Trips 2026

France - Val Dore Lakes
UK - Pavyotts Mill Fishery

I had two week-long sessions this year, but very little in between to keep the momentum going.

Starting with the first trip, I fished Maze Lake at Pavyotts Mill Fishery back in April. I absolutely loved it—having a dedicated cabin with loads of room and storage areas makes setting up for a long week effortless. Interestingly, the fishery seems to frown upon a unique feature inside the cabin: walls covered in past anglers' graffiti mapping out where fish have been caught, complete with baiting tips and suggestions. While I get that writing on the walls damages the property, I feel like it's something the fishery should embrace—maybe by putting up a large chalkboard or something similar to let people leave those notes without defacing the cabin. It would also make it much easier to wipe away the occasional negative comment once people have vented.

For tackle, I took both my 12ft and 9ft rods, using the shorter setup during the day and swapping to the 12fts at night. That way, I always had spare rigs set up and ready to go, and fishing the longer rods at night gave me a bit more peace of mind with 45lb fish potentially roaming about. April was uncharacteristically hot—though it feels like the whole year has been hot all round—but I managed to bank a few fish, topped by a 29.7lb common that set a new UK personal best, so I'm well happy to take that away with me. I took the time to investigate some of the other swims during the week, and you could clearly spot the carp hiding out in the quiet corners. With not many swims in use while I was there, those fish out in the untouched water stayed completely uncatchable. On the bait front, this was my first proper session using Bug, and it served me well. I've finally knocked it off its pedestal and put it to work catching fish, exactly as I always expected it would.

Moving on to the second part of the year, it was back to Val Doré Lakes—ye olde faithful, and always a fun trip. This time I was on Lake 1, swim 3, which was a new experience for me. Ahead of time, I sat at home mapping out distances using Google Maps. Because it's a shared cross-section with other swims, I made a strict point not to push outside my designated water range, even though the swim opposite me was empty for most of the week.

I kept my baiting approach focused, spodding out maize and hemp at a conservative rate of just two spombs per rod, with topped-up feeds roughly around 9:00 AM, 2:00 PM, and 7:00 PM. The week got off to a flyer with a solid bag fished straight over the bait on the very first cast resulting in a 30-pounder. Each day brought encounters with grass carp—my first real experience trying to guide those lively torpedoes into a net. You quickly learn that as soon as they get close to the surface, they find a bonus gear and dart away ten times harder than the fight to get them there in the first place, meaning your clutch can't be set too tight or they'll snap you off in a heartbeat.

After day four, though, things went completely quiet aside from the occasional liner, and I couldn't spot any showing fish in my area to recast to. Still, everything I caught came from mid-water since I didn't have any margin features to play with, so I'm happy with how it panned out. It felt like I was holding down the middle ground between the deeper and shallower sections of the lake.

All in all, these two trips were real highlights of the year, even if I've deeply missed all those little weekend overnighters to keep the gear warmed up and the routine ticking over.