IAN WELCH’S

IAN WELCH’S
angling adventures
Here, in our unmissable 4-page slot, the UK’s most cutting edge specialist coarse
angler is the man to follow every week. Welchy writes exclusively in Angler’s Mail.
22 anglers mail.com ON SALE TUESDAY

Rudd harvest was
inspired by Neil Young
AT 2 lb 13 and 2 lb
14 oz it was a rudd
fishing dream come true;
little did I realise there
were bigger fish to come.
L’ETANG
DES AULNES
NEAR MARSEILLE,
PROVENCE.
A 270-acre natural lake L’Etang
des Aulnes is within a regional
park in the heart of the Camargue
containing many protected species,
including a vast population of birds
of prey. On the fish front carp are the
dominant species with numbers of lean
southern French commons supplemented
with plenty of 40 lb specimens and the
occasional mirror to 60 lb-plus. A large
head of catfish is also present and recent
fish surveys have shown a good mixed
population of species including zander,
bream, tench, perch, carassin, sunfish, eels
and rudd.
THIS
WEEK’S
VENUE
IAN’S AIM
It’s Welchy’s final session outside of the UK
for quite some time. Carp were the original
target species but Welchy’s spotted some
big rudd so it’s all change!
CONDITIONS
Five days of Mistral made for a bad start to
the adventure but it finishes in delightful
Provencal sunshine.
REMEMBERED the crisp crunch of frost beneath
I my feet, and the numbness of my fingers, as
I reached the river in the half light of a perfect,
misty winter’s morning. It took several minutes
for the mist to dissipate and, as it did, it revealed
shining like ghostly jewels in the crystal clear
water, a massive shoal of pre-spawning dace, so
un-imaginably huge they took my breath away.
I could remember shaking with a heady mixture
of fear and excitement. I could remember the
cold sweat, the prickles running up my neck, the
shivers down my spine and the certain knowledge
spinning round and around my brain, that if I
could just keep my calm and fish sensibly, I could
end up making an historic catch.
It was, I thought at the time, one of those once
in a lifetime, never to be repeated, eyeball to
eyeball encounters with massively big fish. Yet
here I was, six years down the line, and I could feel
the same prickles, the same cold sweat and the
same rising tide of adrenaline about to flood my
body.
Not this time a tiny carrier of the River Kennet,
but a massive, shallow, weedy bay on a big lake
in the heart of the Camargue. Not this time an
icy start, with wraiths of mist and a fleecy neck
warmer, but a scorcher of a Provence day, with
heat haze shimmering off the water, sunglasses
and factor 15. Not this time a mass of giant
The bay was vast, shallow, fringed with hectares of iris and
reed and full of weed. It was also full of giant rudd...
herring-like dace holding in the current, but
a shoal of Brobdingnagian rudd feasting on a
margin spot I had baited for carp.
The adrenaline burst in me. I wanted to do
everything at once, and yet ended up doing
nothing at all, just flapping and shaking like a
lunatic in the middle of a reedbed, as golden
flanks drifted under my nose picking up the odd
pellet here, the odd grain of hemp there and a bit
of corn there and...
...and I pulled myself together, took a deep
breath and started to plot their downfall.
Now then, if I could only just keep calm and fish
sensibly...
I ran back to base where I knew Matthew had
a float rod and reel I could borrow, and, thanks
to always carrying spools of light line in my carp
box for tying up maggot rigs, I had some 2 lb 6 oz
Micro Plus which would do very nicely indeed.
As far as floats were concerned I had Neil Young
to thank for the fact I was prepared. It was because
I just had to listen to him playing live on my drive
to the airport that I went back inside at the last
minute to pick up a CD and saw the light on my
ansaphone flashing.
It was a message from Stef asking me to bring
a few clear wagglers over for stalking the carp as
they could source none locally and, thankfully, I
had obliged.
Small hooks were not a problem as they were
to hand for maggot rigs, and I had a couple of
packets of Series 2 carp match patterns in sizes 18
to 22. But shot were an issue as all I could find was
a solitary AA rattling around in the bottom of my
F-box.
Nuddy would have cringed but there it was: a
loaded waggler to carry 2BB with just a single AAA
down the line.
>>
ON SALE TUESDAY anglers mail.com 23

IAN WELCH’S
angling adventures
I had a tiny gap in the reeds to fish from and
it was tricky to manoeuvre the landing net
as I only had a 50 in. carp model!
I utilised empty corn cans for bait boxes and used a couple of
Mistral pellet mixes together with hemp as loose feed with
corn for the hook.
To me they were just my usual Polarising glasses; to everyone else
they were a total revelation revealing underwater definition never
before seen!
With his ‘job’ done Stef was finally able to relax and enjoy some
personal fishing time, landing this upper 30 lb common.
VENUE information
DESCRIPTION
The vast expanse of open water has steeply shelving
margins rapidly dropping off into an even-bottomed
central plateau of 5 m in depth. Numerous shallow,
reed fringed bays give plenty of stalking opportunities
in the right conditions.
ALPINE ANGLING TOURS
Ian travelled to France with Stéphane Hanff’s Alpine
Angling Tours, the company which give a true taste of
French angling exactly as it is – not the tourist version!
For full details check out www.alpineanglingtours.com
SOUTH
FRANCE
Etang des Aulnes
Marseille
Grenoble
Toulon
Monaco
>>
With 27 fish over 2 lb and four over 3 lb in a short session, topped by this monster of 3 lb 9 oz, it
ranks as one of my greatest ever catches.
I’ve never been one for fancy shotting
patterns but for rudd even I would’ve set
up a delicate string of small shot to slowly sink
the bait, or a bulk to get it through the surface
then a string to drop it slowly to the deck.
Still, it was shallow water, I could see the fish
and I loved fishing the lift method!
Bait certainly wasn’t a problem, and in the
absence of bait boxes I hurriedly filled three
empty sweetcorn cans. One with a mix of coarse
pellets, one with hemp and one with a mix of
micro fishmeal pellets with corn, rather than
maize, for hook baits. Everything else I needed
was back in the swim. I just hoped the rudd were
still there when I got back.
I carefully edged my way through the reedbed,
parted the stems and scanned the margins.
There were hordes of fry but no signs of larger
fish. On the positive side the bed of corn and
pellets I had sprinkled into the swim an hour
previously had been picked clean.
I trickled a little more feed onto a clearing
amongst patchy weed, sat back and waited.
After days of bad weather it was a scorcher.
The angle of the afternoon sun made for tricky
fish spotting and Polarising glasses were
essential. I’d been using the same Fox Oculus
ones for a couple of years and thought they
were fairly ‘standard’ and it was only when Stef
and Allan tried them instead of their usual
ones that I realised just how good they really
were at enhancing definition, and now I really
appreciated them.
It took some 20 minutes for a group of fish to
return. They got their heads down on the spot
straight away then drifted off slightly when
they had cleared it. I put another handful in,
lowered my float over the top and watched as
they circled back in, the lead fish a pale coloured
specimen. I watched as it dipped, picked up my
corn, then bolted powerfully as I set the hook,
scattering the rest of the shoal in the process.
Within seconds it had dived over the dense
weed at the back of the swim, turned sharp left
then headed back through the weed into reed
stems.
There was no way I was going to pull it back
on such light tackle so, grabbing the net, I went
in after it! Beyond the marginal weed the water
dropped away slightly into thick mud and
dense weed and I struggled to make headway
and Stef arrived behind me as I was wallowing
about, clearly in a right mess. ‘This had better be
worth it Monsieur Welch!’ he said and climbed in
beside me.
I told him it would be well worth it and after
finally teasing the fish into open water and
playing it out I finally drew it over the net; albeit
with a puzzled look on my face.
My puzzlement became clear as I parted
24 anglers mail.com ON SALE TUESDAY

A last minute stop to pick up a Neil
Young CD to listen to in the car on
the way to the airport meant I had
a few floats with me.
I started off feeding lightly but as the
fish kept coming back for more I just
kept piling it in by the handful.
the weed to look at my prize which was not the
expected rudd but a carassin or crucian hybrid.
It was a very big fish but I was bitterly
disappointed it had got to the bait before the rudd,
worse still was the fact I had trashed the swim in my
effort to net it. Plus the fact that having caught it I
now knew just how big the rudd really were!
On the plus side Stef had some split shot so I
could alter my crude float rig and back on dry land
I put out some more bait and set up the float with
a bulk around the base and a couple of droppers
down the line.
Thankfully by the time I was ready to fish again
the rudd were back and first cast saw the float sail
away and my strike met with solid resistance as the
fish bolted along the margins.
It took me several minutes to stop laughing at his 1 oz catch - by which time Allan Parbery had got it right and landed this spanking rudd!
“I watched as it dipped,
picked up my corn, then
bolted powerfully as I set
the hook.”
I bullied the fish to prevent it going over the
weed, held it out of the reeds and netted it in after a
very nervous couple of minutes.
This time it was indeed a rudd, a very big fish too,
and the digital scales recorded a new PB at 2 lb
10 oz.
During the next couple of hours I worked the
swim hard, baiting heavily as the fish were clearly
in the mood to feed and lowering my hook bait
over the spot whenever they drifted away. I caught
almost every cast, wonderful bars of gold tinged
with red and none of them under 2 lb 4 oz.
I was interrupted just twice, once as Mistral Baits’
boss, Allan Parbery, stopped off to say goodbye as
he was heading home before me. Despite a tight
flight schedule he couldn’t resist having a go and
after hooking a fish of around an ounce on his first
cast which left me rolling with laughter, he finally
managed a proper one!
The second time was to nail a greedy common
which was making a nuisance of itself by
continually moving in on the bait and edging out
the rudd.
For the next hour I all but forgot the intense pain
from my chronic toothache and enjoyed some of
the finest fishing I have ever experienced.
And when I packed up early to enjoy Matthew’s
marvellous skate wing supper that evening, I had
netted 31 rudd over 2 lb, averaging around 2 lb 8 oz
with the best four weighing 3 lb 1 oz, 3 lb 4 oz, 3 lb
6 oz and 3 lb 9 oz.
It was rudd angling of the very highest calibre
and I would even suggest very probably the finest
rudd fishing anywhere in the world.
The only downside of an incredible trip was that
good friend Stef had, as is his way, concentrated
so hard on ensuring the rest of us had a great
session that he had neglected his own fishing. But
when I checked my e-mails at home the following
morning I saw to my delight he’d netted a brilliantly
deserved upper 30 lb common from the bay on the
final night.
As for me, the next couple of days would mean
root canal surgery and a return to fishing in a wet
and miserable UK.
Deep joy.
ON SALE TUESDAY anglers mail.com 25