The pool lake.
After recently moving into a new apartment with my girlfriend I was struggling to find places to go fishing, we now live on the river Loire and next to the Cher river. It’s not that I didn’t want to fish the rivers but at this time I hadn’t been fishing for months so really needed somewhere I could get my head stuck into knowing that it would be there the next week rather than flooded or dried up!
So after hours and days scouting about on Google earth I found a handful of lakes, not all of them open as of yet due to swimmers and “summer” clubs boating on the lake but lakes that would soon be opening.
I was at a loss of where to go. I had two days ahead of me free for fishing as the missus had two long days till 8:30pm at uni.
So a late wake up saw me driving 6km to a new lake, knowing absolutely nothing about it.. The lake itself is beautiful and big with not a lot of cover so the wind really hits the water and upon arrival whilst speaking to a fisherman I saw two tops over his shoulder on the opposite side of the lake so I quickly wished him good luck and power walked to the lake map to find out where I could set up.
The wind was blowing into the far end of the lake, although it was sunny and warm the wind was bitter. Things weren’t looking good as more than half the lake is closed to fisherman and only 2 sections are available for fishing each day.
I drove to the far end even though the wind was blowing in as it was the only bank I could sit on, with the silure angler taking up one section with his 4 rods, I didn’t fancy sitting next to that.
Now the only feature you’re able to fish too in the this lake is a swimming pool.
The swimming pool isn’t small, and is made up of wooden platforms and big steel fences so you can imagine the hazards underneath the water to be just as nasty as above the water.
There were two guys fishing this swim next to the pool.
So I sat on the windy bank and pulled out my marker rod, seeing that the French I saw really didn’t  have the gear to be putting a bait far I decided to whack a lead out and see what I could find.. It was dismal, there was nothing, smooth bottom with the odd bits of dead weed coming back on the float.
I arrived at the assumption that there wasn’t any clear gravel spots due to anglers not fishing small baits like particles but instead just fishing singles with a scattering of huge boilies that would choke a dog, whether that was the case or not I haven’t decided.
The lake sloped off quickly from about 4-8ft of rocks … not gravel but big rocks, into 10ft at first and the furthest chuck had me at 13ft, it’s 13ft for along time before it goes up to 10ft. Apart from that there was nothing to find.
After fishing for around 2 hours just to watch the water for the next day I packed away and was a bit more excited for the next day.
I woke up at 7:15 and was in the car by 7:30 making the short 5 minute drive, I knew where I was going to try this day unlike the last so I made my way with my equipment to the swimming pool, as the wind was still blowing down into the bottom I knew the pool would be off the wind and hopefully a hold up area for the carp.
At the pool around 30ft to the left of the pool is buoys, anyone with a brain knows that this would be a disaster if you were to fish in-between the pool and buoys so I set up the marker rod and whacked it out another 20ft to the left of the buoys to be on the safe side, it was the same as the other bank.. No clear spots and around 13ft slowly up to 10 and then 8-4.
So I found a comfortable distance for spombing and fishing, this was around 3 rod lengths further out than the buoys so not a big cast.
First rod was fished a simple pop up rig with around 7-8 inches of Soft hooklink followed by a size 4 sharps tackle hook, some putty and a small white pop up topped with a sharps tackle banana plastic corn. At the other end was a 4.5 oz. lead and a sharps tackle anti tangle sleeve to protect against tangles and ensure the rig doesn’t come off the rig clip.

After hitting the mark and clipping up I made a small solid bag with allinpartikels corn pellets and got the rod on the spot.
My spombing mix consisted of chilli tigers, crushed Maize, hemp and pigeon conditioner, 2 tins of corn and a mixture of quest baits magnum duo with different sizes as well.
The second rod was a simple bottom bait rig with double tiger nut hook baits and the same solid bag as the first rod, I fished the two rods within feet of each other and gave myself a mini heart attack upon setting the lines thinking they were on top of each other.
I spombed from 8:30 to 9am then at 12:00 I put 5 more spombs on the spot.
I was digging worms and fishing with a quiver tip to kill some time whilst I waited for the “big girls” (although on the website for the lake it says the average carp is 2kg!)
It was around 1:20pm that my right hand rod on the pop up ripped off.. Due to the buoys I wound down and ran down to my left keeping the rod high to turn it from them, it was a hard slow heavy fight and I was surprised (to say the least) when a big mouth broke the surface.. All of a sudden the knees started wobbling but after a short 10 minute battle it was in the net.
On the scales it went 32.5lb, not bad for the first fish from a new water!
So rod and bag back on the bait, with 10 spombs over the top.
It was important for me to keep topping the bait up as there’s a big head of silver fish, poisson chat and small koi so I wanted something to be on the spot at all times.
At around 2pm I was met by a lad around the same age as me claiming I was in his swim and demanding that I moved! I burst into laughter and that solved that problem.
The day was quite slow after that until around 4pm I had another screaming take on the right hand rod but after around 2 minutes the hook pulled. So I checked rig and put it back on the spot with 5 more spombs over the top.
It was around 20+ degrees and not a cloud in sight so it was comfortable to sit and wait for the carp again which didn’t take long as around 6pm the right hand rod burst into action again, like the first fish the fight was slow heavy and I was expecting another good fish… Until it closed in to the margins and a scraper twenty broke the surface, a great fight but not a great looker so a quick phone photo of it on the mat and straight back so I could get the rod back on the spot.

That was it for the day as I left at 7 to get back to the car park. A good first day and I’m buzzing to have finally got back to fishing after having months and months off the bank!
Rekindled the passion!