Discovering La Fonte – Part 2

  Mike and Matt Linstead continue their week at La Fonte (read part 1 here). With fast approaching 30 fish between them in the first few days, they decide a change of tactics is in order. Not wanting to lull the fish into a predictable pattern we decided that Wednesday would see us flip our […]

Hauling at La Fonte

 We asked Jim Kelly and Paul Cooper to travel out to 7 acre La Fonte, in the Normandy region of France. Here’s what they found… La Fonte is situated in a wooded stream valley. It is very picturesque, with tree lined banks and a multiplicity of birdlife. The dawn chorus is particularly spectacular and sets […]

Discovering La Fonte – Part 1

At the end of April we sent Matt and Mike Linstead to field test and film another new lake to our portfolio, La Fonte. After travelling through the night on the Friday, we hopped off the Euro tunnel in the early hours and headed south to the quiet corner of Normandy where the lake is situated. A three […]

A New Video For Deux Iles

Mike Linstead introduces our newest venue, Deux Iles. An 8 acre lake with two islands, each equipped with it’s own lodge. Ideal for up to 4 anglers and with stunning looking carp to over 50lb. The video was filmed in April this year and you can watch it below…   Want more information on Deux […]

Deux Isles – Into the Unknown

Mike Linstead is back from Deux Iles, a 7 acre carp fishing lake settled within a 22 acre plot in the heart of the Eure Valley in Normandy. Here’s his report… It’s not everyday you get the opportunity to fish a lake that has barely seen a line in the water. But, back in December, whilst reporting […]

First UK Fish Of The Year

A tale of a short, and very wet, UK carp fishing session from Rob Inns…. Being a father of 2 youngsters I tend to hang my rods up for 2 weeks each year over the Christmas period. The down side of this is that when it comes to catching the first fish of the New […]

Winter Carping – 4 Great Tips to Put More Fish on the Bank

Jim Kelly fills us in on the first things he looks for when winter carping… I wrote this article some years ago, but my recent post regarding what makes a good bait has bought up the topic of winter carping, so here goes. Winter carping can be one of the most sole destroying pastimes imaginable. […]

Tips To Make The Most of Your Winter Session

Well, it’s that time of year again when you are fishing for hard earned carp. Over the next few months I will be fishing very short sessions, in the hope of getting a couple of bites.  Winter is generally a very non productive time of the year as the carps metabolism slows right down due […]

Finding The Right Combination To Catch Big French Carp

Mark Lambert explains how he found the right combination to catch carp on a very tough week out in France recently…   Recently in mid August I had an opportunity to spend nearly a full week fishing Lac Du Villefond. This is a hard lake with some very large fish and August on any lake is one of the hardest […]

How to Tackle Big French Carp Lakes

French carp fishing holidays, and in particular those provided by Angling Lines, seem to be heading towards the top end of the big carp waters in France. Bigger lakes, with lower stocking density, meaning bigger and better carp for the industrious angler. This obviously means that we have to work just that bit harder to […]

Blue Lake Video Diary

Mike and Matt Linstead recently spent a week carp fishing at French gravel pit Blue Lake. Here’s their video diary. A bit more about the lake… Blue Lake is 15 acres and roughly triangular in shape with swims cut into the tree line. The stocking of fish is impressive with carp up to 50lb+. It’s […]

A Week on Blue Lake

Mike Linstead travelled out to French gravel pit Blue Lake on May 23rd this year. Here’s his account of the 7 days that followed…  Imagine your ideal French carp lake. What do you see? For me it would be a natural and quiet water that is very picturesque with plenty of room, ideally between 10-20 acres. […]

Breaking Down Brocard Large

Hello fellow anglers, it’s been a while since I’ve managed to put fingers to keyboard and write anything carp related.  A recent trip to Brocard Large has re-invigorated me to blow the dust off the PC and hopefully blog about something of interest for you good readers. I won’t focus on my trip too much […]

Do your baiting homework before your French carp fishing trip!

Pat Gillett kindly put this short piece together as a follow up to his last article – ‘5 Things To Consider When Choosing Bait For Your French Carp Fishing Trip’.  This piece concerns the actual baiting application whilst you are there and how to get the best out of your trip. The first thing to consider is the […]

When The Going Gets Tough…

Rob Inns talks about those difficult winter carp fishing sessions and how he spotted an opportunity to improve his catch rate at Villefond this winter… Hi guys it’s been a while since I’ve written anything for the blog so do forgive me if I’m a bit rusty. I wanted to write a small piece on those tough sessions […]

Scale Perfect Commons at Brie

Here’s the latest feedback from Brie. The first week in March turned out to be extremely testing conditions for Ron Key and Dean Randle, who still managed some absolutely stunning carp by the end of the week… Holiday date: Sat 28th Feb to Sat 7th Mar 2015 Name of customer: Ron Key & Dean Randle Number of […]

Questions and Answers at Blue Lake in France

Angling Lines field-tester Paul Cooper answers an anglers questions regarding the features and lake depths for each swim at Blue Lake. The lake is a 15 acre gravel pit and varies from 3ft at its shallowest to over 15ft at its South West end.  It’s a fascinating mixture of bars and areas of sand, rocks, gravel, […]

How To Make Your Own Carp Fishing Leads

Ever thought about making your own leads? In the long term it could save you quite a bit of cash. One of our field testers, Jim Kelly, shows you how in the following two videos… Part 1 – What you’ll need and how to mould your leads… Part 2 – How to coat the leads… […]

Tackling Big French Carp Lakes – Finding Features

How confident are you about fishing a 3 acre lake, or maybe a 4 acre lake or even a 10 acre lake? Most anglers would say that they’d know the features to bait up to:- snags, overhanging trees, island margins, the edge of weed beds to name but a few. Now lets increase the size of […]

Winter Carp Fishing Tips: The Whitby Hand Warmer

One of the worst thing about cold weather fishing on short or long sessions is having cold hands and feet. This Winter I purchased 2 Whitby Hand warmers from Go Outdoors and they’re a discovery worth mentioning on this blog.  They cost £13.50 each, there are other makes such as Zippo available but they are a little […]