Episode 1

With filming for the Underwater project not going to plan at Lac Luna in France, Tom Dove and Neil Spooner made the decision to get their own rods out and make the most of the fantastic fishing on offer at this venue, by shooting an episode of Thinking Tackle instead.

The fish weren’t really visiting the area where the underwater camera was positioned – it’s not something that can easily be moved around the lake! – but their time spent watching the monitors and being on the lake wasn’t in vain as it had given them a good idea of how they were going to target the venue, fishing in the couple of swims that were still free.

Neil ended up in a swim where he had seen fish showing along the far tree line, and set about fishing it by using the boat to take his rigs and bait out to the spots and drop them exactly where he wanted them – being careful to do so in a way that minimized the risk of spooking them, as he explains in the film.

Tom on the other hand found himself in a very different swim, with access to the open water, and given the fact that most anglers on the lake make use of being able to use a boat, and the fish see very similar baiting patterns all of the time, he decided to go back to an approach which he has done very well on in the past, but which he doesn’t get a chance to use much these days in the UK, due to the number of seagulls we now have on many lakes!

This involved using a throwing stick to literally scatter boilies all over his area, which was pretty featureless and then to fish three rods over the top of that.

As the session went on, both Tom and Neil made tweaks to their rigs and hook baits to ring the changes, fully capitalize on what was working, and tweak what wasn’t, in order to keep the bites coming and hopefully find themselves attached to some of the big fish that live in Lac Luna.

If you fish commercial lakes in France this is essential viewing and could give you an edge on your next trip, and many of the lessons learned and tactics showed will also work on a wide variety of other waters as well.