Crystal Waters is a proper big fish water around 4 hours from Calais. Read our full review here.
The lake itself is around 25 acres in size with 2 large islands, with depths varying from 4-24 feet. The stock of fish in this place is incredible with absolutely loads of 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, with a lake record at over 80lb. The best way to get to Crystal Waters is one of their all in packages, where you get picked up from Dover.
Lee proper looked after us & the food was bang on, keeping you fuelled for those titanic battles with these French lumps. The price for a week of fishing all-inclusive cost £630 pp/pw this may sound steep but believe me it’s well worth it.
Once we arrived the draw was made, and I ended up in a swim called “The Compound”. Tucked away in a nice corner, with a tree-lined margin, an island at 100yds plus & the wind proper hacking into me. This seemed a logical choice with plenty of options, I’d seen a couple of fish too on our lap around the lake.
It didn’t take long before we were into the fish, I’d had a couple of mid 20’s by tea on our first day, things couldn’t have started better…
From this swim, I had 2 rods fishing along the tree-lined margin locked up & the other straight at the island, reasonably tight. This meant I had to practically sit on my rods due to not wanting to lose any fish & the nature of snag fishing. To get me accurately to my spots with the least amount of fuss I did use a bait boat. This would deposit my snowman rig pulled through a PVA stick of crushed boilie, along with free offerings to maximum effect. What resulted in the remaining week was steady action with a couple of new pb’s. Now let’s be honest that is what we all go to France for, with the size of the fish dwarfing what we have in the UK…
36lb common carp, from the tree-lined margin…
47lb mirror carp, from the tree-lined margin (pb at the time)
52lb mirror carp, from the island spot (current pb)
I can’t recommend Crystal Waters highly enough & if you’re unsure of where to fish in France, then check out their website & you too could be hooking into some French lumps.
Website: www.crystalwatersfishery.com
