Escargot

 Interesting back story sent in from Chum reader (and video producer) Matt Dunkinson...

“Bass ?? … In France?? …”

“Yeah that’s right….largemouth” came the reply from the passenger seat, We were making our way through the Paris rush hour on route to make a promotional film for a carp fishery owner in central France, Apparently the owner had stocked half a dozen bass in an effort to keep the crayfish numbers down but they had never bred.  As we thundered along “le autoroute” in some horrendous weather I racked my brains trying to remember if I had packed any baitfish patterns, as it turned out… I hadn’t! All I could muster was a handful of shrimpy jobs that I had tied a few years previous for a trip to Andros.

We were filming two groups of anglers fishing the lake, one group finished Saturday morning at 10am the other started Saturday afternoon at 2pm, if I was to do battle with one of these black beauties then I had four hours to find six fish in seven acres of water !!

Changeover day came and with the blessing of the owner I rigged up the six weight, tied on the nearest thing I had to a crayfish and set off around the lake. With the rising water levels a lot of baitfish had gathered around the inlet pipe and the occasional predator was scything its way through the shoal, I crept over and on closer inspection could see various shadows beneath the bait including the unmistakable outline of a black bass hanging sub surface under a weeping willow.

Out went the clouser out with a bow and arrow cast and it was seized almost immediately by a cracking Perch of a couple of pounds, next cast same again only this time a small Zander was the culprit. The bass had melted away into the depths with all the commotion so I decided to give it a rest for an hour and go for a look elsewhere.

 On my return to the inlet I could clearly see two bass, one with its head completely up the inlet pipe, the other nosing around in the rocks beneath, I flicked the fly in again and the fish in the rocks disappeared, the other fish however came out of the pipe and started nosing around the rocks like his mate. I gave the fly a little strip and all his fins stood on end like he’d been plugged in to the mains, one more strip and with a lightning fast extension of that cavernous mouth he hovered that little clouser up without a second thought.      The battle that ensued was by no means epic and I’m not sure who was more surprised when I took hold of his lip.  He was a wizened old character battered and scarred and blind in one eye, all of perhaps four pounds, I doubt he had ever been angled for let alone caught.

 As I slipped him back into his lake full of forty and fifty pound carp I wondered if he would ever make a mistake like that again? But unless he gets a liking for boilies I doubt it very much!

Written by: Jon Hall