| Justin, runners, club 18-30 party games… and the mighty Lac d’Orient |
 |
 |
| Written by pam | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Thursday, 26 February 2009 12:33 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Strange title for an article? Well, maybe, but the 2006 World Carp Classic, held at the Lac d’Orient from the 9th-16th September 2006, had it all. Read on… Hooked The World Carp Classic has been running in France now since 1998, first held at Lac Madine, near Metz (Champagne region of France) for individual anglers. I was privileged to be part of that match, and had my first dealings with Ross Honey, "the organiser". Another two matches were held at Madine (the last two becoming pairs matches, which became the format for all subsequent classics).The ensuing years saw the classic move from Madine to a venue not far from Lac d’Orient, Lac Amance, situated in Troyes. During this time the organisation had become much more streamlined, Rob Hughes having taken an active part in the second Classic at Madine. Well, one lost hooked carp in 1998, and one carp landed in 1999 (36lb mirror carp, with partner Mike Bevan, which resulted in our winning the section on the second match) being the sum total from all three Madine matches, the move to Amance gripped my enthusiasm, with the lure of uncharted bank space, uncaught monsters and the introduction of Sparsholt College graduates, who marshalled the events superbly. The pegging was now being undertaken by Mitch Smith and, because of his size, I’d better say expertly (it was – I must admit, being taken to our swim by speedboat with all our tackle and finding a lovely picnic area with benches, somewhat rose-tinted my perspective). Needless to say, some pegs were more attractive, albeit aesthetically, than others. Alas, neither my partners (Rob Marsh and Paul Rayment respectively in the two matches I fished at Amance) nor I were to see carp in the lake at all, let alone manage a take, and although Paul and I won our section by a draw (lack of captures) I decided to miss the last Amance match, held in 2005. “Watch this space, we will be making a press announcement soon,” was to become Ross Honey’s catchphrase, you know, like ‘shut that door’, or ‘good game, good game’. How many times did I have my fishing brain enticed, seduced, by those words? Always with the same sinking feeling having once been hooked and landed by Ross! The promise of the juicy fishing, the awesome venue with record-breaking captures, hooked me every time, wafting like a pop-up in front of my eyes, only for it to turn out to be a destination not quite living up to the promise of all things grand.
Watch This Space I watched this space, I heard the announcement, “Classic moving to Lac d’Orient.” Oh my goodness, a match on the Orient! Andy Chambers had managed an awesome catch of carp from the Orient a week or two before the Amance match in 2004, his session had seen 50s, 60s and even two 70s if I remember correctly, it was the talk of the carp fishing fraternity and was widely reported with fantastic pictures of his fish. I was awestruck. Ross Honey’s promises of world records and uncharted bank space had me hooked again, I couldn’t eject his bait, I was hooked good and proper, his rig was unbeatable – he had me. Well, he hooked me, and he hooked many others, the Orient match was the talk of all my acquaintances, anyone who was anyone (or who thought they were someone), was eating the freebies and getting landed by Ross. The take-up was phenomenal. The original allocation of 130 pairs soon became 150, and then 160; a huge gathering of international carp anglers, with maybe half the field from the U.K., a staggering 320 anglers using three rods each; 960 rods, a kilo of bait on each rod on the first drop by boat would see a ton of bait placed in the Orient in the first hour of a five-night match – awesome. The Orient is a 6,500-acre lake, the water level at this time of year would be down by approximately 15ft, the mud would be feet deep if it was raining, boat trips with tackle from access points would take an hour a trip for some, numerous trips would have to be made with the amount of tackle required. The banks being fished from were virgin with car parking two miles from some swims. Oh lovely! The Preparation Ring ring, ring ring, ring ring… September 9th The Departure. Oh, how excited was I? Kev and Murray (our ‘runner’) picked me up from my house in Dartford on the Saturday morning at 6 o’clock. All our gear had been loaded onto the Merc Sprinter (I would have said Transit, but Kev thought we sounded like pikeys) the night before, all I needed to take now was my clothes bag, and my passport in my pocket. The ferry crossing was for 9.30 a.m. and we had arranged to meet Martin Ford, Rob Marsh, Lee Merritt, Simeon Bond, Lee Jackson, and Gary Peet at a café in Dover for breakfast; Tim and John were to meet us at the port to give us our tickets. Dover is not the prettiest of places on the best of days and at 7.30 a.m. it was dreary and the breakfast was awful, the full English breakfast is becoming a dying art methinks and the café owners…but hey, WHO CARES, we’re off to the ORIENT. Yeehhaaaaahhhhh! The ferry was a laugh; Andy Chambers and his partner Mick were suitably grilled on the decks on the crossing. What distance do you fish, Andy? What rigs? What line? Do you land from the bank? What colour underwear do you wear? No wonder Andy was spending his euros in the bar; always smiling though was Andy, a nice guy. The crossing time was a popular one, and many faces appeared once we’d set off; Perrin and Brazier, Shoes and Mark Hutchinson, all paired for the match and all with the uniform expectant smiley faces that we shared. Ho Hum.
The Arrival Once we’d cleared customs and lined up in convoy in Calais, we were on our way. We stopped once or twice and after a four-hour uneventful drive we arrived in Troyes, home of Foret d’Orient at about 4.00 p.m. local time. Murray (or Muzza), our runner, whose interesting little snippets of information about French countryside and French driver habits had kept us amused, started to feel tired, and aches and pains were appearing; the sun was too hot and a headache was looming. The two bags Muzza had brought contained enough lotions, rubs and pills to open a chemist shop (the alarm bells hadn’t rung as yet). Never mind, we thought, the drive had been cramped, a good night’s rest and we’ll all be tickety-boo. Tim took us straight to the lake and we were suitably staggered by the sheer size. We had parked west of the dam wall and could see to our left the huge expanse of water with an island invitingly jutting out from the water (an island with match pegs on it). Club 18-30 Party Games Oh, how nice to have the foresight to book a gite (a small apartment) for the two nights before the draw on the Monday morning. The match was to kick off at 3.00 p.m. on the Monday and last for five nights, finishing on the Saturday morning. The first night saw the staggered arrival of entrants from across Europe and even the USA, and soon the harbour area of Mesnil on the banks of the Orient was buzzing with anglers. The headquarters for the organisation were here and once we’d had our boat inspected and passed (safety requirements) we registered and drew our peg number and section number. Now, this might not be too easy to explain, but the draw worked like this: There were 13 sections with peg numbers 1-13. We drew a 5 on Section 2, meaning we had peg number 5, but at this point it was any one of 13 number 5s. The sections were sponsored by 13 parties and until a wheel was spun on Monday morning no one knew what section would be number 1. It could be any one of the 13; wherever the arrow on the wheel stopped and pointed at a printed sponsor name that would be section 1. In a clockwise direction on the wheel, the sponsors would become sections 2, 3, 4, etc. The sections on the bank had been marked with the sponsor’s name, i.e. the nature reserve section was Dynamite Section, so if this had become Section 2 (next to the arrowed Section 1 on the wheel) we would be in peg 5 on the nature reserve. Simple huh? It was actually a very clever way of drawing 160 pegs within minutes, because on previous Classics this draw involved every competing pair walking to a stage when called and physically pulling a peg number from the hat, a long and tedious affair, especially if you were the last pair to draw. Anyway that was for Monday morning, tonight was Saturday night, a night for chilling and taking in the French air. Kevin and I decided to eat, and after showering and musing with the neighbours in the gites, Dave Lane, Lee Jackson, etc., we drove off and found a fantastic little bistro pizzeria a few miles round the bank of the lake. We were far from the madding crowd and had a full four-course meal, consisting of whitebait for me (the only fish I would be getting my hands on), an almost raw steak (medium to well done obviously doesn’t translate into French!) a sumptuous chocolate ice cream dessert, and coffee, all washed down with a number of bottles of Beaujolais Nouveau (by Murray and I – Kev was driving). After settling the bill we drove to our temporary home and headed to bed. Well, Kevin and Murray did, but as anyone who knows me will understand, I headed back out to the main bar near the HQ and enjoyed a few more bottles of wine with my old friends Paul Forward and Dave Lane. Before long we were headed to the gites to carry on the drinking, in moderation of course, and Gary Peet’s stock of fine wine (approx 15 bottles) was soon being opened and guzzled by a party which by now numbered 15-20. Martin Ford’s £2,000 cigars (or something like that price) were now being chain-smoked, but I’m told the noise level stayed modest throughout! Muzza’s back was starting to play up… The Sunday saw us driving around the lake and for some unknown reason we investigated as many peg 5s as we could get to, the fact that the draw would plonk us in any one of 13 sections in a number 5 didn’t really matter, we had our favourite number 5s and our not so favourites. I think at this point Muzza’s legs were playing up and he thought the mud was quite muddy. Well, I promised myself Sunday night would be a quiet one – mind you, I’ve promised Caroline (my wife) lots in the years we have been married and if I can break promises to my wife… The ‘state banquet’ was a totally expected affair, boiled chicken leg, garnished with a greeny, wettish, leafy thing, and something on a skewer. I was starving afterwards and soon filled myself up with some beer. That’s better, so back to the gites then, hey ho. If you have ever been on a Club 18-30 holiday or the like you will be familiar with a little drinking game involving two poles stuck in the ground approx 100yds apart. These were illuminated with huge isotopes and, luckily, were stuck in the grassy garden area surrounding the gites. The idea is for suitably inebriated participants (and the inebriated participants included a who’s who of carp angling), on the word go, to swiftly down a large drink, for example a bottle of Budweiser, a large glass of strong sangria, or, in our case, a large glass of red wine (Gary Peet’s wine stock again). The contestant then runs very quickly ten times around the pole with his forehead touching the top of the protruding 3ft-ish pole, with his eyes focused firmly on the floor. Once finished he has to race to the other pole, run round it, and return. You would think 100yds there and back would take, let’s say, a minute – well, the top athletes do it in 25 seconds. Laugh, we nearly gave ourselves hernias; there were casualties lying all over the grass, a lamppost approx 40yds due east at 180 degrees was taken out by one guy (who shall remain nameless) and bent in two. There were bodies running backwards, sideways, all ways except straight. One thing Kevin and I had noticed was the filthy state that everyone’s clothes were getting into with the grass and mud they were rolling around in, so, being devious and not a little shy, we stripped to our underwear and then made fools of ourselves. I think five minutes was the longest it took. A fine game to make yourself look stupid, but one that got everyone laughing. Muzza ran straight as a die, didn’t fall over once, and told us all the secret. A laugh a minute was Muzza.
The Match Monday morning arrived very quickly. Why do I always have headaches at these draws? No pills for me; hard core, Kevin had said to me, and hard core I would be. Muzza was rubbing in aftersun. He was burnt. Ross announced the rules, introduced the marshals, the mayor, the army, the cooks, the cleaners, and then repeated it all in French. The atmosphere was electric, 320 anglers sat expectantly, they were tense. The huge wheel took pride of place on stage and we all fixed our gaze at the pointer, wondering where it would point to, which section would be numbered 1, and subsequently 2, 3, 4, etc. Ross stepped up to the wheel, everyone drew breath, he spun the wheel, it spun and spun, and it stopped. “Just a practice spin,” he announced. The mayor stepped forward, we all craned our necks, his hand grabbed the pointer, we sat open-mouthed, he spun it – well, spun would be an exaggeration, the pointer limped round, gravity pulling it downwards on the wheel, it staggered up the arc a little, not reaching one revolution and stopped. How cheated we felt, what an anticlimax, and then bedlam, the pointer stopped at Dynamite Section. Number 1. Everybody did a funny counting gesture, you know, pointing left to right around the wheel, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc. and there were shrieks, sighs and expletives. Kevin and I looked at each other, our finger only had to be raised a little as we were number 2 section, Sticky Baits. We weren’t happy, we were distraught. It wasn’t one of the sections we had wanted. Why couldn’t it have been the Bivvy City Section, or the Island Section? It was such a feeling of despair for some and pure elation for others. However, matches are strange animals and the fishing wasn’t to be as expected. After shaking hands with a variety of heartened and disheartened friends, listening to the hubbub of excitement and witnessing the glee and disappointment of others – Lee and Gary were happy, they had drawn Point Italy, as had Lee and Rob. Tim and John had drawn the Sandy Beach and were also happy. Dave and Paul were overjoyed. We dragged ourselves forlornly from the hall and slumped away to our gite, grabbed our bags, got into the Sprinter and made our way to the section we had drawn to look for the access point. After what seemed like hours and lots of futile trudging around, we eventually found a launch point. It was a fair way by boat to our swim but we started to offload the mountain of ‘Justin’ gear from the van and loaded the boat, wading through the mud to do it. The first trip was to involve Kevin and Murray boating to the swim with the bivvies and rods, pods, etc., then for Murray to set up camp, and Kevin to bring the boat back to me. The boat we had was a hard-bottomed Bic, and not too large, so it was obvious that it was going to take numerous trips backwards and forwards and would involve many hours in the boat. After an hour and a half Kevin returned with the boat having left Murray in the swim. I started to load the boat with more tackle while Kevin went to find some marshals and get some help with towing the rest of our tackle from the helpers we had been promised. I launched the boat, taking another hour to get to the swim, the battery was fading and the weed kept clogging the prop. I think Murray was suffering from seasickness and sunstroke now as I found him slumped under a tree in the shade. Murray hated everyone now and you don’t want to know what he wasn’t going to do to Tim (the head marshal), Ross, the mayor, the president, etc., etc! As it happens, the swim was far beyond our expectations, we were right on the point of a peninsula, opposite the end of Point Italy (little Italy), a mile and a half spit running from the north bank of the Orient. The dam wall, a favoured area, was well to our left (south) and at the opposite end from where we were. The section we were in was the out-of-bounds area, a little way up from the nature reserve to our right. Dynamite Section had been split and number 10 was the first peg (furthest from us) closest to the nature reserve, about a half mile to our right.
With the traffic of boats now on the water, the stories of heartbreak began to filter around. Many pegs had been deemed unfishable by the anglers drawn in them and the stories of anglers leaving the lake ranged in number from seven pairs to 30 pairs. I think the official number of leavers, either at the beginning or during the match, was 21 pairs out of 159 pairs present at the draw. Some of these pegs were indeed unfishable, or at least relatively shallow (2-4ft) for 400yds, and the official maximum range allowed to fish was 250 metres or 275yds! Many pegs were very tight and bank space, when converted to six rods per pair in the lake, caused considerable angst for quite a few pairs. I know that Dave Lane and Paul Forward were monitored by a marshal each time they placed their hookbaits by boat because of very narrow boundaries between them and their neighbours. However, some pegs that didn’t look as attractive as others, threw up fish. In our section Jason Callaghan, from Sticky Baits, the section sponsor, in Peg 9, decided to go home on the Tuesday, the pair in Peg 7 also went home on the Tuesday, but the pair in Peg 8 were persuaded to stay. On the Thursday of the match Peg 8 landed a 46lb mirror from Peg 9’s water, and on the Friday the pair in Peg 10 landed a 20lb leather, so fish were landed from either side of your unattractive peg, Jason, two fish from only 13 caught in the entire match. So here I was, unloaded, sun in the mid-80s, calm waters and looking out from our swim with about a mile of water to fish, our neighbours to the left were in the bay that saw two fish caught (Peg 8 and Peg 10) and our neighbours to the right were far enough away to cause us no problems at all. Things were looking up. We could get everything set up in the sun, and start fishing. The rest of our kit duly arrived with a flotilla around 3.30 p.m. (the match start was put back to 5.00 p.m. – why wasn’t I surprised?). We unloaded the rest of the tackle and got our swim nicely sorted out, placing strips of plywood as a runway to the rods through the mud; we tied our rigs, sorted the boat with the fish finder, anchor, horns, etc. and then I realised we’d left a few things in the van, not important things, things like trainers to strut around in, because the waders would soon become uncomfortable. The ground was rutted and hard where we had bivvied and my feet were beginning to get scratched to bits with the bits of branches and debris lying around. A third guest chair and a pair of binoculars were also left behind. “Muzza, could you go to the van and get the rest of the bits?” I asked innocently. Now, silly Kevin, when he had loaded the helper boats with the rest of our tackle, had driven the van as close to the swim as he could, and walked through the woods to our swim, and, being Kevin, he had said he’d had to walk two miles – a slight exaggeration methinks, it was probably half a mile, but too late, what with the sunstroke, the mud, the back pain, the sheer terror of the Bic boat and the French economy, our Muzza was having a rest, and besides, what if the wild boar attacked him? So I limped about for two days in bare feet (hard core). Kevin was as pleased as I was with the swim, from being gutted at the draw we were full of optimism, optimism which stayed with me throughout the match until the final hooter went on the Saturday morning. We spent the first evening finding six areas in our swim at various ranges and various depths, we planned to place our baits for the first evening using the feature finder for hard bottom and depths. I also had a range finder which, when in the boat, would tell us exactly how far from the bank we were. The baits were placed from 220yds to about 300yds. The depths ranged from 16ft to 21ft and were all near weedbeds. We dropped the line by hand first and with rods in the boat would feel the lead on the bottom, bumping the lead to make sure of clear areas. The leads were then retrieved whilst still over the mark and we would attach PVA bags with boilies and drop the lead again to the same spot. Two handfuls of boilies were dropped over each rod and about a kilo of hemp dropped on top. These areas had been permanently marked with H-blocks and night markers. The setup was simple, 20lb mono straight through, 25lb braided hooklength, Size 4 hooks with a Snowman Rig. No tubing, no leadcore, no leaders. A lead clip with the rubber tail pushed slightly on for the lead to be dropped easily on a take.
The rods were out. Both Kevin and I had initially gone out together to feature find before placing our baits and went out individually to place our rods. If I remember rightly, Muzza didn’t like to move, once in the boat, in fact he was almost frozen – maybe he was just cold, because he swore he loved going out in the boat. Anyway, time for dinner, the first night on the Orient. Lamb Navarin cooked by Muzza, who had become our ‘walker’. Tuesday morning, no takes, but awesome views; what a place to be fishing. The sun was rising and it was going to be another baking day. I was on top of the world. After speaking to the neighbouring anglers it was obvious that any news of captures was going to be rare because it appeared that nothing had been caught from either our section or the neighbouring section. The marshals duly appeared and introduced themselves. News of two fish being caught started to filter through, one from the Island and one from Mesnil Bank, somewhere way to our left, maybe a mile or two away. Stories of fights and disasters and arguments between anglers, and even between pairs, abounded (a normal weekend’s fishing then?). At one point we were told 70 pairs had left. It never ceases to amaze me the stories that go around on these matches. One story that did seem to be true was that one pair had only just got to their swim with all their tackle on the Tuesday morning, I think on the Island. I did some filming and took some pics while Muzza and Kevin slept and made myself some tea, the first cup for three days. Muzza duly woke up and after stretching, farting, ointment rubbing, massaging, and general pampering, made breakfast – omelettes with onions, beans and sausages. It was, in fact gorgeous, and a brekkie we were to have each day, although sometimes, depending on Muzza’s fatigue level, it would be served as lunch. Muzza had a fascinating ritual to preparing food. We had set up our bivvies in a line facing the lake, with me on the left, Muzza in the middle, and Kev on the right. Muzza would take off his shoes (if he had, in fact, left the vicinity of his bivvy during the morning), sit in his bivvy on a bucket and place one cooker in front of him. This apparently would render him bivvy-bound, and he would then ask either Kev or me to pass him: another cooker, (while he sat on his bucket), plates, pans, pots, salt, pepper, etc., etc. – sometimes one at a time, which could have got us somewhat peeved if we weren’t so chilled out. Give him his due, once brekkie had been cooked and eaten, Muzza always washed up. He’s gonna make someone a wonderful wife with his strawberry blond hair (ginger). I’m sure he had PMT most of the week. The Tuesday saw us replacing all the baits and double-checking all the spots, making sure our hookbaits were lying on the hard bottom between the weedbeds, and feature finding a wider area. We were happy with our spots and made the decision to leave the baits out for a couple of days, it would leave our swim undisturbed and the baits weren’t being bothered by silverfish or crayfish so there was no need to reposition them on the Wednesday; we just dropped a handful of boilies over each bait. This takes a good few hours of the day, so Tuesday evening soon came and no news had reached us of any more captures, although we were hearing of fish being lost in the Geradout area, an area across from us round Point Italy on the corresponding bank to us. I think at this time fish had been lost to a Polish pair fishing the Sluice peg, the closest peg to the dam wall, a favoured peg and one that we had all expected to throw up some fish. Well, by this time we had attracted quite a few visits from the marshals, and Tim and Seph, the army lads (head marshals) visited us in the swim. Seph was to be stationed right near us until the Friday evening when he unfortunately got called away for active service, returning to England to head off to Bosnia. It put a lot of things in perspective.
Muzza’s feet were definitely starting to play up… Well, the ten bottles of wine I had requested turned up, as did lots of hungry and thirsty mouths. A special mention here to the GB team runner John (bless him), miles from his team, and thoughtfully helping us with the wine (drinking, not fetching). Luckily the beef stews and chilli con carnes, and Lamb Navarins in Red Wine Sauce bought for ‘Justin’ certainly weren’t wasted. Wednesday came and went, the Polish pair (a different pair though) fishing well to our right in Peg 10 Dynamite Section, closest to the nature reserve, landed a carp of around 20lb, only to have it disqualified as they were both in the boat at the same time, a rule of which they were aware, but had forgotten about in the excitement. The weather changed during Wednesday night and after four days of sunny skies and mid-80s heat, the clouds moved in, thunder and lightning flashed across the skies and the rain came down. This was more like it. The wind got up and our confidence was sky-high. Well, Thursday morning and we still hadn’t caught. News reached us of two fish to the Polish pair near the dam wall, and a 40lb fish to the Polish pair in Peg 10 Dynamite Section, (the pair who had earlier had a fish disqualified), so the Polish were polishing us all off (!). Peg 8 in the bay round to our left had landed a 46lb fish in six feet of water, a few other fish had been landed and lost so it seemed that the weather had turned the lake on. Or so it seemed. The ground around our bivvies had become very sticky now, a thin layer of clayish mud surrounded us. Muzza didn’t venture out much on Thursday, the day was rainy and I even watched a DVD. Muzza, our ‘limper’, cooked omelettes again. The weather actually improved after a while, much to our dismay, because while the storms brewed it seemed we might get a take, but it wasn’t to be. Thursday saw us reposition the hookbaits for the last time and the swim became a huge social gathering in the evening. At one point we had no less than seven marshals squatting in our swim drinking tea with us, with Co and his wife (the Dutch pair fishing to our left) joining us also. Muzza actually came out of his bivvy that night. Friday loomed and we still hadn’t had a take, but I was still confident. This was the Orient, five days on here was like an overnighter back home. You just don’t expect to catch, but if you do, it could be 70lb+.
This was a match for the hard core, a fantastic place to be, an awesome event, despite the logistical problems and the tight pegging in areas. I could have stayed for another fortnight and would have been confident every day. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world; the week flew by but the time in our swim was punctuated by laughs throughout our stay. I would like to thank Tim and Carpworld for the opportunity to go and Kev for his company and expertise, a great partner to fish with. Rob Tough PS. I think Muzza has booked himself into a clinic for a rest… The Results: First place and the £10,000 top prize went to Mariusz Ciach and Jaroslaw Plochocki, from Poland, with 80.85kg. Polish anglers Leszek Rutecki and Andrzej Bartczak, in the Dynamite Section, walked away with a cheque for £3,000 and the title of second place with a total weight of 33.5kg. English anglers Eddie Mathews and Richard Bradley collected £2,000 and the title of third spot with their fish of 23.5kg from the Dynamite Section, which also won them the biggest fish of the competition. Team results: 1st - Team SBS England 23.5kg.
|
Blogs