How to Catch Carp at Boux

Magical Boux

Hi Paul,

I have booked a week on Boux with some friends and my son… can you give any info on the best way to approach  the fishing at the fishery thanks.

Peter

Hi Peter,

A lot will depend on when you have booked your visit to Boux.  One of the reasons for the large growth rate of the fish is the presence of one of their food supplies, which are crayfish.  The crayfish are active in the warmer months and generally feed around the margin areas of the lake.  One of the ways to avoid the crayfish interest is to fish the deeper waters which are generally towards the dam wall, but again not too close to attract them away from the margins.  On my 3 visits last year I did not find any evidence of poison chat which can be a pain in the neck.

However, if you are fishing the warmer months, July to the end of September, there are ways around avoiding too much attention from the crays;

• Plastic Baits;
  I used these with great effect with just a single 14 or 16 mil plastic boilie on my pop rig that I use ( The Ultimate pop up rig ).  I just baited up my baited area as normal and dropped one of these in the middle of them.  My baited area was made up of 18mil Quality Baits HG42 boilies.
• Armo-meshing;
  For this method you need an air dried bottom bait covered with the armo-mesh and again fished over a baited area of boilies.  The crays will play with the boilie but cannot penetrate the meshing leaving it for the carp to feed on.  The presence of the crays in your swim will attract the attention of the bigger so you just have to keep plugging away.
• Shrink sleeve wrap;
  With this method you again need an air dried boilie and wrap covers the biggest part of the boilie leaving the 2 ends exposed to give off the flavour of the boilie and attract the carp. The carp crays will nibble at the ends of the boilie but leave enough to attract carp to feed on it.

If the weather is not too hot you should not get a problem with the crays but the above measures will help to put carp on the bank if they are active.

The carp do tend to patrol from the far right hand side of the dam along the reed line of the non fishing bank, to the reeds at the far end.  If the weather is not too hot the right hand side of the dam is a good spot to fish towards the right hand bay.  The depths here vary from 12 foot to 5 foot and do seem to attract the attention of feeding carp.  My strategy for fishing this section of the lake was to spread a 18mil boilies over an tight area with a throwing stick and to cast out a single bottom bait with a small PVA bag.  This produced a lot of big fish for me.

If you are fishing off the wooded bank, the left hand reed line is a good location but the water here is shallower and there are a few crays here.

Over to the far margins you will see a lot of patrolling fish.  It is a long cast but if you are using a bait boat it should be no trouble to reach them.  Again if you get too close to the margins you will encounter crayfish.  The bank of the wooded area is high but there are steps down to the water if the water is low and should not present a problem.  This is the best bank for a social.  If the weather is hot you are in the shade from around 11am onwards.  The dam can be unbearable if it is too hot as there is no shade.

The fish in Boux are in excellent condition and are all growing fast with a lot of carp reaching the 40 mark and above.

As for bait, I would take at least 20 kilo of boilies and any other particles or pellets that you wish to add. The bait that I used on my last 2 successful trips was Quality Baits HG42 in 18mil, but any good quality bait should catch the carp at Boux.

If you have any more questions do not hesitate to get back in touch.

Paul Cooper

Carp fishing in France at Boux