea each caught a fish below the 20kg mark, we placed the rods back out and enjoyed the sun. At 1 o’clock noon my rod came alive, again the same one at 200 meters out on the bottom of a ledge where the bottom was somewhat harder than the surrounded area. Now that Riccardo wasn’t sleeping he took the rod and jumped in the boat, we rowed out towards the fish, which did not show a lot of movement. As he felt no more resistance there were two possibilities; the fish had buried itself in the weed or this was a tench. We had caught a few of those already.

We got above the fish and it was laying there, dead calm in the weed, and looking at its back it was definitely not a tench. Rowing a bit further in the opposite direction the fish came away from the weed towing us towards open water, not fast but more like a freight train, unstoppable. After a very good fight, I lifted the net around her to take a look at her full beauty; this was a huge fish, definitely bigger than the 22 kg I caught last night.  After weighing her at 25.2kg, Riccardo jumped around full of excitement, he had broken his personal best with his first ever fish from Madine, his week was already more than successful.

After an excellent dinner - I would love to live in Italia, for the food alone - we positioned all rods again and at 4.30 in the morning I got a screaming run on my left hand rod and landed a 21,5kg mirror. That made it four carp with three of them over 20kg, not bad in 24 hours fishing.

As we were getting a lot of Catfish in the swim, we swapped some rods over from boilies to tigernuts, hoping that they would leave them alone. Every year more and more cats are caught at Madine, we caught 40 to 50 cats up to 1.40m that week, making it a real problem. Something should be done to tackle the problem of the excessive numbers of catfish in this lake.

We caught nothing on Monday during the day and when night fell the Cats became active again,catching them on all 8 rods. When repositioning all my rods with tigers, I could get no more takes at all. I think the cats scared off the carp and had cleaned all my baited spots completely.

At 4 o’clock in the morning one of Riccardo’s rods came to life for the first time, bringing him a very nice 19kg mirror. At 7 o’clock it was my turn again with a 21.5 kg mirror. After the photo session, we had breakfast and went for a rest as the night had been a very short one again… Riccardo could not sleep inside of the bivvy, which was more like a sauna, and came up with a great idea – or so he thought at the time - placing his bedchair under the shadow of a tree. He took a very long “siesta” but when he woke up he had red dots everywhere, he was attacked by a thousand mosquitoes.

At 10PM one of my rods ripped off and we landed another 20+ carp, a 22kg mirror. The average weight at Madine is simply amazing.

I landed a smaller carp of 12kg at 11.30AM, and half an hour later Riccardo landed a 14kg. It was the same story in daylight hours for the next few days, no fish activity anymore due to the heat and the lack of wind. Strangely enough, the night did not bring us any fish except some cats, which made us decide, after one cat on each rod, to keep our rods out of the water and stop baiting up.  The cats would keep patrolling the area when there was still bait left so we silently hoped by not baiting anymore they would disappear from the radar.

Thursday daytime and again it was too hot with no wind, and that resulted in no fish at all. Same forour neighbours, who were one fish behind us in our small competition. At 10pm one of Riccardo’s alarms bleeped a few times and after 24 hours of no activity we were eager to catch another one.  In no time we were above the fish and Riccardo landed a 23kg mirror.

At 4 o’clock in the morning the same rod took off and now it was my turn again, a 17kg mirror was embraced by my landing net. The weather was changing a bit; it was still very hot but the wind picked up from the south. At 11.30 one of my rods took off, resulting in a 14kg mirror. Strangely enough, neither we nor our neighbours had caught a common carp, and there are a lot of commons in Madine. They are definitely more difficult to catch. However, on Friday night at 2AM we caught the first common, not a big one at just 11kg but a very welcome one. At 4.30 we caught another mirror at 20.5kg.

On the last night, at 21.30, Riccardo’s furthest left rod started to move which resulted in a 13kg mirror, as the other rods did not produced any more bites we quickly placed this one back and a few hours later Riccardo landed a very beautiful linear of 17kg. Tired as we were, we still found some energy to position the rod again, then, two hours later that same rod came to life again and I landed a magnificent common of 17,6kg, a very nice present to close off this wonderful session. Together, with Filippo and Andrea, we had caught 31 carp that week, 10 of them over 20kg and one over 25kg. With an average weight of 18kg, Madine is truly amazing.

My Italian friends had enjoyed the session of their lives and will return for the WCC in September with lots of confidence. For me, Lac de Madine is a fantastic lake, with beautiful nature, and an immense population of big fish and, for that, this lake is without doubt one of my favourite venues of all time.

Tight Lines, Jan Mertens