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The first of reviews of my friends and My trips to France during 2002.
Le Village.
Le village located south west of Reims in the Champaign region of France is a 30 + acre lake with 16 swims located on its banks. Owned and run by Jean-Marie and Gisele Noil it is within a complex of 6 lakes (others owned by Locals for duck shooting and fish farming) close to the River Aisne and the canal, set in glorious farming and vine growing countryside.
The lake features a very good restaurant with 4 course meals around £6.00 , a shower, English toilets, with portaloos dotted around 2 sides of the lake and vehicle access to most swims which you can park behind. Order your bread from the owners in the morning.........it’s excellent.
Our trip was planned in December last year with Mo and I deciding to travel by car with the gear in the Frontera via Sea France during the Back end of May with a return to coincide with the start of the world cup. Booking via Bridget at Angling Lines Holidays (who are the UK booking agent for this and many other lakes in France) included the organising and payment of the return ferry crossing, for which we thank them for their speedy and professional service. Having fished the water in April 2001 by accident I already knew which swim to book as the anglers fishing this and adjacent swims had a good result with constant action from their buzzers sounding across the lake at night. Hopefully we thought it would be good for us also in May 2002 !!!!!!.
It’s a long wait for 5 months for the trip to come around and as I am forever a planner of the yearly trip to France, commenced organising with Mo bait and particles to take on the trip. I wanted to take either Nutrabaits Trigga or Nash Whisky and Mo wanted to take Premier Aminos, to which we finally decided on Premier, rolled by ourselves rather than a bait rolling company.
Tony at Premier gave us a good deal on the bait and also chucked in some flavour and oil which was a right result. I started the bait rolling early making 14mm’s flavoured with peach melba, black pepper and Nod oil early making 5 kg a week to put bait in the freezer for the trip and the local lake and had it all finished in the freezer the week before we sailed. Mo on the other hand left it to the last moment and rolled 10kg a few days before the off despite constant nagging from myself for weeks. Particles in the form of 100kg of 2 sizes of hemp, trout pellet, tigers ,cut maize and sweetcorn were purchased and all was ready for the carp trip.
Having checked the 5 day weather cast for Reims( see French links page on this site) we could see that we would endure a mixed bag of thunderstorms, rain and wind for the week so normal Uk gear was necessary ( Titans, overwraps, gortex etc etc) and catching some “rays” probably was not going to occur !!!.
At last the day of the trip came around and I popped over to Mo’s house in Stevenage to load him up and shoot down to Dover to catch the ferry at 5.45. As usual we got down to Dover early and went shopping in Tesco's for the essentials , bread, milk, bacon, toilet rolls and off to the pub for a couple of pints before we were due to board down the local. The ferry was late boarding (thats a surprise ) and even later getting in as there was no place in Calais for it to dock, so we ended up dizzy going in a holding pattern (circles) until one was freed up !!!!.
Off the boat and straight to Cite De Europe ( By the Eurotunnel on the A26 heading to Boulogne) past all the Iraqi’s, Afghans, scum of the earth waiting for their own illegal crossing to England. I waved and wished them well in carefully chosen Anglo Saxon and went shopping at the hypermarket. The great thing about hypermarket shopping is the immense choice available , 15 different brands of large cases of lager, 30 brands of smaller packs, hundreds of differing wines and spirits........so much booze so little time...... loaded up with the essentials for the trip, food was next on the agenda with baguettes, Megrez sausages, fresh donkey burgers, Brie, Camembert, croissants, pistachios topping off the trolley.
Loaded and rolling on to the A26 for 2 hour trip towards Reims, through the tolls (about £13.00) night descended , with only the local gibberish radio to listen to interrupted by Mo’s incessant snoring the journey flew by and I only fell asleep twice at the wheel for a change. Off the toll road and through a few villages we were at the gates of the lake by 1 am. We were immediately struck by the total lack of sound from vehicles, planes and people with just the twittering of birds on speed and the racket from the frogs (the little green kind) it was totally, totally quite.
With the lake gates not opening until 7am we decided to walk around some of the adjoining lakes and canal to spot fish, having not seen much we returned to the carp wagon for some sleep, with Mo deciding to kip like a hobo on the grass in his bag (only the cardboard box was missing) and moi sleeping like a contortionist in the front seat with twenty rods for company (all Mo’s !!).
Gates open we were greeted by Jean-Marie and off to the restaurant/bar for a wake up call of thick black coffee or two, passports handed over (a requirement on this lake) and off to our booked swim 15. Swim 15 was chosen by us as there is only 3 swims on this side of the lake (8 on the opposite bank) and being a large double swim 2 bivvies can be set up easily on the firm bank (unlike 14 & 16 on either side of us where room is tight for the bivvies and pods are essential due to the platforms).
We had already decided that Mo would fish to the right of the swim and I to the left which had a bit of a snag tree feature, and proceeded to put out all our rods on single hookbaits at various ranges to get a feel for the distance that the fish may be feeding at whilst we set up the Titans and the camp for the week.
Within an hour of arrival I lost a fish on the snag tree having been cut off by underwater zebra mussel ridden branches 10 yard before the snag. Two more runs later on the snag yielded a snotty (Oh bliss !!!!) and a bite off for Mo in the afternoon (catfish probably). Markering around we found no features to talk about apart from differing types of sand/silt and allotted to place our baits at differing ranges and spod up an area between us.
 Passing the time during the afternoon the 3 metre whip was brought out for bait snatching for the cat rods for the night, with only a few decent sized fish between us we resorted to nicking a few from our neighbours Billy and Steve in swim 14 next door who were hauling them out on corn & groundbait.
The battle with the carp commenced at 7pm with moi taking a 20.2 mirror closely followed by Mo 1/2 hour later with a 22.00 mirror with no activity further until during the night with Mo having a kitten and a sturgeon who wiped out all of Mo’s rods with its aerobatic antics and bloody minded attitude under the rod tips. Mo was not a happy chappy !!!!!!.
 Still we had lots of company in our swim all night in the form of 10-15 Rolland rats. Brazen little buggars they are to, coming right up to your feet and nibbling away at the loose spod on the ground and a boot chucked at them only made them scuttle off a couple of minutes before returning again.
No other action during the night apart from the rain  splattering down and at the crack of 10am we put the bait on the go ..........sausages, bacon etc, as if the fish did not want to feed we did. We found that we had a few resident carp behind us in a small lake and fed them on bread, bacon, egg, pop ups etc etc literally any thing that was edible or not (I am not sure if fag butts are a staple diet for carp but they took them as well !!!!!!) and quickly made them our pets asking anyone passing to feed them.
Two lads from Kent Ian and Mick were fishing down from the restaurant in swims 12 & 13 were amongst the bream (lucky, lucky) but Ian had an enormous cat out during the night which bottomed out his 60lb scales with out remotely leaving the ground. Asked to estimate the weight against pictures of fish on the board it appears it was in the 80lb region, not bad on carp gear !!!.
 Day passed into early evening and having spodded out a spot at 85-90 yards over a bottom of leaf mould !!! the trap was set for us both with all 6 rods in a line of 100 yards with the snides at differing ranges. About 9pm I was first off the mark with a 30.2 mirror and a double figure common followed by Mo with a small common. With the lake alive on the far bank with leaping fish (250 yards approx), we dossed the night away with only Mo having a pick up during the night with another small common. At first light Mo had a nice 24.4 mirror and another double figure common before 7am we felt the lake was settling into a routine of night feeding fish of 12 hours and no feeding during the day and started to adapt our time accordingly.
A typical day was after 7am as we had little chance of catching :
Have breakfast (normally anything that would go into a baguettes), sleep, cook spod for two hours, sleep, spod between 3pm and 5pm for two hours, Have a bite to eat and at 7pm hope to start catching.
Monday night was a slightly better night for action with 3 small common’s and mirrors’s of 19.4 & 23.2 out to my rods and a nice 29.4 mirror plus a small common to Mo’s.
 Having run out of most of our fresh supplies and crates of beer we decided to pop down to the Champion supermarket in Fismes and once loaded, go on to see the lads from our local lake who were fishing Gareths water at ‘L ‘Etang de la Croix Blanche’ 10 minutes down the road from us. Cliff (Mr pants), Neil (Yoda),Darren (The Terminator) and Peter (The Pole) were all bivvied up close to each other for one of their normal socials, were having a fairly tough time with few fish out and also a few lost but were thoroughly enjoying their first trip to France. Whilst having a few beers and telling a few jokes (we gagged Cliff) a 39.8 mirror came out to one of the bailiffs a few swims away and another fish lost on the adjoining Tortue lake (so fish do feed during the day in this part of France then !!!), we bade our farewells, leaving a few crates behind for the lads left for our lake.
Having spodded out for another 2 hours (Its almost like being at work !!!) we started to pick up fish again after 7pm with the best 12 hours of action so far.
We had 11 runs during this time resulting in a sturgeon and a 37.8 mirror for Mo (his PB by 1/2lb) and losing 2 fish and mirrors of 26.2, 32.2, 22.2, 24.8, a spanking PB common for me at 32.0 and losing 2 fish . Knackered but elated we took the pics of the better fish in the morning and went about our normal daily routine.
 Our Mo is not a great lover of spodding and for good measure proceeded to crack off a spod and have a fight with another one resulting in his rod being hurled down the bank..........into his other ones leaning on a tree which were hurled like javelins in all directions !!!!. Only one poor rod remained to which it was deposited into a blackberry bush.............I thought the antichrist had revisited Earth again !!!!!!.
Mo was eyeing up my rods I am sure for similar attention !!!!!!!!!.
Hmmm, I wonder if he has a 666 tattoo under his hair ?
 As night fell I had a very fast pick up from a fish which then surfaced at 100 yards which turned and sped at full knots straight at me. After a short furious fight under the tips it was netted providing me with another PB in the form of a 20.15 grass carp . The rest of the night was quite with only a 29.4 mirror and 2 commons to my rods and a small common to Mo’s. Unfortunately Mo probably lost one of the better fish in the lake that evening with the fish finally making it into the snags to Mo’s right after a 10 minute fight and cutting his hook link close to the knot...........gutted he was I can tell you !!!!!!!!.
Thursday it was quite as usual during the day with only a sturgeon to Mo’s rods, and a lost fish from under a blackberry bush (I still reckon he hooked a blackbird !!!).
A quite night (as far as the better fish coming out was concerned) with only a 22.8 mirror and 5 double common’s to my rods and a 18.4 mirror and a common to Mo’s with both of us also having a few fish drop off.We both had pickups however from our friendly Coupu family living in the snag tree to our left when the younger ones used to break off branches further down the lake and swim underwater with it’s prize over our back leaded rods (moving snags !!!).
The funny thing is that this family did not pocess good balance on the lower branches whilst stretching up on their hind legs to get higher leaves and would constantly crash into the water...........theres me thinking earlier in the week that carp were crashing in the snags, Doh !!!.
 All of Friday and Saturday morning continued relatively uneventful with a couple of low twenties and commons out to my rods and Mo losing a few more and being bitten off by yet another cat. Our neighbour Billy had a PB 37.8 mirror out of swim 14 on Friday, a right result as his previous best carp out before the trip was 14lb !!!!! and his mate Steve fishing the swim with him on Saturday morning had his PB mirror at 30.15.
It was a shame to pack up but we felt we did all we could have done to winkle the fish out from a lake that was not fishing very well that week and at least had more carp out from the lake between us than everyone else on the lake combined.
The hard work cooking and spodding 100kg of particle for 2 hours every day at range paid off and we would probably approach it the same way if we come come back.
After dragging all our gear back to the car, loading, showering and obtaining my passport we bade our farewells to Jean-Marie and Gisele Noil, the guys we had a crack with down the lake, Peter and Sam, John and Steve, Billy, Steve, Ian And Mick it was off down the A26 to Calais.
 That’s it until the next trip.
Paul Ashley 
PS.....Anyone fishing swim 15 please feed the pets in the lake behind you and bring plenty of food.......... they’re starving.
PPS......Dont’ be tempted to hop over the fence and swim with the pets as they will whittle you down to the bone in 30 seconds !!! You have been warned.
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