Vantastic Lukas: Spell broken?

A familiar body of water

When Clemens and I had sorted the chaos of tackle into the cars on the water we had previously fished, the first thing we did was replenish the food supplies, which had become scarce. We stayed in the “Midi-Pyrenees” region and drove to a body of water that was familiar to me. In addition to some successful sessions, I also caught my PB there in the spring. I imagined that I knew the waters a little better and wanted to try my luck there again at this time of year.

As darkness fell, we spread out our rods in a large area of ​​shallow water. At 14 degrees, the water temperature was already a few degrees colder than in the lake we had previously fished. I wondered if we had chosen the right spot - maybe the fish were already deeper...

A familiar sound

The first night passed without any action, as did the following day. No jumping fish in the area, which didn't exactly boost my optimism. A sound that had become familiar to me woke me up on the second night: the continuous tone from Clemens' radio box. He came back with a mirror fish that I caught in the same area of ​​water in May this year. It seemed as if this fish was loyal to its location and was probably one of the few fish that was still looking for food in the shallow water area. It stayed with this one fish. After the third night, on a whim, I suggested a change of water. Clemens didn't take long to ask. My feeling was that we weren't sitting properly, so a short time later we loaded our cars again.

Spontaneous change of water

A small, inconspicuous body of water at the foot of the Pyrenees lay peacefully in front of us in the afternoon and greeted us with two jumping carp on the other side of the bank.

My friend Sebastien, who lives nearby, was already there to say hello. In my luggage: My “new” used echo sounder, which I had ordered from Germany and arrived shortly before. My expensive HDS 7 stopped working about a week ago and I urgently needed a replacement.

( If anyone knows of an echo sounder repair service or is able to repair such devices themselves, I would be grateful for any information).

The first better one

We felt comfortable in this manageable, quiet spot and were sure that we would be able to catch some fish - after all, the lake is not particularly large and we were able to fish a decent amount of space with 8 rods.

When I placed one of my rods in a tactically different way after the second night of no action, I was able to put my first “sensible” fish of the current tour on the mat on the third day. Due to the great distance at which I set the rod down, nothing arrived on our bank apart from three beepers. Nevertheless, a quarter of an hour later I decided to check the assembly. A short time later I was sitting in the boat with my rod bent. It was lucky that the fish was still on the hook, it had only swam a few meters towards us and was then literally waiting for me at the bottom. The result was a beautifully colored mirror.

Gone is the calm

When four French carp anglers split up next to us in the evening and surrounded us properly, we decided to retreat the next day.

It was Friday, November 1st: A few other anglers who ran into us while we were packing up that morning quickly caused the previously thought calm atmosphere to evaporate. They explained to us that the day was an international holiday and that therefore many French and Spanish people went to the nearby waters to spend the long weekend by the water.

More relaxed location on the new lake

I hoped that the situation looked a little more relaxed at the next body of water we were targeting. A larger lake that Clemens and I had looked at shortly after our meeting about three weeks ago, but left unfished for the time being. In the afternoon we reached the slip point and were surprised at how few anglers there were at the lake. We packed our boats and embarked on a new adventure...