Good evening fellow bloggtops

After moving out of the south last Sunday, we are now fishing the north arm and pleased to report the traffic noise is now a distant memory and almost as much of a distant sound. C'est bon. I've pitched up on La Pointe A Olle while Paul is in La Baie Des Tanches and the almost obligatory swim sketch is below so you can see the generalities of what is in front of us. In short, its close range stuff, virtually off the rods tips in some cases, the depths are dictating that but there are some margins across the bays to be fished also.

There are half a dozen other anglers up this end of the arm, plus a good few more down at the bridge who all seem to be fishing together and the barrage swim itself has been rotated this morning, a few pack up and a few more arrive and its all done with military precision so nobody else gets the swim and its clear now that probably 80% or more of the fish that have reportedly been caught from the north arm recently have come from the barrage area and there's more chance of seeing me and Paul on this weeks 'strictly come dancing' than there is of getting on that swim. Having said all that, obviously not the whole carp stock of the lake are in there and if the fish that are there decide to come out to play then we've a chance, but fish moving about at Cassien is something we've not seen, nor have we seen anything to makes us think that they're moving at all and amazingly, in nine weeks of fishing, we haven't seen a carp clear the water - not a head, shoulder, tail, or dorsal, nothing, and after our first week in this arm, it doesn't seem any different up here but time will tell. With the lake nowhere near as busy now, at least if we do see something there is more chance of being able to move into an area close by.

Whilst on the subject of moving, for those readers that are planning a trip here or maybe thinking of doing a long session somewhere similar we'll take you through a few points of the logistical variety. If fishing close to your vehicle is a priority, then apart from one or two swims at Cassien (and some other big lakes) that are generally stitched up anyway, then, your struggling. At the moment we're probably more than 2 miles rowing from the vans so a trip to the supermarket isn't a quick one and will take up most of your day, and while we were fishing at the bottom of the south arm it was about 1.5 miles which could be rowed or walked, either way it was a 30 mins each way journey - we took the walking option to save battery power. All this is easier when your fishing with a mate because there is no worry in leaving your tackle for the time it takes to get done what needs to be done. If you're moving swims on a long session its generally a two boat or a two trip affair and if its more than 500 yards or so, then obviously the two boat option is the best and similar to a trip to the shops, moving swims on a big lake can take you all day when you take into consideration the packing up and setting up time. I pack up all the tackle and load the boat in about an hour and a half where as Paul takes an hour longer, partly I think due to his age, and partly due to the amount of gear he carries around. Mind you, when you're 110 years old you've had time enough to get a fair collection of tackle together. Joking aside, Paul has the generator, solar panel - which we both use, … generator, solar panel, erm…. generator, solar panel, erm…….

The weather this week hasn't been the best carping weather with the high pressure but might help us out in the long run because it has been warm during the days, a few of which have been 16c and most have been sunny and the clear nights have been getting down to -2c but nothing too bad, with the cloudy nights being 5 or 6 degrees warmer, all resulting in the water temperature not going down any, which can't be a bad thing and if these sort of day temperatures keep coming then the water temperature will start to creep up which is probably our main hope of getting a few more fish moving about. There has been no rain so the levels are pretty much staying put , just going down a little each day as the hydro-electric dam does its stuff.

See you soon