Lac de Madina seems to be the great number one water destination this year and, as such, usurped Foret d & the Orient on top of the French carp tree water. Recently, rumors have spread widely in the press that the Vostok is over and no longer holds so many big fish. Well, the results of my friends over the past 12 months were equal, if not better than in the years before “Vidanzh.” Reports of fishing until the mid-sixties, of course, caught my attention. A later capture by a 4 kg / 4 kg French angler helped renew my interest in water, where I had never had much success.
Therefore, with great anticipation, I agreed to the invitation of my friend Laurent to try to attack this most difficult water. The east is a real inland sea covering about 2,600 hectares. Its size and the typical night sections for French waters are very limited.
At the agreed time, I entered the parking lot at a cafe in Geradot and sat down with a cold beer to wait for Loran. Conditions were ideal with strong winds and a forecast for some unpleasant weather for the next 48 hours. You see that Orient is not a difficult lake, its rough conditions and its size, which increase its difficulty, the worse the weather, the better the chances to catch. Rotten conditions seem to bring fish straight to the bank, so they increase the likelihood of taking.
My friend Laurent has a lot of experience in water, which already had a lot of fish up to 54 pounds. I still had to break the duck. After a quick “demi” or two, we headed to the Geraudo Bay area, the legal night zone and the shelter of the famous “Bulldozer”. As soon as we reached the edge of the water, Laurent grinned and exclaimed that there was no need to look at other places on the lake, it was beautiful here, and we probably caught it. Such confidence subsided on me, and I could not wait to get it set up. Laurent seems to have the supernatural ability to know when conditions are in order.
We inflated his zodiac and went out into the water in order to “echo” our region. Geradot has nothing special about weeds. It stretched about 150 yards from the coast, and then suddenly stopped at 23 feet of water. No other functions could be found, so we decided to fish near the mud. We placed our signs and got out of the boat, finding a firm lake bed and a very thin layer of the bottom. We returned to the bank to create it.
The rigs were simple, there was no need to complicate the situation for these reliably naive fish. I set up a link to an amnesia hook knotted up to a 2nd-level creatine hook with 8 feet 25 pounds of amnesia as the hooked leader and 5 ounces in the Cord line clamps.
Then I jumped out to smear with corn, hemp, tigers and boilies. My hook baits were the pop ups of the Mistral Crab and Crawfish. Four rods were placed next to my marker, two on the left and two on the right.
A couple of hours after our arrival, we fished in the east. Time for an aperitif !!! When we sipped a glass of a pink Dutch fisherman, fishing, he would go to chat. Having accepted the proposed glass of wine, he sat down and talked with us for several hours, by the end of which we had destroyed 3 bottles of extremely pleasant wine. Memories of this first night thus remain somewhat vague, but I have flaws in my memories of going out to the boat a couple of times just to return without a fish. I woke up with a sore head and a fragile stomach. This is not the first time that the session with Laurent ended with me, having broken in my tusks, some people just don’t learn!
The first 24 hours ended up with Laurent landing on a small mirror of about 18 pounds, and I lost 2 fish in the weed. On the second night, I walked over so as not to touch the drop and concentrate on fishing. In the early evening, he started very hard, and I spent on one of my right rods, as a result of which a 19lb mirror appeared.
It turned out that during the "Vidanja" a couple of years ago several thousand small carps were introduced from the connecting channel. These fast-growing fish now make up the bulk of catches on the lake; fish range from 12 to 25 pounds.
As the weather closed, the wind increased and the rain did fall. Sitting under my gun, drinking coffee, we looked at the night and our chances of greater action. Awesome fish showed around the bay. Suddenly, I had two beeps on my right hand, and then he screamed. Big fish sign. I jumped into the boat and went to fight the fish, and Laurent's words rang in my ears,
"Big fish, monster!"
Such battles are always fraught with difficulties, but incredibly exciting. As the rain increased in intensity, it only intensified the thrill of playing carp East. For a few seconds, respectively, the neoprene sandpipers and the wet weather mechanism I was soaked. But I stayed in touch with the fish. After about five minutes I was right above him and was able to apply direct pressure. It was heavy, heavy weight pulling my little ad upwind, another sign of good fish. It was very difficult for me to lift it from below, 23 feet below me. After about 10 minutes a golden flank appeared in front of us. Some, like during a battle, he walked around and picked up one of my other lines. I could see the line running through the cavernous ducks of fish, pulling my hook. I knew that I needed to get it online quickly, or it would be lost too. I rode hard to steer the fish towards my net, but the counterweight of the hooked line kept the fish furious beyond my reach. Panic came, the fish was beaten, but I could not pick it up. This stalemate seemed to last forever. Sometimes, in desperation, I grabbed my amnesia leader and leveled my arm. Surprisingly, since the fish was lying doggo, the whole way was moving towards me, and I was able to scoop it up in my net. I gave a shout of delight when I lifted the heavy weight into the boat and headed back to the bank. When I mentioned the first words of Laurent,
"And so?"
“I don't know,” I said, “Looks thirty.” When he took the net from me, he shouted
“Kvoi! You are crazy? At least forty. "
On the scale, he placed 42 pounds on a point. Only a pound from my PB.
After a photo or two, we returned the fish to the water, and Lorana finally had a reason to open a bottle of Scotch. I joined him with a quick festive drink soaked in leather, but I am very glad that I finally made a real orig fish. Ten minutes later, Laurent was also away, but this time he was gone, and the hook fell on a heavy fish. I finally hit the hay around 2am.
The rain continued to fall, and I started in the damp sleeping bag, as I was still completely wet. There was little point in the change, since everything indicated further action at night. An hour later, I was again this time, when the wind must have been close to the strength of the storm and tried, as I could, I simply could not launch the boat. Dodging my neoprene waders, I threw the boat with me and climbed aboard. Soon I was in my battery of twigs and nearby trees, despite the weight of the fish that went along the line. It became obvious that I was not going anywhere in the boat. What to do? I really had only two options - try to play fish from the shore, after 150 yards of thick weed or put a rod on the rest and wait until the morning and hope that when the wind drops, it will still be at the end. None of the options really sounded, but I missed, as far as I dare say that I had a way out of the bank.
Surprisingly, after about 10 minutes went out into the water, the fish came through a weed, and I discovered my personal line and played it in the water of a waterfall between me and the bank. I saw that it is ordinary, and not a bad fish. In the end I got it online and returned to the bank. This allowed me to think that it was a heavier fish than it turned out, but at 28 pounds 8 ounces was a very good common carp by all standards.
The rain continued for the next one and a half days, and we were fortunate enough to experience the most powerful actions I have ever seen in the East. Fishes collapsed and waved all over the bay, or rather, over our signs.
We continued to run, and at one stage we played fish at the same time. Another time, when I just jumped out to put a marching car on the bait, before I could return to the bank, it was far away. Laurent put the rod in, and when I went to him, he made his way to pass me the wand.
Most of the fish we caught had a total area of about 15-25 pounds. Not a huge fish by Orient standards, but a good sign that in the next couple of years this famous water will truly be the place to watch.
In the middle of the week, the rain finally disappeared, and the sun appeared. Our confidence began to weaken, as the return of the beautiful weather usually ends the action. Over the next 24 hours it happened, and there was no further action on our rods. I was supposed to leave on Friday, where Laurent and another friend of Thierry, who joined us on Thursday, planned to watch the weekend.
How lucky, at dawn in the morning morning, I had a rush and a set to deal with what, of course, was my last fish session. I rolled my way to the fish, and everything became hard. I was healthy and really weeding. Try as I might just not move it. Again I resorted to the lining. I wrapped the amnesia leader around my sleeves and fell, sure it was for a break. To my great surprise, the whole lot fell off the weeds, and I found that the hand was straight lining the fish. I quickly picked up the rod and was again in control. Fish missed deep below me. It was like boat fishing in the sea, since I applied pressure to the fish. He circled around in deep water, then a pair of hammers approached the surface. With incredible ease, I was able to raise my prize, and I was able to release the now familiar “eastern” cry of joy. Fish weighed 36 pounds.
As predicted, this was the last action I experienced, and when I did at noon, I collected my rods and loaded my van, fortunately, on a short trip home.
In total, we had 17 runs between us, twelve of which came to my chopsticks for 10 fish, the best of them were 42lb, 36lb, 28lb 8oz and 23lb 4oz. We didn’t run into real forest giants, but the Belgian angler had fish on his right hand from 26 pounds, 40 pounds 8 ounces, 46 pounds 4 ounces and 48 pounds 2 ounces.
The big fish is still present, even if some were lost in the vidang, it was not as serious as they believed us. The influx of new fish, I believe, will revitalize the water so that it will continue, in the coming years, to produce a giant carp, with which we have always been associated.
In one session, although I was able to hack water, inspiration for future trips, and who knows, one day - really big fish.
