Korda's Thinking Tackle has been a lot of things over the years, but rarely has it been a yoga class with a soundtrack of rock and metal. That's where Daryl Peck found himself on his latest film, a French Alps park-lake trip alongside German carp specialist Christopher Paschmann, where a Sunday community event meant the venue was rammed with swimmers, divers and music while two of Europe's best-known carpers tried to fish around it.
"Where do you want to film a Thinking Tackle?" Peck recalls being asked. "Somewhere stunning. Tick. Somewhere with incredible carp. Tick. Somewhere absolutely bonkers. Huge tick."
His travelling partner is no stranger to road-trip carp fishing. Paschmann, who heads up Quantum's carp brand in Germany, has spent years racking up captures across Europe. Peck describes him as "a German carp fishing machine" with "one of the best photo albums in carp fishing", and the two share a style that is anything but a static, three-rod bivvy session.
Paschmann put his philosophy plainly on camera. "I like most aspects of carp fishing, but if I'd have to take a decision, what I really like then it's this mobile approach trying to be on the fish constantly moving around," he said. "It's just like action-packed angling. It gets boring when you have to sit them out. Even if this might produce the bigger ones, it's just not my style. So here there is just so much happening all the time."
That philosophy was tested on day two when a quiet night left them looking elsewhere. The pair launched a drone, spotted obviously coloured water at the opposite end of the lake holding fish, and packed up.
"Although we've put a lot of effort into getting down here and caught some fish, I do feel that obviously that's the right place to be cuz that's where the fish are," Paschmann said. "And secondly, we are escaping all of what's coming. We just been told that loads of kids and swimmers are going to be coming in close."
Once relocated, Paschmann set out what he calls "setting traps" — spreading rods across clear spots in three to six metres, with the gravel shelf and weed edges defining the area. Their hookbait choices reflected the conditions. Both anglers ran high-attract pop-up toppers over a bottom bait, with Peck stepping up to a 20-millimetre bottom bait under a wide pop-up to try to pick out the biggest fish in the swim. Paschmann also packed his European staple.
"Something that I'd never leave home with when I'm going on one of my European trips is tiger nuts," he said. "And this is not only because [the] carp absolutely love them wherever I take them. It's also because they are the only thing you can actually fish when the crayfish become really active and the water is now 24 degrees already so the crayfish are active."
The pair both moved to the rig they have arrived at almost independently — a Combi multi-rig over the clear spots — and the bites came in batches once the swim settled. Peck rowed his own boat into a hard wind to reposition a rod and got back to a take from a small common, then handed Paschmann instant karma when his second rod fired off seconds later and produced a clean fish from the weed-edge. "That's a good fish, that is, mate," Peck shouted from the unhooking mat as Paschmann's net dipped.
For a venue that on the morning of filming featured kids' activities, diving lessons, water yoga and a live rock concert, Peck's verdict on the trip was earned. "It's all happening today, mate," he laughed early in the film. By the end of two days at the new bank, both rods were getting wet and the holiday-mode angling was finally turning up the carp.