In October 2010, I embarked on my first ever fishing trip to france. Having a PB carp of just 12lb, This was to be a brand new experience for me. I arrived at Blavet Valley lakes in the afternoon and was greeted warmly by berny, one of the owners of the lake. Gordon arrived shortly after, and he took me down to the lake and showed me where I was to be fishing, fortunately I had the whole lake to myself so I knew I was in for a good haul. Dinner came and went, and I got all my bait and tackle set up, at this particular lake you can hire all your tackle, so you don’t need to lug all your own stuff from home if you don’t want to. I shipped out my baits to likely looking spots, I was fishing the rails swim, and where Gordon suggested, and had an early night as I had a feeling I was to be getting up a couple of times. Sure enough, at about 11pm, I heard ‘beep....beeeeeepppppppp!!’ and jumped out of the bivvy and struck on the middle rod and, YES I was in. After a 5 minute fight, I hauled in my new PB of 14lb (common), and was ecstatic. Later that night I also reeled in an 18lb mirror carp to top it off.
Morning came and Gordon brought down the breakfast baguettes at 10am and we had a good old feast. Unfortunately we didn’t get one fish that day, and the night wasn’t any better, so I decided I was going to fish with Gordon on the other side of the lake on a newly raked spot from point swim, and hope for better luck the next day. Sure enough, I landed the 23lb sturgeon and 29lb and 31lb carp along with that, I was absolutely chuffed to bits. 
A couple of days passed and I got some doubles and 20s day and night, then Thursday came. I decided to fish on the other side of the lake again as I felt like some more bigger fish, it seemed the bigger fish were holding in that area. Suddenly, there was a single beep, then nothing. Just as I went to tighten up with the spool, my hand nearly got torn off when it started spinning at what I thought was a million miles an hour! I struck and fought the fish for at least 20 minutes, finally when the fish got to the surface, I thought oh my god this is a big fish! Gordon landed it for me, and then we weighed it, sure enough a new PB of 31 1/2lb, my heart was pounding like mad!
I must mention that barring the 1st fish all my carp had been mirrors up until now, so I was hoping for a big common soon, and that was the night. Reel screams off and in comes a wonderful 24lb common, my best ever! I also managed to land a 14lb koi that night, one of only 6 that year!
Soon enough the last day came, and that morning I was packing up my clothes and sleeping bag etc., but like all fishermen would, I was saving the rods ‘til last, and just as I was about to reel in, BEEEEEPPPPP! Off went my right hand rod and yet again I caught the 23lb sturgeon, all in all a fantastic trip, 20 fish landed in one week. Here are all the fish I landed:
Doubles- 15, 18, 17½, 24, 11, 17½, 12, 14 (koi), 19, 14
20s- 23½ x 2, 29¾, 24, 25, 27, 22, 24, 24½
30s- 31, 31½
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