The Media Carp Masters 2011

The competition kicked off and to be honest no-one knew what to expect, half an hour in team Sparsholt were in, and again a few minutes later. Within an hour or two they had built up a 6 fish haul, ironically in the peg that Chappers and Ace had ear-marked on the far side of the Berkely island, hitting the far channel. Next to them was the For Life Experience boys, Grahem Mabey and Tom Oliver who had also started to hit a few fish, most all around mid 20lb.  For the first few hours they were the only ones to get into the fish but this soon changed and everyone started hauling in the fish.

Though there were a few spots that lacked vast numbers of fish I am sure this was down to the conditions and craft of the anglers who were attracting the carp from all over the lake.

The majority of carp caught were in the 20-30lb range with around 20 caught over the 30lb mark and 2 40lb’ers hitting the bank, we were unlucky not to see one of the 50lb carp that are in each lake, JRC, Penn and Berkely all hold at-least 3 50lb fish. The FLE boys were really hitting into the fish by the nightfall of the first day and actually averaged a fish per hour for the 66 hour competition, they were like machines, up all night and all day hauling some pristine carp using PVA bag tactics with pellet and fake maize, each bag was filled with attractant and fished to a plateau at around 60 yards in the top right bay of the the Berkely lake, a known hotspot for holding carp.

All the perks you could want

The complex has all the facilities you could want, each lake has a few lodge type huts which sit around the lake that are available for rental, each has beds, fridge, cooking equipment, electricity and a nice covered balcony for watching the rods if the weather turns bad. There are also a few cracking perks to this complex, the shower block with a handy fridge for food (boilies and beer!!), a patisserie van that comes round most mornings for supplies and a nice BBQ area with gazebo and a view of the river (which by the way is cracking for barbel!)

Overall I think that the Pure Fishing Resort Du Der has the potential to be a house hold name for fishing holidays to France, with the carp set to grow at an amazing rate it will not be long until the complex holds fish over the UK records. The resort has a beautiful setting, the staff are friendly and knowledgeable especially and are always on hand to help land and weigh the fish.It can only get better when the trees and bushes start to grow around the complex and this in itself would be worth the trip.

Get your name down

I would thoroughly recommend getting your name down and giving it a shot, its proximity from Calais is good, about 2.5 hours is all it takes to get there with no stops but as it is one straight road I dare say you may be able to do it quicker. Get in touch with Hans over at Carp Connections for some more info or look on the website.

Carp Connections have been kind enough to donate one of their JRC fishing boats and the chance to win a trip to the resort as part of a competition that readers of Carpit can enter, information on that and reviews on all the products and clothing we took to the event to come. Again, thanks to our partners CCmoore, Gardner, OCD and 30plus for helping us with bait, tackle and clothing for the event along with the team at the Pure Fishing Resort Du Der, Hans and Andy Loble for inviting us on the event.