Advice on picking your carp fishing holiday in France

Having been in the French carp fishing industry for the best part of 9 years I feel I’m in the position to see the big picture when it comes to choosing the best venue for your holiday in France.

Firstly you need to work out how big your budget is, not forgetting that it’s not just the price of the venue but also the journey through France.

The best way to travel is on the French toll system but this is not cheap, also the fuel you use can add up to a large part of your holiday costs.

Crossing the channel to France can also be expensive. It’s best to book early to make the biggest savings.

If you have a small budget then you won’t want to be travelling too far into France and might also be best to choose a route which doesn’t use the French tolls. This will obviously limit your choice of French fishing venue but its best to do this rather than run out of bait halfway through your fishing holiday.

Choosing the best French fishing venue for your group? This is the hardest part by far, the choice of French carp lakes is massive and can turn into a big headache especially if your organising it for a large group who all want different things from their carp fishing holiday. Drive and survive, food package, tackle hire, airport collection etc.

France is a big country full of carp lakes so you will find what you’re looking for, the best thing to do is narrow your search by asking yourself what you actually want from your carp fishing holiday.

I would always suggest that it’s best to hire the exclusive use of a carp lake so you don’t have big problems with other anglers ruining your holiday. Most carp lakes will allow the lake to be rented on an exclusive basis, perhaps not the biggest French lakes but most others will. How big your group is will dictate how large the lake needs to be but because you have exclusive use of it size might not be everything. You won't have the big worry of coming out last in the draw as you’ll be able to decide amongst yourselves how best to fish the lake. Exclusive hire of a lake also means you’ll be able to change swims with your friends so you all get the best of your holiday.

Next you need to think about what you want from your holiday, carp fishing in France offers something for everyone, do you want to catch a large amount of carp or do you just want to target big carp. Big carp venues will probably be harder and you’ll catch a lot less fish than a lake which is full of stockies with a much lower average weight.

Once you’ve decided on the type of French carp lake you require your search can start, I would suggest that the best option is to go by personal recommendation. Carp forums can offer good advice but some of the biggest are very one sided only allowing paying sponsors to advertise their lakes.

Trawling the internet can be a massive headache, there are literally 100’s if not 1000’s of venues offering carp fishing holidays in France and to be frank some blatantly lie about their venue and stock. The biggest problem is knowing whether the lake actually holds the carp they are advertising, if a venue is stating they have several big French carp but there are no photos I’d be very suspicious.

If a French venue owner has big carp he’s going to want to show them off and splash pictures of his carp all over his website, another common practice is to stock one big carp but have nothing backing it up, also it’s not that clever to stock big carp as chances are they’ll go backwards or even die.

I could go on and on about the pitfalls of choosing a carp fishing holiday in France, the best bit of advice I can give you is do your research and be very careful before parting with your hard earned cash. If the lake sounds too good to be true then perhaps it is!

Carp fishing in France is something a lot of you save up for and look forward to all year, don’t let a dodgy venue ruin the wonderful experience of fishing for big carp in the beautiful country of France.

I truly hope you find a venue where your French carp fishing dreams come true.