How To Get The Best Out Of French Carp Fishing

I think that it fair to say that most anglers that visit French carp waters expect to catch big carp and lots of them, beating their British PB’s by a fair margin. Ultimately carp behave the same in France as in England, they can be temperamental. Then when they do go on the feed anglers […]

A Successful Guide For Carp Fishing in France

That very first French carp fishing trip can be daunting, especially if you are in a party of anglers that are all virgins to the French carp scene. The possibility is that you will be fishing for very wise big old carp that have seen plenty of tactics. Here is a short success guide for carp fishing […]

What Lead Should I Use when Carp Fishing?

Paul Cooper passes on his knowledge of different leads to use when carp fishing and what he believes are the best situations to use them for. What is the importance of using the right lead and size of lead in certain angling situations? In my opinion, selecting the right lead can mean success or failure […]

Do Fishmeal Baits Work In Winter?

If you listen to the experts you would never use a fishmeal boilie over the winter months. My thinking was the same, however over the years my views have changed drastically. For the past 2 years I have continued to fish through the Winter months, feeding and fishing with Squid and Orange from Quality Baits. […]

April Session Video at La Fonte

Here’s the video diary from Paul Cooper & Jim Kelly’s visit to La Fonte this April, a well established carp lake in the Perche region of France. This 7 acre lake is ideal for up to 5/6 anglers and can best be described as a runs water! Just 1hr 40 drive from Caen and 3hr 40 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

Development Of A Carp Lake On A Budget

In the February of 2010, I was thrown into the deep end by taking on a local estate lake and running a carp syndicate on the lake. I had been a member of the syndicate for a number of years and had fished there since 1985. When I first fished the lake there were 12 […]

Short Session Carp Fishing & Why You Should Try It

These days I spend less and less time on the bank and appear to be catching the same amount of carp as I was doing a few years ago when I was concentrating my campaigns on night fishing. Not too many but enough to satisfy my interest.  In 2014 I spent 2 nights in total […]

“Are You A Noddy Mate?”

A few years ago I joined a new carp syndicate lake that I had been trying to get onto for a few years. The  initial reaction I received was a stone-waller and I could not get past the first hurdle of Mr Arrogance (the syndicate leader). He did not know me and that was that. Eventually Mr […]

The Role of a Field Tester

One of the main challenges that I come across on a field testing trip is getting that first run. Swim selection on a new lake can mean the difference to a successful week or failure. I have been lucky in the past with some excellent catches on some difficult venues, but not all of the […]

Winter Is Just Around The Corner

It’s that time of year again when we start to scratch for the odd take. The carp are at their best weights after feeding up through September and October ready for the winter. Their stomachs should be full on naturals and hopefully some of our boilies as well. As the days shorten and Winter approaches, […]

Patience Is A Virtue – A Week at Boux

Below is Paul Cooper’s write up from his August week fishing at one of his all time favourite French waters, Domaine de Boux, a 14 acre lake infamous for it’s big carp since the 80’s…. Sometimes you can take your fishing ability for granted, making your expectations too unrealistic for your own good. This visit to Boux in […]

How to use the Elips Pellet for Barbel Fishing

The humble trout type pellet has caught thousands of big barbel throughout Great Britain for as long as I can remember. Pellets comes in all shapes and sizes and have names like, high oil, carp pellets, Marine pellets, halibut pellets,etc. All are brilliant for catching barbel but usually the main problem that we have is […]

Anglers Questions Answered – Brie’s Features

Paul Cooper answers an anglers questions regarding the swims and features of Brie, a 15 acre carp haven tucked away in the champagne region that is booked exclusively for up to 4 anglers… Last year I visited a number of lakes in France, all on test for Angling Lines, one of these was of course […]