IAN WELCH’S

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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
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IAN WELCH’S

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