Regular readers will remember I'd previously mentioned that our summer holiday this year was to go camping in the Lake District. But when someone rings to invite you and your family to the south of France on all expenses paid trip there's only one answer you can give!
I received such a call from the kids' grandparents, on their mother's side. Last year they decided they'd had enough of grey English weather, and a lifetime of emotional investment in the fortunes of Aston Villa had understandably brought Grandad nothing but heartache - so they headed off to find the sun. They bought a field by woodland and designed their dream home and now live in a caravan on site until the building work is done. We stayed in their large tent, by the side of the caravan.
This was the kids' first ever trip abroad and I'd never taken fishing rods on a plane before. I used an ancient leather holdall my brother had kindly given to me, and in these days of Mad Mullahs and terrorists, I drew quite a few nervous glances from fellow passengers. One lady was so nervous she approached us and asked what it was; when we told her she sighed and visibly relaxed. “Thank God for that”, she said, “I thought it was a rifle .“
We got the chance to fish three locations. The first was a privately owned lake, which hadn't been fished at all for many years. I realise such an opportunity is every fisherman's dream and, to be brutally honest, it was an opportunity that was wasted on novices like us. I've since been told we should have ground baited our swims with hemp every day for about 3 days before fishing, but we didn't find this out until after the holiday had ended. Naively, we just turned up and fished.
Our lack of experience didn't stop us from having a laugh though. The lake is surrounded by woodland, and there was no one else around; perfect peace. The water was like a mirror. We chose a stretch with a sandy bank, firm enough to take our chairs but yielding enough to take home made rod rests, V-shaped branches from the forest floor. The dappled shade curbed the oppressive heat and a cold beer or two from the coolbag really hit the spot.
At one point Sam wandered off into the undergrowth, announcing he was off to answer a call of nature. We gave him a few seconds before shouting out to him to watch out for the snakes. At this point Sam's bottle went completely, he pulled up his shorts and ran screaming back to us as quickly as he could!
Sam recovers sufficiently from his Toilet/Snake Fear to proudly show off his first ever Poisson-Chat…
After a couple of hours of not catching, Alys and Sam got bored. I gave them the landing net and the bait tin. I explained that the sweetcorn wasn't working (serious thought crossed my mind at this point - if the lake hadn't been fished for many years, would the fish even recognise sweetcorn as a food source?) so they needed to go into the long grass and catch bugs. Stupidly I made the mistake of adding, “… and the bigger the better!”
Imagine fishing with a four inch long bug on a size 18 hook, and that's about how ridiculous things got. Even more ridiculous, we caught an inch long fish using this massive bait!
Mooching around in the undergrowth a bit later, I came across the skeleton of a snake. We decided Sam shouldn't be frightened of snakes after all … instead, he should be scared of whatever it is that's eating ‘ em !
Our next location was a local reservoir. The forecast was for driving rain and 40mph winds, so everyone except Sam and I gave it a miss. We had a good day, legering for poisson -chat , or catfish, we caught nine between us. These were the first we‘d ever caught. Very ugly and I found out the hard way that their spines can draw blood if you're not careful when handling them! Good to see the French weather forecasts are no better than the English ones - it didn‘t rain once, and there was nothing more threatening than a light breeze.
The third and final location was the beautiful and serene River Dropt (pronounced, as a local barman by the name of Marcous reliably informed us, 'Drop' or ' Drot ' depending on which region you came from). Before we fished the river, we decided we really must buy a permit, so it was off to the local Tabac to engage the hapless Frenchman behind the counter in a lot of shouting, pointing and miming to make ourselves understood. Luckily this man was more than willing to join in on the pointing and shouting and miming, and the louder he got, the louder Grandad became. To the casual observer it must have looked like the semi final of the regional Village Idiot Competition, but in the end we think we got what we wanted!
Normally I would never advocate drinking alcohol whilst supervising kids on a fishing trip, but I was on holiday and the holiday was rapidly drawing to a close by this time! I counted two bottles of red wine, twelve small bottles of Stella Artois , and two bottles of French beer between myself and Grandad . This little lot may account for the fact that we all blanked, on a day of treacherous and unpredictable weather - stifling hot sunshine, followed by heavy rain, with some thunder thrown in for good measure. It might also account for the fact that Grandad got his kit off!
Grandad sheltering from heavy rain whilst fishing the Dropt - thankfully, photo taken before the clothes came off!
There was a rope swing hanging over the water. After many hours of fishing, Sam and Alys left me in charge of their rods and played on it. Towards the end of the day, when the booze had done its worst, Grandad stripped down to his swimming trunks and he too played on the rope swing. I grabbed the camcorder and drunkenly tried and failed to keep it steady as I filmed this geriatric Tarzan in action!
“I don't know what you're wearing Grandad ”, I called over from the other bank, “but it could do with a good ironing!”
Great stuff, great memories, and once again, fishing was the catalyst. And if I ever go back there I'm taking lots of hemp in my hand luggage… I haven't given up on that private lake just yet!
Zut Alors et Sacre Bleu! Listen carefully, I will say zis only once. Monsieur Robinson, 'e can be contacted on ze e-mail at colrobinson@hotmail.com
