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I am a strong believer that the more things go wrong the better they will turn out in the end. This trip to France for a weeks catfishing was clearly beginning to shape up nicely. Two days before departure the French fishermen decide that the price of Marine Diesel is too much and they blockade all the French ports on the Channel. This was beginning to worry me as the talk was of the dispute lasting more than a week, i.e. no fishing trip. At the 11th hour the dispute just stopped, Calais was reopened and the lorries blocking the M20 as part of operation stack were just cleared as we approached Dover.

Having actually then hit land in France the Farmers and Taxi drivers had decided that the fishermen's protest had been so successful that they would indulge in some direct action themselves. I had deliberately crossed the channel on an empty tank of fuel and an empty wallet, it being cheaper to buy diesel in France and get foreign currency direct from a cashpoint than a UK bank.

To my horror Calais town centre was not accessible from the port, farmers had blocked the motorway exits, there were no police around, just lots of farmers on very old tractors with orange flashing lights. With the fuel gauge on reserve the last hope was the big Hypermarket by the channel tunnel motorway exit. The tunnel had recently reopened and we were just far enough out of town for the farmers not to bother with it. Then good old Radio 5 Live told us that EuroTunnel had just announced that the tunnel was now closed. There had been an incident on the track with immigrants trying to get to the UK. They had been injured. This would cause problems for the traffic almost immediately, the whole area would snarl up with traffic not being able to get access to the tunnel. I made the decision to get fuel only and put as much mileage between the car and Calais as possible, the place was a motorist war-zone. Food shopping and cash would have to wait for another time.

The next major town along the motorway was Boulogne, I would try again for some cash. This town was full of protestors and police all doing nothing much apart from turning traffic away from the town centre so as not to hinder the protesters. Direct Action is all very well unless you are abroad and stuck in it. A real nightmare.

And now to the fishing………

After weeks of baking hot weather it had now decided to be cold and rainy. This was a mixed blessing really, not much good for sunbathing but the prior fishing had been poor so this might change things. This first week of September had a certain autumnal feel to it, I reckoned that the fish might feel it was time to start feeding up as winter was coming.

This particular lake had a good mix of carp up to 40lbs and cats up to high 50's. These were not monsters by Ebro or Saone standard but relatively easy fishing, good facilities and most importantly night fishing was legal. After all this was a holiday so it is nice to treat yourself to a private fishery once in a while. Just to put a bend in your rod and avoid getting hassled by the local police or angling club officials. From previous trips to this lake I have now learnt that the most important thing is quality bait. Livebaits are king, the bigger the better. You find that you have to commit many hours during daylight in search of quality fish. 1oz roach will not do, they will not survive harassment by small cats and not last the night. What you want are baits that will swim around happily for days and be big and strong enough to survive multiple false strikes. Carp are ideal, but on this water they are almost impossible to catch. However with a lot of patience and swim hopping you can eventually track down skimmer bream/roach hybrids of about 12 ounces. These are excellent bait, they are very sturdy and having wasted fruitless hours catching nothing but small roach, like London Buses three come along at once.

After many years of trial and error I have now been using the same rigs for about three years. I keep it simple but strong, coupled with complete uncastability and a children's toy casing. Don't worry I'll explain later.

Rods are 5lb Test Curve and reels are loaded up with 30lb Berkley Fireline Braid. This combination gives me enough stopping power for a 50lb cat without having to go deep into uptide rod country. The terminal tackle I have now standardised on is based on Sunset Amnesia mono. I fish a running leger, with a short dropper on the lead of about 6 inches. This is 20lb Amnesia, also put a small piece of silicon tubing over all the knots of this rig, as Amnesia can slip a little under pressure and a 3 mm tail is about right. If you leave these very stiff knot tails unsheaved they can cause tangles. The hook length is about 2 feet long, this time 30lb Amnesia. I tie one size 2/0 Owner SSW to the mono, then a second off of the eye of the first hook. I make the second hook about 9 inches away and ensure that the second hook length is tied between the mainline knot and the hook shank. This will ensure that there is no danger of the line slipping onto the small gap that forms on the hook eye. I have tried knotless knots and find that they slip a little with Amnesia and also having two separate hook lengths means that hook length maintenance is much quicker. Very often only the bottom hook length is damaged by the cats teeth, so only this needs to be replaced.

The upper hook is put through the nostril socket of the bait and the lower hook through the anal vent. Hooks are best secured with pieces of rubber band before and after the hook hold to ensure that the hook point is always kept prominent and the bait cannot get off the hooks. Now for the clever bit.

This bait is to be fished popped up, the normal way is to use a polyball. Now I fish Kinder eggs instead and make 'em rattle. I put two BB split shot in one half and drill a 2mm hole in the other end. These nice Kinder people even put a counter sunk mark in the ends to stop the drill slipping. Then get some heavy mono, 80lb I find about right, thread both ends of a 4 inch piece from the outside of the Kinder egg half. This leaves a small tight loop at one end and two free ends on the inside of one of the halves. Tie a knot in the two ends and then pull the loop end back. The knots will jam in the hole assuming your hole is small and your knot is big. Then mix up some Araldite and smear a sealing blob onto the base of the loop, on the outside of the casing. This will seal from the water this end of the egg. Then glue the other half of the egg to it's partner. Interestingly you can mix and match Kinder eggs halves. I find the Star Wars special edition ones are excellent, as they are black and the cyan ones show up the best in the day. Sad I know I actually know these things. Now, to attach a Kinder egg rattler to your rig use 8lb mono, one end to the eye of the upper hook (nose hook) and one to the loop of the rattler. I find about 9 inches is about right length.

To fish these rigs you must either use a dinghy and row the bait out or use a bait boat. If you are using a baitboat put the rattler in one hopper and the lead in the other. The fish can be towed out behind the boat.

So here I am in France, I have caught my skimmer hybrids for the night, I have bait boated them out to the middle channel of the lake and popped the baits up to the surface. So how did it all go?

On the first night, Saturday night, it was just getting a bit dusky, at 8pm a 37lber, a nice start. Then at 11.30pm a better fish of 46lb. The Sunday night produced a 47lber and I lost a fish at dawn. On Monday I caught a jolly little 5lber at 9am followed by a 39lber and 63˝lber in the night. The 63˝ I had caught last year at 57lbs, it was the lake record last year for a period of time and now it had put on nearly 7lbs. Again the lake record, but for how long? I also lost three further fish in the night, the cats were being very selective as to where they bit onto the livebaits. Tuesday night was very hectic and two nights of no sleep at all were beginning to take their toll. Cats of 47˝, 55lb, 38lb and 53lb coming that day.

Then for some reason, thankfully on Wednesday, I blanked and had a glorious 10 hours sleep. I had no idea why the fish went off but I am secretly glad they did. By Thursday, bait catching was getting very hard and light levels were also very low all day. I was getting concerned that the Solar Charger for the bait boat would struggle to keep up with a hectic night of action. At 5pm a jolly 39lber turned up followed by a 47lber at 3am. I re-baited all the rods, the baitboat only just made it back as power was so low. The last day was Friday and I vowed to only fish 'til 2am, as I needed the sleep for the journey back. Bait was impossible to catch. Had we used them all up? It was one of those clammy but dead still days. Unusually a fish at 11am turned up, it put up a tremendous scrap, going 52˝lb, I think they fight harder in the day! The bait boat was so flat I dare not risk a launch for most of the day and concentrated on last minute wine shopping and trying to buy diesel. This was no mean feat as the French lorry drivers were now blockading all the refineries and there were massive queues to get a measly tenners worth. The Police made sure that you did not pop round for another fill up. Does this sound familiar?

My last 3 baits I had left went out at tea time, the Baitboat had newly solar infused vigour. 9.30pm saw a 48lber on the deck and a simultaneous run on a second rod. The cat on this rod sped off up the lake and crossed the line of a neighboring carp angler, who insisted on trying to play the 'monster from the deep' he had hooked. Infact the catfish got away and we had a modest tug of war, 5lb rods and 30lb braid meant he lost. He now has a tale to tell his grandchildren about 'the one that got away'.

At 2am a few short bleeps woke me up, time to wind in and get some undisturbed sleep I thought. I picked up my last baited rod and immediately the rod arched over and the spool started to spin with a 70-yard unstoppable run. A monster for sure. 15 minutes later, a 30lber turned up. A modest fish for this lake but clearly it had aspirations greater than it's size.

That was it, end of fishing, no more baits, off to sleep.

What a tally, a sixty, 3 50's, 6 40's, 4 30's and not forgetting a 5lber. 15 fish in all.

On the Saturday morning anglers were turning up to fish the next week, tales of horror about lack of fuel, complete gridlock in Rouen and Paris due to protests and stories of a blockade in Cheshire. It'll never catch on in the UK we all agreed. How wrong we were.

So what else went wrong, well I got home, wound off the film on my camera and found that it had never wound on in the first place. So you will just have to take my word for it won't you!