Geocarp & Carp Circle are completely out of date and/or full of misinformation when it comes to public waters, so take the info given with a pinch of salt as they have only copied & pasted information from the generic "Public Fishing in France" website.
Many of the lakes on there are either now pay lakes, have banned night fishing, have restricted night fishing to set weekends in the year, some have restricted night areas despite saying otherwise, some require prior booking a week in advance with a maximum stay of 48hrs, or the stretches of canal/river advertised are simply unfishable as a carp angler unless you are in a float tube!
Google Earth, Google street view and What3Words are your friends in terms of access (or lack of) for vans, and planning when to grab supplies from the local Intermarche (and in my case, the local leisure centre for a shower). Join Facebook groups for the departments you are fishing and use the search bar, as these will give you up to date information.
Have the departments telephone numbers saved in your phone. The first water I turned up at last year had the stock removed and re-stocked with 5kg fish thanks to info from a local, so a quick phone call to the Dept (thankfully spoke perfect English and fishes in the UK himself) so that solved my issue for the night, but it wasn't until I done a FB search later that I found one solitary post stating it had been netted.
By subscribing to the deeper pro maps app (a tenner a year I believe) you can get a depth map kindly provided by the French. It gives you an idea of the depths your looking at in relation to time of year, wind direction etc. Google earth is also great for showing where dead lilly/reed beds are if you turn up in early November!
Plan, Plan, Plan and Plan some more. Bring a spare of everything. If you're going for a week, i'd recommend having at LEAST 3 waters saved in the sat nav. Two main and a back up just incase. Leave the closest water to Calais until last, that way you haven't got a massive drive home if you decide to pop on there for the last night if you've spent the whole week on one water. It pays to do a recce on the last day for other potential waters, as it's how I found out ANOTHER lake had just restricted night fishing.
Not a lot on here advice wise for fishing publics, so thought I would put my two penneth in. Despite the grief that may crop up at times, I wouldn't have it any other way.
Many of the lakes on there are either now pay lakes, have banned night fishing, have restricted night fishing to set weekends in the year, some have restricted night areas despite saying otherwise, some require prior booking a week in advance with a maximum stay of 48hrs, or the stretches of canal/river advertised are simply unfishable as a carp angler unless you are in a float tube!
Google Earth, Google street view and What3Words are your friends in terms of access (or lack of) for vans, and planning when to grab supplies from the local Intermarche (and in my case, the local leisure centre for a shower). Join Facebook groups for the departments you are fishing and use the search bar, as these will give you up to date information.
Have the departments telephone numbers saved in your phone. The first water I turned up at last year had the stock removed and re-stocked with 5kg fish thanks to info from a local, so a quick phone call to the Dept (thankfully spoke perfect English and fishes in the UK himself) so that solved my issue for the night, but it wasn't until I done a FB search later that I found one solitary post stating it had been netted.
By subscribing to the deeper pro maps app (a tenner a year I believe) you can get a depth map kindly provided by the French. It gives you an idea of the depths your looking at in relation to time of year, wind direction etc. Google earth is also great for showing where dead lilly/reed beds are if you turn up in early November!
Plan, Plan, Plan and Plan some more. Bring a spare of everything. If you're going for a week, i'd recommend having at LEAST 3 waters saved in the sat nav. Two main and a back up just incase. Leave the closest water to Calais until last, that way you haven't got a massive drive home if you decide to pop on there for the last night if you've spent the whole week on one water. It pays to do a recce on the last day for other potential waters, as it's how I found out ANOTHER lake had just restricted night fishing.
Not a lot on here advice wise for fishing publics, so thought I would put my two penneth in. Despite the grief that may crop up at times, I wouldn't have it any other way.
In reply to Post #1
Or just use the local fed peche website and navigate it accordingly. Most departments update the zones etc each year and if you've been doing this style of angling for a while you can easily navigate the French sites and pick up common words/phrases.
The less info shared in public the better imo
Or just use the local fed peche website and navigate it accordingly. Most departments update the zones etc each year and if you've been doing this style of angling for a while you can easily navigate the French sites and pick up common words/phrases.
The less info shared in public the better imo