Tuesday, 20 March 2012


A big hi to Celticbait users and followers,

Just returned from an eventful week at Abbey Lakes in France. Fish were few and far between on all the lakes there, but still winter conditions out there with minus 4-9 the first 4 nights with high winds and rain. The complex only produced 8 fish in the time i was there, 2 of which fell to Abbey Master Jeroen Flokstra at 40lb + 1 mirror and 1 common.
Anyway i set off from Scotland on the Friday morning trailer and car loaded for the drive down to Liverpool to pick fellow Celtic bait friend Mark,loaded his gear a bite to eat then on the road again down to meet up with Brain and Daniel at Black swan lake in Reading to pick our bait up the new crustacean to test. Brain very kindly lend us his bait boat with echo sounder a god send out there, and a big thanks for that :o). Then the fun began, found i was minus a wheel on trailer !!!!! So after pumping the the tyres up on remain 3 we set off at about 3 am from Reading heading for Dover, fog on motorway kept your speed down which helped the trailer some what lol.



Got to Dover 5 hrs before ferry so opted to pay extra for the earlier sailing. After a spot of breakies and a cuppa we where off to the the shops, bottle JD and 2 union jack t-shirts later sat down to try and get a bit of shut eye, to no avail, going fishin lol. good run down apart from trying find the entrance to the fishery.
Arrived mid afternoon by this time i was a zombi, had to wait till 5pm to get sign in at the lake, so off to the shops for some grub and beers, just happened to come across a nice bar for a drink too!!! Having booked in Mark and myself took pegs 17 and 18 as this commands a lot of water. Got to the pegs to find a Dutch guy in swim 18 ! so opt for 17 and 17 1/2 think this is better known as Jo`s swim lol.
Rods out bivvy up i needed to sleep for a week, few peeps in night think was just the wind blowing, up sunday weather was a little better wind dropped some finished unloading and decided to set the bar up , that`s my trailer,it has an awning that fits round it. Well following 3 days was like hell wind rain 2nd night my bivvie took off in the night !! glad to say i had just got out when it went :o( managed to get my bed chair out and slept in trailer that night. Luck would have it no damage to it and erected it further up the bank with extra pegs.
Sadly was my first french blank but had 1 good run but failed to hook it, fun was had by all and fellow anglers enjoyed the socials every night in the bar. Arriving back in UK the following Saturday we headed back round motorways to Liverpool and dropped Mark off and carried on to Cleverly Bridge fishery for a few days fishing and a break on the way back to Scotland.
Had fished the venue twice before with 2 blanks so was hungry for a fish, first night i caught a small common , a low double but a fish ! second night had a good take and struck into a fine 24+ mirror so that made my week in the end. Both on crustacean 20mm due to high volume of big bream in the lake at present.
Sorry my first blog is a little long but will learn to cut them down " promise" but hope you enjoy reading it. Will be back out at Abbey again end off Aug. and possibly a quick dash ova for a long weekend if space comes up and for sure some lakes in england this year.

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