Quarry Bank Fishery - Part 6
Fennel continues his 12-part series about carp fishing at the fabulous Quarry Bank Fishery in France, this time the angling begins.
It’s probable that most people who read a fishing book or blog do so for tales of fish caught and lost, battles with massive beasts that emerge from the depths to test the resolve of Man. Well, if this applies to you, this chapter is where our story hots up.
Maintaining perspective
After much planning, travelling and exploring, Tim, Shaun and I were finally about to start fishing. Our time had come to prove our mettle at Quarry Bank Fishery – home of giant carp and catfish and, well, specimens of all species.
The temptation when fishing such a water is to go straight for the biggest fish, setting one’s sights on a 50lb carp or 75lb catfish, but Quarry Bank contains roach nudging 4lb – that’s equivalent to a 100lb carp, so size is very much relative to the species, and to the angler.
It always tickles me how so many anglers see fishing in France as a way to bypass their angling apprenticeship, to go straight to the bigguns. They might fish for a lifetime in the UK and never catch a 20lb carp or 2lb roach, but as soon as they cross the Channel they suddenly expect bigger – and quicker.
“Yeah, I’m goin’ to France for a week,” they’ll say. “Should get a few thirties and a forty, maybe bigger.”
There may well be a higher proportion of bigger fish in these waters, so the cards are stacked more favourably towards the angler, but a big fish is still a big fish wherever it is in the world. It will fight just as hard and, potentially, be just as canny to catch.
Hey, Hey, Hey
My advice when starting fishing, anywhere, is not to expect anything at all – rather to hope and dream and pray for good fortune while staying alert to all the clues that the lake and its inhabitants will present. Your time will come, if you keep your eyes and ears open, do the right things, learn from your successes and failures, and are patient.
The fun is in working out the game and all its moving parts, then piecing together the jigsaw or finding the button that brings rewards. It’s what I call the ‘Mrs Robinson’ approach to angling where, young man, the pleasure is in the ‘strolling around the grounds’. Fumble and learn. You don’t have to be perfect first time.
The experienced hand
Fortunately for Tim and I, Shaun had been to Quarry Bank before. He’d visited the previous year to take photos and film footage for the Dream Fishing website, and had witnessed the phenomenal angling skills of Quarry Bank regular Tony Holliday. Tony had enjoyed a week on the fishery, using his expert observation skills to move from swim to swim and stay connected with the carps’ movements and feeding sprees. In just a week he’d caught thirty-two carp including 14 x 20s, 14 x 30s, a 40lb 4oz whopper and a 'monster of the deep' that weighed 51lb 12oz. He’d proved that phenomenal success could be achieved when the right angler is doing the right thing in the right place at the right time. (You can see the video interview with Tony here.) Neil and I joked that, such was Tony's angling prowess, he should henceforth be known as 'The Rt. Hon. Tony Holliday QC'. It sounds posh, but really is stands for: 'Right on, Man; Quality Carper!'
Results such as Tony's are possible when everything works in our favour, but they’re genuinely exceptional. Those of us who crawl and stumble in the ‘mere mortal’ camp should aspire to much less. I’d never caught a 30lb carp, Tim had never caught a 20, and Shaun, erm, well, yeah… He’d already caught more big carp than Tim or I could ever dream of catching and would probably only have to smile at the fish for them to jump into his net. He is a very, very, very skilled and accomplished angler.
Tim and I figured that the longer we could keep Shaun talking and away from his bed, the greater our chances of getting a head start on his angling prowess. (He needed to catch up on his sleep as he’d gone nearly 48 hours without any shut-eye during our travels and through-the-night chatting.) So, naturally, we did the hospitable thing and ensured he was never without company, or a mug of strong coffee.
Putting us right
Shaun is a very capable and focused angler; he’s also a very hospitable and patient one who takes pride in helping others to catch. So, true professional that he is, he decided to ‘put us right’ before starting to fish.
We’d already decided on our swims, but Shaun was keen to ensure we’d be fishing as effectively as possible. So he sat Tim and me down in the pagoda overlooking the lake and said, “Right, boys, show us what you’ve got in your boxes.” We then opened our tubs, boxes and tins of terminal tackle – most of which had been purchased before the trip on Shaun’s instruction. He then gave us a masterclass of rig making that pretty much wiped out and rewrote my previous thirty years of carp-fishing knowledge.
What did I learn? That I was a shoddy old bodger, that’s what.
Shaun taught Tim and me the basics of rig mechanics, how the bait and hook work together within a fish’s mouth and how the hair, hook sharpness and hooklink movements all contribute towards pricking the fish. Of course, I thought I knew all that before. But when I tied a rig and showed it to Shaun, he said, “The hair’s an eighth of an inch too short. The bait won’t turn over properly and you’ll miss chances.”
An eighth of an inch? Really? That’s 3mm. The width of a piece of spaghetti.
Of course, when Shaun showed me how the bait and hook moved together across his hand, I could see that he was right. I could also see how success comes from attention to detail as much as luck, and that if you get the simple things right, you don’t need the fancy alternatives. There was no line aligner on our rigs, no swivels or sliding rings; no Ronnies, Johnnies, Susans or Freedas. Just a carefully chosen hook, hair and bait. The secret, if there was one, was simplicity. Simply enabling the bait to behave naturally in the water – through stripped back braid near the hook – and the correct ratio of hair length to hook and bait size.
The masterclass in action. Sadly, Shaun and I are at the age where glasses are needed for such things.
With success so obviously in the details, I could see why Shaun is such an accomplished angler and why he was sacrificing his sleep to spend time teaching us the basics. If he hadn’t, we’d have got it wrong from the beginning. Yet as fundamental as his guidance was, it left Tim and I with genuine ‘eureka’ moments and a sense of confidence that we’d otherwise have lacked. And, yes, I felt the slight embarrassment of knowing that I’d been doing it wrong for so many years. It was like turning up at dog training class and being told that the collar around my Chihuahua’s waist was really meant for an Alsatian’s neck. “It worked, but I can see now why the poor thing was walking sideways.”
I’ll say for the record that Shaun’s advice, delivered in the most patient and calm way, was worth the price of the trip alone. There and then. Value delivered. Absolute, pure gold.
Tim and I agreed that, because Shaun had been so generous, we’d treat him to one of the beers he’d bought. And then, when he’d drunk it and allowed us to drink one too, he could help us to carry our gear down to the swims. If he was still standing after all that, we’d cook him dinner and then allow him to collapse into his sleeping bag.
"Find the dinner table"
We three walked across to Neil’s office, where he keeps all the tackle and bait for anglers, and collected our kit for the week. Then we headed down to the lake, to the path that runs along its western side, where we eventually arrived in Tim’s swim. Tim and Shaun stayed there, with Shaun showing Tim how to find the ‘dinner table’ feature in front of them with a lead and marker float, and helping him to set up his end tackle. I continued along the path to my swim where I placed the rods and bait buckets on the staging then retired to the bivvy for a cosy nap.
Shaun shows Tim how to use a marker float and lead to feel for features. "So many people," said Shaun, "turn up and fish 'blind' without knowing the features that will influence the movements and feeding spots of fish; accurately casting to these spots takes skill but will bring far more results." The lines in the picture show the approximate location of the sunken road in front of Tim's swim. It's just 11ft deep, whereas the water either side is 30ft+.
Shaun and Tim discuss tactics while setting up.
Don't miss a trick
I was woken at 4pm by Tim offering me a cup of tea. He was amazed that I’d been able to sleep, saying, “What? Asleep again?!” But soon we were sitting together while the kettle boiled.
Tim explained that he’d found the feature in front of him, at circa 40 yards range, and had marked his lines so that he could cast accurately to them in day or night. He’d also found the shallow area to the right of the swim, which was only six feet deep, and enjoyed catapulting bait onto the spots ahead of casting in later tonight. Both he and I agreed that conditions looked good for a fish. The sky was hazy and the air muggy, with a gentle breeze blowing towards us. We looked out across the lake and could see bubbles rising in patches all around the edges of the lake, and on a spot about fifty yards out where Neil had described there to be a plateau on the far side of the old lagoon.
Almost immediately, we heard a “thoomp” and saw a light splash as one of Shaun’s leads landed right by the bubbles on the plateau. “He doesn’t miss a trick, does he?” said Tim. Though both of us knew that Shaun was just finding features rather than casting in with a bait attached. “Did you see how easily he cast?” said I, “He was kneeling down and barely flicked the rod, yet it landed exactly on the spot.” “Beginners’ luck,” said Tim. “Shall we pour that cuppa?”
Tim and I drank our cups of tea, and then I proceeded to set up my rods and reels.
Blend of traditional and modern?
I was using two new centrepins – Wensum reels made by Garry Mills for Maun Valley Tackle – that are modelled on the old Speedia reels but upgraded to be more robust. This was to be their first outing, so first I had to load them with line. And like a rank amateur I put too much on, thinking that I might get towed around the lake by a leviathan. Of course, with all the underwater ledges and cliffs at Quarry Bank, giving the fish too much line is the last thing you want to do, but I merrily added about two hundred yards of line to each reel until they were bulging at the rims. Inevitably, with so much line on them, the line was going to bed-in and become difficult to cast with, but I was so distracted by the prospect of hooking a huge fish that I overlooked the obvious.
The third rod was made up with my ‘spare’ Mitchell 300. I don’t normally use three rods, but decided that I ought to look like a proper carper with all three rods set up on the rod pod. That said, the sight of the pod, carbon rods and alarms, combined with the centrepins and traditional reel, made me cringe a little. It was like seeing a Ferrari fitted with wooden cartwheels or – depending on your perspective – a wooden cart fitted with alloy wheels. Whilst functional, neither met the accepted aesthetic. I’d have been better off using more modern reels and ‘completing the look’, or disposing of the rod pod and just placing the two rods with the centrepins straight down onto the decking and waiting for the reels to spin.
I elected to go with the rod pod and alarms because I didn’t know how the fish would bite. Fishing in such deep water, would they pull line away from me and get the reel moving, or would they just twitch the rod tip as they chugged about in the depths? I concluded that the use of a bite alarm, to register the gentlest of knocks, would be beneficial. And so I kept with the rod pod set up, knowing that someone, somewhere, would accuse me of juddering across a cattle grid. “So be it,” I thought. “I’ll face the rumblings when I get home.”
A different look for me, but the combination worked. Note the steepness of the line going down into the water. That's not caused by back leads, rather the depth of water in the margins.
Counting down
My first cast into the lake, intended to test the depth and feel about on the bottom for features, resulted in a sharp intake of air usually reserved for coastal walkers who stray too close to the cliff. Neil had told me that the margins off the end of the staging were thirty feet deep, and that the ‘taking spot’ was about ten feet from the bank. So I’d flicked a lead out onto the spot using one of the centrepin rods and then watched the reel turn, and turn, and turn as the lead sank deeper and deeper into the lake. By the time it thudded on the bottom (about ten seconds later) I was muttering a slightly fearful “You – have – got – to – be – kidding!” Quarry Bank’s depth was now ‘breathlessly’ apparent to me.
(Try counting out ten seconds, calmly saying "Quarry Bank 1, Quarry Bank 2..." It's way longer than it sounds.)
As someone who likes to Wallis cast with a centrepin, I would have to ensure that the reel continued to run smoothly once the bait and lead hit the water else I’d never hit ‘the spot’ and the lead would swing back towards me and land halfway down the nearside cliff. Tangles, therefore, were not an option. I just hoped that all the extra line on my reels wouldn’t cause me any problems…
I tightened down to the lead and moved it along the bottom. A gentle lift and lowering of the rod tip and I felt the lead thud again onto a solid, smooth bottom. Ooh. This felt good. I was used to fishing estate lakes with deep silty bottoms, which feel dull or spongy and where the lead can sink into the mud and pull a bait from sight. That wouldn’t be a problem here. I could cast in, gently pull back to straighten out the hooklink and leader, then settle back knowing that my bait was presented well.
I reeled in, checked the lead for any signs of silt (there were none) and then placed the rod back on the pod. I then repeated the exercise for two additional spots further along the bank. Each felt good, but with silt increasing further round to my left – assumedly because this was the corner into which the leaves drifted and settled in autumn.
So I’d found my three spots, each about thirty feet apart along the nearside margin. I’d be intercepting fish as they patrolled along the gully between me and the sunken road in front, perhaps as they swam deeper into the old lagoon.
The first spot was an underhand flick away from the staging, in a 30ft gully close to the bank. It was here that I'd seen fish bubbling earlier in the day.
The other spots were to my left further down the bank, towards the location of the old lagoon. The one on the far left was the 'hot spot' that Neil had identified as being somewhere that the carp often show when the sun first hits the water. I would cast to this with my fixed spool reel.
Ready?
I stood on the decking of my swim, looking ‘down and out’ at the water. Not in a homeless or dejected way, rather trying to visualise the depth of my situation.
Out there were fish that could make or break my wildest dreams. No need to dream, Fennel, it's happening.
A quarry, previously abandoned and lost to the hands of time, yet resurfacing as something new and exciting. Hope and happiness mined from hard, cold stone.
Water, so very life-giving yet so very deep. 30-40ft deep, from darkness to light.
Colossal fish. To 75lb...
The promise of adventure. Being fulfilled, right now.
The excitement and adrenaline that anything could happen, at any moment. Present, in every bubble that rose to the surface or bleep that sounded from the indicator.
That the first bite could be from a fish that could double my personal best. Every chance.
The more I thought about it, the more I realised that I was within touching and breath-holding distance from an angling experience that would transform my fishing. Forever.
So I did what any self-respecting-traditionalist-adventuring-aspiring-to-be-hardcore-angler would do. I opened three bags of boilies (Quest Baits’ Rajha Spice, Spicy Spirulina and Magnum White), threw a handful of each onto my chosen spots, then stood up, walked away from my swim and went for dinner.
Pause
Tim, Shaun and I had agreed that, what with the heat being what it was and our plan to ‘rest the swims’, we’d snack in our swims then eat a ‘proper’ meal together each day. The meal would be an epic feast that might take three or more hours to consume. We’d look to break from the fishing at mid-late afternoon – when the sun was highest and our need for beer greatest – head up to the anglers’ lodge and then cook up a multi-course array of culinary delights.
I could see Tim walking up from the lake towards the lodge, and Shaun on the far bank setting up his bed rather than positioning his rods, so it appeared that all the essential ‘setting up’ was done and it was time for us to get some food before settling down to fish at dusk. With nightfall at about 9pm, we’d have four hours in which to cook, eat, socialise and then be back in our swims to cast out, put in some more bait, and then await results.
Yum!
Tim cooked us a tasty, enjoyable and surprisingly healthy dinner of lettuce, couscous, beetroot, cherry tomatoes, red onion and crispy-fried bacon lardons. It seemed that he’d managed to find the only non-sausage food in the fridge and had elected to feed us something that wouldn’t clog our arteries.
So, let it be known that Fennel ate salad. And mighty fine it was, too.
It was a good idea of Tim’s to feed us in this way, given the likelihood that our hearts would be pounding later as the fish showed interest in our baits. And the green stuff, when you get used to it, ain’t that bad. It was rather like the Lost Boys’ supper in Peter Pan. The more one imagined that one’s teeth were chewing something, the more one’s stomach stopped complaining.
Crunch, crunch. Mmmm.
Shaun, Tim and I sat around a picnic table near to the anglers’ lodge, eating our food, drinking wine and talking about the greats of angling: the famous anglers we’d known or would most like to invite for dinner. We agreed that Fred J Taylor should be here doing the cooking, John Gierach should be helping us to get ‘philosophically grounded’, Halford and Skues should be getting our debates going, Lord Grey should be helping to bring order to the troop, and Peter Stone should be keeping us all honest.
With the sun getting lower on the horizon and the first of the bats flitting about the treetops, we decided it was time to end our discussions and get back to the water. Tim and I said “Fare thee well” to Shaun as he headed right to his swim and we headed left to ours. Shaun with a bottle of whiskey under his arm and us with a box of red wine. Maybe we wouldn’t be going to sleep straight away…
Gaze upwards
Tim and I arrived at his swim, where Tim put baits on his rigs and cast out to his spots while I sat behind him, filling our glasses with wine. Once his rods were set up and ‘doing their thing’, Tim retired to the back of his swim where I handed him a glass of wine and we lay back on the warm boards of the decking to look up at the night sky. Darkness was quickly consuming the landscape, but the sky above was clear and crisp. The moon was up, bright enough for Tim to have baited up without needing to use a torch, but not so bright as to conceal the stars. We gazed upwards, staring in wonder at a million shining dreams.
Tim mentioned that it had been years since he’d camped like this, without any agenda to do anything other than sit and stare. “I’m starting to get into the carp fishing vibe,” he said, as I poured him another glass of wine.
“It’s only partially about the fishing, isn’t it?" Tim continued, "It’s as much about the camping, the food, the ‘taking it easy’, the time with mates, the nature, the place, the slowing down, the sense of ‘being here’ in the ever-lingering present, all of which softens the shell that protects but cocoons us during our normal lives."
Tim paused, then said, "Here, at this lake, I’m fishing but finding as well. Finding out lots about carp fishing techniques and mindsets, and about its purpose in one’s life. Carp fishing is so different to my usual fly-fishing adventures which, although similar in their social and adventurous aspects, are much more active. Here, as I stare up at the stars and down at their reflections, I am comparatively static yet fishing three times harder. I’m using three times as many rods, with three times the hope and three times the pressure. Yet I’m completely chilled. Fishing in this way, at this place, is challenging but not daunting. And that gives me hope, for so many things."
"You're right," I said.
"If only I could apply this ‘active laziness’ all the time," said Tim, "to drift on the current and be happy with whatever comes my way, while having a plan and knowing it will work, then life would be much simpler and happier. Each of those stars above hasn’t moved in millions of years. They’re tiny yet individually and collectively magnificent. There’s beauty in being still, silently shining without having to shout or dazzle. We’re each part of this wondrous and mysterious cosmos."
"All natural beings, part of the Great Plan of whoever made all this." I replied.
"There are always more questions than answers," said Tim. "But to wonder, we first need to look and see. The answer, I’m beginning to find, is in the apparent darkness between the stars. It’s black yet not empty. The darkness fills the void, enabling the light to shine brighter and become, seemingly, connected. You couldn’t have one without the other. I can see now why man has navigated by the stars – from light to light – for thousands of years."
"Are they calling to you, in their silence?" I asked.
"I think so," replied Tim. "Just lying here, looking up at the map of the heavens, gives us direction. That we too can travel far without moving an inch."
"That's the answer," I said, smiling.
Action!
I left Tim to his musings and returned to my swim, where I baited my rigs and cast out – somewhat blindly – into the lake. I scattered a handful of free offerings in the vicinity of where I thought my baits had landed, then turned on my bite alarms (ECU alarms, generously loaned to me by Shaun) and then retired to my bivvy where I lay on my bedchair and looked out to the decking and rods illuminated by moonlight.
Finally fishing at Quarry Bank. In dreaming of it, we can travel there without moving an inch.
The air was too warm and muggy for me to snuggle into my sleeping bag, so I continued to lie there on top of my bedding, contentedly staring out to the moonlit picture. I began to smile, knowing that I’d done it. I was here, at Quarry Bank Fishery in France, fishing. Not chatting, socialising, eating, drinking or exploring. But fishing. After so many months of planning and dreaming, I had done it. My lines were cast out, the ‘traps’ were set. I was fishing!
So, too, were Shaun and Tim. After only fifteen minutes of lying there, I heard a bleep of an alarm. Not being used to fishing with such things, the sound made me shoot up and listen intently for another sound. There was no light coming from my bite alarms, so I knew it had been either Tim or Shaun who’d had a twitch on their line.
Beep!
The sound came again, loud and clear. It was nearby. Tim’s baits were receiving interest from the fish.
Bi-bi-bi-biiiiiiiiiii-eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!
Tim’s alarm screamed into action and I heard him rustle free from his bed and stomp quickly to his rods.
The alarm stopped and I heard a swoosh of the rod.
“A-a-aaaa-aaaaah!” said Tim as he felt the fish on the line.
I dashed out of my bivvy and, while running from my swim to Tim’s, heard a loud and 'deeply heavy' sounding crashing upon the water.
Boosh! Cadoosh! Cadoooop! Cawhoomp! Caboosh! Balloomph! Boooof!
Then. Nothing.
I continued running towards Tim, then heard him shout, “A-a-aeh? Oh? Owwww!” He then yelled something that made me think he was requesting some fornicating rowlocks.
“It’s off,” shouted Tim. “Line’s gone. It cut me on the rocks.”
I arrived at Tim’s swim to see him standing holding a straight rod and looking bewildered, as though he’d just reached the top of a ski slope only to be told it was closed for grass cutting.
“Clean cut,” said Tim. “No fraying.”
“That was some fight,” I said, “all that walloping on the surface.”
“Didn’t want to give it any line,” said Tim, “all those rocks down there, I wanted to get it up on the surface.”
“You sure did that,” I replied. “I thought for a moment that it was tail walking. But, by gawd, it sounded huge.”
“Yeah,” replied Tim. It sure felt heavy. Hooked it on that shallow silty spot by the pump house, but it got its head down and cut me off.”
“May I suggest,” I said politely, “that for such a big carp, it might be wise to give it some line on its first run. We might be using 20lb line, but that fish sounded to me as though it was twice that. With the extra exertion from the run, your line will be stretched to its limit very quickly and more susceptible to pinging on the rocks.”
“Got it,” said Tim. “Like playing a tarpon.”
“If you say so,” I replied. “Just make sure you’ve got the clutch set to give a bit of line, not done up tight.”
I then walked quietly back to my swim, while Tim attached another rig and cast out.
Twenty minutes later, Tim’s alarm screamed out again.
Be-be-beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!
I heard the same rustling, clomping and swoosh, then an even louder Babooosh! Calloumph! Booooosh! Then, from Tim, a semi-orgasmic “Ahh, ahhhh, ahhhhh. Ahhh? Oh? Eh? Oh! Furk!!”
“Did that fish come sooner than you were expecting, Tim?” I shouted.
“No!” came the reply.
“Eh? I thought you were in?”
“I was. But it’s off. Again! Ruddy thing straightened the hook.”
“What, a size 4?”
“Yup.”
“Did you loosen the clutch?”
“Nope.”
“Did it fight hard?”
“Yes.”
“Like last time?”
“…Yes.”
“Same result, then?”
“Goodnight, Fennel.”
The ones that got away
If there was anyone on this trip that Shaun and I most hoped would catch, it was Tim. He’d come so close, connecting with two massive carp, and must surely have been pumping with excitement and anticipation that Quarry Bank had offered up its fish so quickly.
Tim sure was on a learning curve, but his two bites, so soon after starting fishing, were incredibly promising. He was obviously in the right spot, at the right time, very nearly doing all the right things. His experiences were part of the apprenticeship of angling, and the fun of learning a new aspect of the sport, even if he’d had bad luck in losing those two fish.
I heard Tim cast in once more, then the night grew quiet as each of us drifted into a long, rewarding sleep. We each dreamt, I'm sure, of the brace of big carp that so very nearly were, but so quickly weren’t. Such are the dreams of anglers, and the legends of a lake, where the most hauntingly memorable fish are always the ones that got away.
In Part 7, Shaun, Tim and Fennel change their fortunes by rising to the challenge of fishing for big carp.
Quarry Bank Fishery is a 5-acre water in southwest France, about a two-hour drive from Limoges airport. It is set within 14 acres of private grounds, which are sensitively managed for their wildlife interest. This makes it a haven for both anglers and fish. The fishery is available for exclusive bookings only, for up to five anglers.