Articles

Is fishing public waters for me?

If you are thinking of fishing public waters of France, this article should help you answer the question: is this type of fishing right for me? Let’s start with the obvious: if you can catch carp in your home country, you will be able to catch them in France. The tactics may be a bit different, the distances bigger, but carp is carp: as long as you can find them and put a baited rig in their vicinity, you are in with a chance. With that out of the way, let’s look at some of the reasons why so many anglers love fishing French public waters.

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All about TheCarpSpot

TheCarpSpot has been built to help carp anglers plan their fishing trips to public waters of France. To that effect, it offers a number of useful tools: Our maps include all of the legal night fishing zones of continental France. Whenever you create a map, it will automatically include all of the night zones: the rivers are marked in red, canals in blue and lakes in greeen...

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Legal aspects of fishing in France

Night fishing for carp in France is fairly well regulated activity. The country is divided into ~95 departments and each of them has its own fishing federation: a governing body for all fishing activities. Every year each of the federations publish regulations regarding night fishing for carp and list of venues where it is allowed. Those venues change from year to year: not massively, but limits of the “night zones” may change as well as some other intricacies: times of the year (or week) when fishing particular venue is allowed, allowed baits, use of boats, required reservations (if any) etc. .

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How to find public carp waters in France

How successful your fishing trip will be, is in large part determined way before you cross the channel: during the homework or “research” phase. The purpose of this research is to find a list of suitable venues and potential fishing spots, figure out the local federation specific rules and regulations, and finally check background of the venue like stock levels and average fish size using publicly available resources. In the section below we go through an example process of doing so...

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All about carp fishing boats

Let’s get some things straight from the off: you do not need a boat to fish French public waters. There are plenty of rivers, canals and lakes that can be fished effectively by casting from the bank. On top of that, some venues do not allow boats at all. In summary: you can fish in France for years and never bother with using a boat. Having said that, there are venues where having a boat is a must simply because the only way to get to a swim is by boating, sometimes a long distance.

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Boat safety for carp anglers

Having done a fair amount of boat fishing, I have suffered from a number of rather embarrassing accidents. Let me share here some thoughts that will hopefully make your boating less embarrassing than mine.

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Fishing Solo (or when two is a crowd)

The obvious question you may be asking yourself before embarking on your first public water adventure is: should I go on my own or with someone? As you can imagine there will be as many answers to this question as there are anglers, but in this post I will try to give you some factors to consider when making the decision.

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Taking a dog on a fishing adventure

If you happen to own a dog, you may be tempted to take your furry companion with you on a fishing adventure. Like everything related to fishing public waters, this too can be a bit of a hard work. Let me explain.

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