Quarry Bank Fishery - Part 7
Fennel continues his 12-part series about fishing at the fabulous Quarry Bank Fishery in France, this time rising to the challenge of fishing for big carp.
Tim’s near-successes on our first night’s fishing raised our hopes of what could be possible during a week’s fishing at Quarry Bank. We’d had the most leisurely of starts, and had been formally introduced to the lake by its chaperone Neil, but to have expected ‘rod action’ on the first date really wasn’t gentlemanly. We’d each tried our luck, Tim had got furthest but got a slap in the face for being a little too presumptive. At least that’s what Shaun and I tried to convince him was happening the following morning, when all of us woke from a long sleep and no bites. The lake had gone cold, with no sights or sounds of fish since Tim’s ‘walloomping’ experience the previous evening.
Morning glory
We stood in our respective swims, gazing across the water at each other, communicating by ‘thumbs up’ gestures and the luxury of Whatsapp. Neil, having thought of everything, had boosted the WiFi signal across the lake. There would be no need for shouting and disturbing the wildlife, just the gentlest of ‘pings’ from a mobile phone when a message arrived.
And so began the morning’s Whatsapp ritual:
Fennel: Tim, you saucy devil, you nearly got lucky last night. But that’s not how it’s done. See her home safely, kiss her goodnight, then walk away. There’s plenty of time to be invited in for coffee.
Tim: Ooh, talking of which, would you like some?
Fennel: Erm, I hope you’re talking about coffee?
Tim: It helps to get up in the morning, won’t take long.
Fennel: You’re talking about coffee, right?
Tim: You’ll enjoy it. I’ve got a hand grinder.
Fennel: For coffee??
Tim: And a pump.
Fennel: For coffee???
Tim: And some paper pads to hold the load.
Fennel: FOR COFFEE????????
Tim: It’s stiff though, might take both of us to work it.
Fennel: “Whatyamean????”
Tim: The two of us could do it, together…
Fennel: Please, PLEASE, tell me we’re talking about coffee???
Tim: Relax. You’ll enjoy it. It’s more fun outdoors, and, if you get close, the aroma’s better.
Fennel: Ewwww?!
Tim: Trust me, it will be fine. It’ll be right up your alley.
Fennel: Not sure that's to my taste.
Tim: Hey, I’ve not started without you. I promise, you’ll get it fresh out of the bag.
Shaun stayed quiet throughout, but was checking his phone. I gazed across the lake to him, shaking my head and looking worried; he looked up at me, smiled, rubbed his hands, then grinned. Hearing Tim’s footsteps crunching on gravel as he walked towards me, I put my hands together in prayer then discretely returned to my bivvy where I sat on the bedchair looking like a patient awaiting the arrival of a rubber-gloved doctor.
The footsteps stopped crunching and then started clomping as Tim arrived on the decking of my swim. They slowed, then, from right outside my bivvy, Tim said, “’Ere, Fennel, take a look at this. Reckon you can handle it?”
I saw a long rigid shaft appear from the left hand side of the bivvy door.
“It’s the pump,” said Tim. “You pump, I’ll grind. Get the kettle on, we’ll be making an espresso in no time.”
I got up and walked outside to Tim, whose eyes were watering with laughter. I must have looked as relieved as the vicar who received a package marked ‘Little Twinkies’ only to discover that it contained a book of American sponge cake recipes.
Tim showed me his camping coffee-making kit: a Rhinowares grinder, a bag of Black Sheep ‘Blue Volcano’ arabica coffee beans, and an AeroPress coffee maker pump with paper filters to force the hot water through the coffee grinds. I got the kettle boiling and, while it was building to a boil, Tim started grinding the beans.
Eventually, after much grinding, steamy rolling, and hard persistent pumping, Tim and I laid back, breathed deeply, and smiled. We were spent from all the exertion, but the effort had been worth it. There, in our hands, were two small but perfectly formed cups of coffee. We looked out across the Quarry Pool to see the first rays of sunlight appearing through the trees. I do believe that, for a moment, I heard a celestial harp playing and saw a shining golden halo appear above Tim’s head. There were few moments in my life, camping, fishing or otherwise, that were as heavenly as this.
Silent light
First light at Quarry Bank Fishery, a time to feel the moment.
A lake at sunrise is one of the great marvels known to anglers. So many people, cosy in their beds, never get to see it; yet it is truly heaven-sent. When the sun breaks on the horizon and its beams shine through spirals of mist dancing upon the pool, one’s heart is drawn into the waltz that has serenaded anglers throughout time. It’s a sensation as much as a vision, with the angler feeling the movements and vibe of the lake and its inhabitants; seeing, hearing, sensing; searching for every sign of a feeding fish. It’s what I call ‘the stirring’ of day, where fish are beginning – or just ending – their feed, when wildlife is most active, and the noises and disruptions of Man have not yet broken the calm. Like the creatures that go quietly about their business in the twilight, so an angler senses the shyness of the natural world. Be quiet and still and it will come to you; be noisy and brash and it will disappear like reflections in a waterfall.
Be quiet. Be calm. Be still. Breathe. Feel the moment.
Awakening
I noticed something at Quarry Bank that I’d not seen in many years. Perhaps because of the darkness at the bottom of the lake, or because Quarry Bank isn’t overly pressured by anglers, but the appearance of sunlight on the water had the effect of turning on a switch for the fish. The nocturnal hours had been so very quiet, but now the sun was up, the fish were stirring. A large common carp leapt in the corner of the pool to my left, right in the rays of sunlight, appearing like a fiery beacon to awaken its friends. A much bigger carp jumped clear of the water on the far bank near to the Steps swim, landing with a ‘wawoomph’ that echoed and rippled across the lake. I looked at Tim, he looked at me. We said nothing. Each of us knew that the fish sounded exactly like the ones he’d lost the night before. My estimate of its weight? About forty pounds.
With our coffee cups emptied and the sun rising higher through the trees, Tim headed back to his swim to await action from the fish. I remained still, searching the water for bubbles and further signs of movement. Most activity appeared to be on my left, along a steep cliff that forms the only unfishable bank on the lake. Fish were evident from their bubbling, which rose in clusters and gradually moved along the base of the cliff. From the patches of bubbles appearing on the surface, I’d say that there were three carp feeding fairly close together.
"For a charm of powerful trouble"
The bubbles at Quarry Bank were unlike any I’d seen before. They were much bigger – up to an inch in diameter – and appeared on the surface like the ‘rolling boil’ in a saucepan. I figured that the great depths of water through which they rose meant that the individual bubbles had time to collide with one another on their way to the surface, erupting as a collective mass of fizzing that looked more like the air from a scuba diver than from a feeding fish.
An eruption of bubbles from three feeding carp at Quarry Bank Fishery.
A rolling boil, from a cauldron of a pool, and sight of a ‘fire burn’ leaping carp? Perhaps it boded ‘toil and trouble’ for those seeking to work their magic?
Hopefully not.
Shaun, Tim and I were no witches. Sure, we may have chanted the occasional “double double” when pouring our quadruple measure whiskeys, but our hats were too flat and none of us would have melted if we dipped our toes into the pool. True, my lilywhite legs would have frightened the warts off a warlock, and Tim’s coffee was strong enough to create a chattering of teeth, but there were no ghoulish ‘woo-ha-haas’ or cackling to our fishing. We were just three guys looking to connect with the lake’s residents. We were ‘hag free’ and happy. But with carp fishing, there’s always an underlying challenge, the infamous ‘game of chess’ between angler and his opponent, which means that one or the other will seek the upper hand.
Seeing the bubbling moving slowly towards the corner of the pool to my left, I decided to recast further along the bank, as tight into this corner as I could reach. I reeled in my left-hand rod (the one with the Mitchell reel), checked that the bait was good, then walked down to the front of the decking, got onto my knees, then gave the rod a sharp flick to send the lead and bait sailing hard but fast, parallel to the bank and water and underneath the overhanging trees. It landed right in the corner, narrowly missing the branches of an oak. I then allowed the line to continue stripping from the spool of the reel as the bait sank into the depths. Then, when it had stopped, I wound down to tighten the line to the lead, pulled it back a little (again, feeling a lovely ‘thud’ of the lead on the hard bottom of the lake) and then placed the rod back on the pod. I clipped the line into the bobbin (a lovely custom-made frosted cylinder that reminded me of smooth wave-tumbled glass found on the seashore) and then catapulted a dozen boilies into the spot where the lead had landed.
The area of lake with most carp activity. The fish were bubbling and moving up and down the base of the cliff, slowly moving into the left corner where my baits were waiting.
The left-hand rod, with the Mitchell reel, had all hopes riding on it.
The custom frosted bobbins. They reminded me of smooth 'wave tumbled' glass.
I then recast my other two rods onto their correct spots and added a handful of boilies to each area. In my simple way, attempting to second-guess the movements of my opponent, I was playing the game of chess with the carp of Quarry Bank. It was by no means special, not the castling move of a king, merely the inching forward of a pawn. An ‘e4 French Defence’, designed for solidity and resilience, while knowing the little white piece will be sacrificed as the game evolves.
Sidelines and variations typically occur in chess. It’s not predictable. That’s why carp fishing is so addictive, such ‘powerful trouble’ for anyone getting into the sport. One can never be sure, one day to the next or one water to the next, how the game will play out. What worked before might not work again. You just have to make your move and hope it works.
Re-casting the rods.
Strategies, tactics, foot-stamping obstinacy, dogged perseverance or simply ‘fluky good luck’ (often a mixture of all five), form the basis of a campaign to catch a carp. Always watching the water, looking for signs or indications of interest, sometimes holding firm and changing nothing, sometimes ringing the changes with a different bait, rig or location; having confidence to wait patiently, while being subtly impatient in one's thoughts as one reads the signals presented by the lake. For me at Quarry Bank, I’d seen what appeared to be three carp feeding on the far bank and moving towards my new baited area. My hopes were high, though my expectations were nothing more than a ‘maybe’. Just maybe…
The waiting game?
The author 'BB' describes carp fishers as needing "inexhaustible patience, a contemplative turn of mind and a philosophical disposition". Perhaps, of all these, patience is the most important and challenging attribute. At least for most. For me, I have no problem sitting back and waiting hours or days for a bite. I’ve mastered the art of idling which, specifically for me, means lazing, napping, snoozing, dozing and sleeping. I really am very good at ‘getting my zeds’, being able to sleep pretty much anywhere, anytime. So, not expecting immediate action from my newly cast lines, I retired to my bivvy and lay down on my bedchair knowing that I would be most grateful if the carp would allow me a few hours shut-eye.
Looking out to the rods, while writing these words and looking forward to a good sleep.
The carp were most obliging. I did get some sleep, as when I woke the sun was high in the sky. I got up and walked slowly out towards my rods, scanning the lake for signs of fish. The carp were still there, bubbling away on the far bank, and had moved closer into the corner as expected. I looked across the lake towards Shaun’s swim and was surprised to see him standing up, holding is rod aloft, and reeling in frantically.
“You in, Shaun?” I shouted.
“Nah. Had a really fast drop-back bite,” he replied, “it’s dropped the lead and I’ve not connected with it. Good sign of action, though. On that plateau out in front.”
Things were looking up. The carp were feeding, they liked our bait, and, assuming Tim wasn’t ‘doing a Fennel’, all three of us were awake and ready to pounce on our rods should they spring into action. But with the sun high overhead and scorching the ground, and air temperature in the thirties, I wasn’t overly optimistic of more sport.
It really was hot.
Opportunistic fishing
Shaun, having recast, spent a good while studying the water. He noticed some fish movement to his left, fairly close to the edge of some lily pads, and began baiting a spot. While the fish were gaining confidence and beginning to feed, Shaun tackled up a float rod.
(Not nearly enough carp anglers appreciate the effectiveness of a float – in detecting bites and encouraging us to look closer to our own bank. Too often we just hurl a lead into the distance rather than appreciating that, if we’re quiet, the fish were probably right by our feet when we arrived.)
Shaun cast in and, after no more than two minutes, struck into a fish. The fish kited quickly to the right but, with the soft rod and centrepin absorbing its lunges and slowing its runs, Shaun quickly had it on the bank. I saw him unhook it, photograph it, then quickly return it to the water.
“What, not going to weigh it?” I asked.
“No,” came the reply, “I’ll send you the picture.
Ten seconds later, my phone pinged and I saw the photo of Shaun holding his prize. It was accompanied by the words: Perch. 3oz.
Shaun with our first fish of the trip. It might not have been big, but it was a fish.
Noon showdown
Fishing for carp needn’t only be about fishing for carp. Hey, if you’ve cast two or even three rods out, there’s no reason why you can’t have some fun catching other species while you await a bite from a big fish. And, of course, there’s every chance that a big fish will swim close by and pick up the bait around your float. Shaun was having fun, breaking any ‘noon showdown’ deadlock that may have arisen, and distracting his gaze from his other rods. I’m sure that fish, like any wild creature, know when a predator’s gaze is upon them. By looking away, they can often continue about their business without alarm.
Soon, Shaun was ‘in’ again. Another quick tussle and he had a bigger fish on the bank. This time it was a roach of nearly two pounds. A near specimen, most casually caught, when he might otherwise have caught nothing. So Shaun was ‘off the blocks’ due to his innovative thinking and desire to ‘just fish’.
Shaun with his near two-pound roach.
Tim was next to connect with a fish, which twitched his bobbin a couple of times before getting his alarm to sing a merry “de-de, de-de, dee-deeee”. The fish didn’t fight that hard and was quickly in the net. It was another roach, albeit one with delusions of grandeur. It had taken a 20mm boilie attached to a size 4 hook. The same thing happened twice more, with Tim catching another two roach on his heavy tackle. He didn’t mind, as he was catching something, and the roach didn’t seem to mind either. (I would imagine that they felt a little short-changed by not going through the whole weighing and photography rigmarole. If a fish lives somewhere like Quarry Bank, it probably thinks it’s a carp. And a big one, too.)
“Probably a carp”
Whilst catching roach was fun for Shaun and Tim, and helped to keep them entertained during the hottest part of the day, I elected to stick to my guns and stay focused on the bigger fish that were feeding in the corner to my left. They were still there, feeding confidently in 30ft of water, bubbling all around my baited area, and startling me with every twitch on my line. I was, by now, far from asleep and far from feeling the luxury of a regular heartbeat. In fact, I was biting my knuckles in excitement; such was the anticipation of action on my left-hand rod.
Neil popped round to my swim to say ‘hi’ and to check how I was getting on. I pointed to the bubbles rising in the corner and explained where I had cast my lines. He said that the left- and right-hand rods were spot on, but the middle rod was too close to the bank – most likely to have fallen into a narrow 40ft gully that the fish were known not to frequent. He recommended that I cast this rod another 30ft further out, just beyond the line of the overhanging oak tree. This would mean that I’d have two baits cast in the general direction of the feeding fish. I thanked Neil for his guidance, agreeing that I’d recast the rod after dinner. For now, I didn’t want to disturb the carp feeding over the baited spot.
Neil left me while he went to speak to Tim. I continued to watch over my rods. I noticed how the wind had swung round to come from a northerly direction, bringing with it a hazy look to the sky and a ‘bite’ to the air that made me shudder in my T-shirt and shorts. I went into my bivvy, where I found my corduroy jacket and put it on. This was the one item of warm clothing I’d brought with me, having sacrificed all my jumpers and cotton shirts to meet the airline’s weight restriction for my luggage. I also lit the stove and put the kettle on, feeling that a nice warm cup of tea would assist the sudden plummet in temperature. I felt sure that the air must no longer be in the thirties. Indeed, as I started rubbing my arms for warmth, I concluded that it must now have been a bitter 29 degrees.
The air had cooled, but the carp continued to feed.
Distracting my gaze from the water had, it seemed, given a fish the confidence it needed to quickly grab my bait. No sooner had I started searching for my teacup when I heard a ‘beee-be-bee-beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep’ coming from one of my alarms. I spun round to see the tip of the left-hand rod pulling hard round to the left, the bobbin bouncing against the rod, and the handle of the Mitchell reel spinning rapidly.
I leapt over to the rod, lifted it and felt the powerful and heavy surge of a fish that was swimming quickly into the open water in front of me. With the rod butt pressed firmly into my groin, one hand gripping the rod and the other stopping the reel handle from turning, I pulled against the fish, feeling it kick and surge but gradually lifting in the water.
The fish changed direction and began kiting to my left before lunging deep towards the roots of the overhanding oak. I kept a steady line on the fish but couldn’t apply side pressure in the usual way. It was just so deep, with runs that were as much vertical as horizontal.
(Each time the rod tip was yanked down towards the water, I was reminded of the old Victorian paintings of barbel fishing from a punt where often the fish was portrayed upside down with its tail in the air as it made a final vertical lunge down into the depths of a weir pool.)
I could feel the line plinking off twigs and roots, and began to fear the worst, but steadily I pulled the fish away from the tree and into the deep gully that ran parallel to the bank. The fish kicked and got up some speed, moving along the margin until it had passed me and was twenty feet to my right, catching the line of my right-hand rod, and now sixty yards from where I’d hooked it. The fish began circling and striving to pull deeper, but I held it on a taught line.
The weight of the fish, which was holding the rod in a constant curve with the tip nearly in the water, was too much for my old Mitchell to bear. I felt a grinding ‘crunk’ and then, as I tried to wind down to gain some line, felt and heard a ‘crrrr-crrrr’ coming from inside it. The handle was turning but the rotating head was not. Something bad had happened to the gears, which could not work under such pressure. Only when I eased pressure on the fish, would the reel retrieve line. This meant that I would have to pump the rod quickly – removing almost all pressure on the fish each time I lowered the rod. Not what I wanted to be doing when using barbless hooks, but it was my only option. I cursed the old reel – which I had used successfully and pleasurably since the late eighties – but wished I’d have been using a centrepin. That way, I would have been in direct contact with the fish rather than at the mercy of lightweight alloy gears, the cogs of which were obviously stripping themselves bare with each turn of the handle and sounding rather like the coffee grinder that Tim had used earlier in the day.
I saw Shaun gesture to Tim that I was into a fish, then heard Tim running along the gravel path towards me. He arrived in my swim, congratulated me, then began taking some action pictures with his phone. I mentioned that the kettle might be boiling dry, so Tim quickly turned off the gas and then came over to me and patted me on the back, saying, “By the look of that rod, you’ve got a good fish there.” It certainly felt like a good fish, but not in the conventional way. Because I was having to lift it up through the great depth of water, I was playing its full weight and strength rather than the usual experience of being able to ‘turn its head’ and draw it back through the water. I was reminded of how a rod’s test curve is measured, in that the Free Spirit ES rods I was using would reach a full curve with a direct pull of 2.75lb of weight. No wonder the rod was constantly doubled over. There was more like ten times that pressure on it.
I was standing on decking, three feet above the water, with the rod butt firmly in my groin, leaning back to use my weight and strength against the fish, and yet the rod tip had barely raised higher than the surface of the water. This experience, of knowing I was pushing the tackle and my body to the limit (in the case of the reel, beyond its limit) on a large but probably not huge fish, made me fully appreciate and be grateful for developments in tackle design that have allowed such a fight to take place. If I’d have been using my regular split cane rods, then I’d have probably been flat on my back by now and nursing a face full of splinters. Yet I was still connected to this fish – as much through the resilience of the rod and line as any skill on my part. A realisation came over me like an electric shock: that I was appreciating fifty years of tackle evolution in the five minutes that I’d been connected to this fish.
With Tim giving me encouragement through regular comments of, “Whoa, steady on old son,” and “Keep it steady, you can do this,” I gradually made line on the fish and drew it higher and higher in the water. Eventually we could see the end of the tubing appearing in the depths, then the dark shape of a carp, which rolled on the surface amidst a cheer of, “Ooh, yeah, mirror carp, mid-twenty.”
I kept the fish up on the surface and drew it closer towards me. I grabbed the net, wetted it in the water before me, then sank it and drew the carp over its cord. “Yes!” Tim shouted, obviously as excited as me to be part of this moment. We'd done it. Our first Quarry Bank carp, safely in the net.
Our first carp comes to the net.
Safely in the net.
I saw Shaun grab his camera and start making his way towards us, calling to Neil and Lin to tell them the news. Soon, all five of us were together, marvelling at the fish and celebrating what was definitely a team capture – the result of months of anticipation and planning, and several hundred miles of excited travelling.
Tim, Lin and Neil witness the fish; though Neil was rather surprised by what I'd caught.
“Well done, Fennel, you did it!” said Shaun.
“You should have seen the fight,” said Tim; “the rod, I’ve never seen one bend like it!”
“This,” I said, “is mega. Mega brilliant, mega amazing, mega exhilarating. What a rush! What a fight. And, my Lord, that fish put me through it. The pressure on my groin from the rod; I feel like I’ve been kicked in the nuts by a donkey.”
“It’s not quite a donkey,” said Shaun, “but a very decent fish.”
Neil, who’d been quietly studying the fish in the net, said, “Well done Fennel, but it's ruddy typical. You travel all this way and catch the smallest carp in the lake. Still, there are bigger ones out there...”
We weighed and photographed the carp. At 24lb 10oz, it was half the size of the biggest one in the lake, but it was an authentic Quarry Bank carp and a great way for us to open our account and work towards bigger fish.
It's heavy!
One for the camera: my first Quarry Bank carp.
24lb 10oz of Quarry Bank carp. "It's probably the smallest one in the lake!" said Neil.
The game of chess was in full swing. ‘Pawn first, queen later.’ How much later? Who was to know? What we did know was that it was time for a celebration. Food, drink, great company, and a toast to a very fine carp.
In Part 8, Shaun, Tim and Fennel celebrate with some social fishing.
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.