The Island Lake Challenge By Paul Cooper and Pat Gillett

New moon at Twilight

There is enough literature on Island Lake and its facilities for any prospective visitor to establish that there are excellent amenities on-site. Island Lake is adjacent to the River Seine and is a well established 20 acre gravel pit, amidst numerous lakes in the Ardennes region of France.

In this article my objective is to assist future visitors to the lake in putting that additional carp onto the bank. I shall do this by relating the experiences that Pat Gillett and myself came across in the second week of August 2008 on a very trying week at Island Lake.

Research your Venue
August is always a particularly funny time of the year in the carp fishing calendar, and following our conversation with Bridget keep of Angling Lines, Pat and myself, jumped at the challenge of fishing Island Lake.

Part of my research included reading through prior articles, and customer feedback reports on the Angling Lines Website. Shaun Harrison had already been in touch with me about his recent trip to the lake, and following our conversation I was fully briefed on what was required to get the best results, or at least I thought I was fully prepared. Both Pat and I took far too much bait with us, as we were to learn later that very little bait was required.

The weather forecast for the second week of August was for temperatures between 21°C and 27°C throughout the week, with a mixed weather conditions. These conditions should be perfect for a weeks carp fishing.

As usual, our carp fishing gear was reduced to a minimum, to reduce the weight and room in the car. As there are boats provided on the Lake, there would be no immediate requirement for the use of spod rods. With all that in mind, we were fully prepared for the challenges ahead.

One of the small bays

Island Lake is the big sister Lake, of Cedar Lake, both which are owned by George and Tommy Young. Early last year, Pat and myself fished Cedar Lake and managed to visit Island Lake. We saw its size & its quality.... and we couldn’t wait to get on there!

The lake itself is a well established 20 acres gravel pit, with a hardcore track giving vehicle access to every swim. It is totally surrounded by thick vegetation and some old well-established woodland. With 14 wide swims cut through the foliage, there are wide tracks giving access to all the swims. Each swim has access to its own or a shared wooden chalet, each containing 2 mattresses and facilities to store tackle, food and clothing etc, with 3 of the swims providing electric power points with a fridge in each.

Chalet at swim 5&6

Swim 13

On arrival we collected a key for the main gate from Sandra and entered the grounds of Island Lake. It took the best part of the first morning to establish exactly where we wanted to fish. With no signs of fish we could only go on our watercraft, and of cause, a swim with a fridge!

The average depth of the lake is around 4 m and there are numerous gravel, sandbar features and bays, all of which provide an ideal location for areas of weed growth. It is a stuffed with natural food, and the carp spend most of their time munching on it - anglers bait is second choice, if not on their menu at all!

Tactics and slack line presentation
It became immediately apparent that slack lines would form the best presentation. Fortunately I own a full set of Rattler indicators, which are ideally made to facilitate slack lines in either windy or calm conditions, whether in deep or shallow water. The design of these indicators allow you to fish a slack line by taking advantage of the air pressure naturally pushing the line onto the bottom of the lake bottom, giving a perfect line presentation for that wary carp. Despite the slack lines, the Rattlers provide instant recognition of both forward runs and backdrop runs.

With this presentation you can use heavy breaking strain line without alarming the carp.

Rattlers

Pat used his conventional swingers with the ballast weight set just below the alarms to provide more or less a neutral weight on the line, again providing slack line running through the water.

Most of the banks consist of clay covered in small pebbles which allow for the use of bank sticks, with rod pods not being necessary. Fishing from either paired or separate bank sticks allows the spread of the lines safely as you require them over a bigger area.

I initially tried to get away with 12lb breaking strain line but quickly found with a lost fish that ran across a mussel shell, that this would was to be detrimental to landing the carp safely. I upped all my line to 18lb b.s. - three reels loaded with ordinary mono and the 4th with a fluorescent red mono line.

Now why a red line you might ask?
I just wanted to prove a point and see if one of my theories work. Red when under water appears black, or so the experts say, and in a slack line situation will appear like any other piece of weed or loose material on the lake bottom. There are advantages to using coloured lines in that at night it can be easily seen when playing in a fish, either in the moonlight or from the beam of a head torch. Another theory of mine is that a fish will swim around an obstacle that it can see but if it accidentally swims into a clear or fluorocarbon type line that it can’t see, it will be alarmed and totally spook away from the unseen object.

Caught on the red florescent mono line

41lb 4oz Common

Some of the major fish holding features could be found in the margins, so these could not be ignored. Previous writings about Island Lake indicate that the fish are very wary to boat activity. I'm sure that is true, however by rowing a boat in a Hiawatha style (that is with one oar), instead of using the oar locks, reduces the noise completely. In fact it was quite possible to take the boat right over the top of fish without disturbing them too much. In this way fish location was made easier as you could get in the boat and go out in the lake to try and locate feeding fish.

Boats at the ready

Swims 1 and 13

It soon became quite apparent that carp would not stand any angling pressure in one area for more than 48 hours. As soon as a fish was caught, lost or just simply fished for, they began to move, either to the far end of the lake or into one of the quiet secluded bays.

Having gained this knowledge we quickly learned that we needed to follow the fish around the Lake by firstly observing their movements, and locating their small feeding areas in the bays and in open water. This was done from observations either at first light or late in the evening, as this was the main time of the day that the fish actually showed themselves, by either crashing out or making small movements on the surface giving themselves way. In all both Pat and myself moved on three separate occasions, and on nearly every occasion the move proved successful.

44lb 2oz mirror

39lb 12oz mirror

Finding the feeding spots was not too difficult as the clear areas created by feeding fish can be seen amongst or on the edge of the weed. Carp safety is paramount, as some of the feeding areas are deep in weeded areas and it would be impossible to get the carp safely back to the bank. Once a safe feeding area is located the line can be marked, preferably with power gum. Electrical tape would not stay adhered to the line, as the chemical structure of the water in Island Lake, quickly dissolves the glue on electrical taped marks.

The hook bait can be rowed out by boat to one of the feeding areas, with only a handful of boilies required for free offerings, spread in that area. No other particles or pellet are required.

My preference was to place around 15 x 10mm Quest Rahja Spice shelf lifes in a PVA bag, and cast it to my chosen location with around another 15 x 20mm boilies catapulted in that general locality. Both of the above methods produced results.

Pat fished a similar system using both Liver B8 and Rahja Spice shelf life boilies. All my fish were caught on double 10mm hair rigged bottom baits to a ESP Raptor T5 micro-barbed hook, and Pat’s on a combination of 15 and 10 mm baits. The hooks were changed regularly so they remained ultra sharp.

The clutches on the reels were set tight so as to reduce the distance of a run and the rods were held high when playing a fish, keeping constant pressure on fish so that it could not dash for the safety of the weed.

39lb 14oz mirror

Pat’s 55lb 4oz mirror

From what we found and from the results of other anglers that have fished this year, there are no reports of problems off either Poisson Chats or Crayfish. Once a bait is in place in one of the feeding areas, it can be left undisturbed for at least 36 hours. This method produced fish for both Pat and myself, in fact Pat had the last fish of the session, a 46lb mirror after a bait had been in location well over 38hours.

39lb 10oz mirror

46lb mirror

The end results of our week long trip was as follows:-

I banked mirror carp of 39lb 14oz, 39lb 12oz, 39lb 10oz and 44lb 2oz, and commons of 41lb 8oz and 41lb 4oz.

Pat banked a 41lb 2oz Common, and mirrors of 55lb 4oz, 37lb and 46lb.

This gave a total of 10 carp all over 37lb.

41lb 8oz common

37lb mirror

14lb 2oz common

Conclusion
The fishing at this unique venue is excellent, and this is without doubt, got to be one of the most rewarding lakes that I have ever fished in France. Every fish caught is a prize on its own and in excellent fighting condition. Island Lake is stocked to cater for the more experienced angler, with an average size of over 40lb plus. The lake is not over stocked with carp, allowing them to grow on the natural resources available. For this reason the fishing can be classed as difficult, and a lot of watercraft and carp fishing knowledge is required to capture each fish. Don’t expect to turn up at the lake and catch carp easily, more often than not, you will have to work hard for every capture, and even experience failure. So if you are up for a challenge, contact Angling Lines and book your place.

About my theory on the fluorescent red line - it worked... the 41lb 4 oz common that I banked came to that rod. Would the carp have fed anyway, who knows?

Paul Cooper