70.06
Now, we can’t really tell you how to fish Laroussi per say, but I can tell you what Andrew Redfearn and myself did when we fished there the last week in March 2012, when our results certainly surpassed our expectations!
58.06Which swim? We were lucky enough to be 2 of 4 anglers on the lake as we had booked a March date and to be fair, I think recession and the possibility of poor weather helped, but whatever the reason was, we found ourselves on the lake with just 2 others. When we had gone around the lake we asked the others which swims they preferred and they asked for the Point swim. Well we were happy with that as I really fancied the Chene swim. So no need to draw pegs we picked up our pre-ordered bait from Mehdi and settled down doubling up in La Chene.
Tackle We have 13ft rods, mine are Grays and Andrews are NRG’s, with 14lb flouro carbon line, a 4oz lead as we were casting some distance. We used Korda N/trap hooklinks and hooks were size 6 Korda wide gapes.
Bait We had ordered from Mehdi the Rhaja spice boilies and ended up using about 20kg in total.  The pellet we took over was sticky baits bloodworm pellet (15 kg) and the matching juice
Tactics We had noticed some activity around 130 metres away. So we decided to fish there and put Sticky baits bloodworm pellet down and fished the Rahja spice boilies over.  Using a 4oz lead and single hook bait boilie, we could comfortably reach the area, so with the rods in, we settled down.
Nothing happened on the Saturday and even on Sunday the rods stayed decidedly quiet. However Sunday night was different story and the first take resulted in a lovely 42lb’er, followed the same night by a 46lb.
Monday was quiet again and Tuesday we had the first 58 and then another 40.  The action kept up with 2 grass carp which stayed very lively! The biggest of these was 34lb.
It was Wednesday though that will stand out the most. The rod went and this fish came in like it wanted to be on the bank. No fight at all.  When we first saw it we thought it was another fifty as the body wasn’t that long… but when you looked at it head on and saw the width we began to realise this was going to be bigger than that! This was infact a real porker of a carp… weighing in a 70lb 6oz!!
Well, amazing is an understatement… what a fantastic fishery this is and what a brilliant trip this was turning out to be :-)
It’s 22 degree’s, 2pm in the afternoon and this normally difficult lake is really being more than kind to us – and it wasn’t over yet! As if we needed another high, we still hadn’t come down from the last one, the rods went again and a another 58lb’er came to the net.
Well it continued well through Thursday, but Friday was a non starter with no fish at all and Saturday we had two more grassies.
Summing up
Stunning LinearAltogether we had 24 fish and though I’m not a great sturgeon fan the two we had of 55 and 57lb were not unwelcome. A favourite though was the very stunning 27lb linear. Still believe it or not I was targeting the big catfish too and they eluded us. It was only the Monday after I heard the new record Catfish was caught on the Sunday after we left :-(   Still we can’t have everything can we?
Well I’m not saying we know all the tricks, or claim to be something were not. These were our tactics and they definitely worked for us. So if any of this is of use to anyone else, great.  It’s a great feeling doing well on this lake, a trip of a lifetime.  Of course thats until next year and our spots are already booked :-)
Big thanks to the girls at Angling Lines and especially Mehdi for such a great week.
Kevin Mellor