Moby Dick - a twenty year journey to my dream! by Tomas Blazek -iBlog by Imperial Fishing

November 4, 2013

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Moby Dick – a twenty year journey to my dream!
by Tomas Blazek – www.imperial-fishing.de

France, Lac Du Der, 4800 hectares, this beautiful large lake I have already had a few years in the back of my head and I knew that sooner or later I will stand on the shore of this beautiful big lake.

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The year began at two other lakes in france
After a very successful spring expedition with my friend Martin (see iBlog Update here), when we visited our favourite location in the south of France, Lac de Saint Cassien (where we go for more than ten years), I still had planned two further expeditions to another big lake in the north-east, where I fished both so far – from the bank and from the 4m iBaot in the past. Those two expeditions were not as good as in the past years. The biggest fish I caught was a mirror crossing lightly the 20kg. I caught him from a very extreme distance of 1km! Otherwise in closer area we got takes only from catfishes. I was a bit upset and I needed a break from this water, where I go because of one beautiful fish for several years.
I never got him hooked – not yet. At that time I began to think of a new lake to refresh my mind and maybe I will come back later to hunt for the big linear in this beautiful lake!

A new adventure!
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Destination Lac du Der
It is something new and unknown, it pulls you forward and you have a lot more motivation.
I am sure you know about these effects. I started to plan a trip – a big autumn trip…
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The most important was to choose the right place for fishing. I knew about a big common – very big, who has his home in this huge Lake.
Big fish are usually territorial and are often swimming at about the same places in the same period of the year.
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Places with night zones, where this fish was caught in previous years, were already occupied. So I had to consider everything well.
I booked a night zone for twenty days. I go often to Europe for 10 days sessions, but its not enough time.

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10-days-session, are not providing enough time to build up a place correctly. At shorter trips you are always too much dependent on the weather conditions in that few days. A longer trip gives you much more possibilities and chance to work on the place and to come in a nice wheather period when big fish feed.
Annotation Max Nollert: Maybe this following 2 sentences from Tomas are the most important for big carp hunting on longer sessions.
As per my experience carp and big carp do always take note when Boilies etc. are feeded into their area even when they do not feed for a week due to the weather.
But WHEN the conditions are correct you have them on the spot quickly as they remind very well where to find the “refrigerator”.
So I decided that this will be my last expedition for this year and I will spend here 20 days.
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Feed – I got a clear plan in my head
I knew that for those 20 days I could not change my place and actively seek for carp. By massive feeding we will attract breams and smaller carps and in our fishing grounds at least several action will happen. I always count with the fact, that carp are curios and I have to do something to bring them to my fishing grounds.

Feeding campaign for those 20 days:
We have prepared 250kg of dry particles (rape and wheat), than 200kg of pickled tiger nuts, 50kg IB Carptrack Aminopeletts (15mm) and 300kg finest Carptrack Boilies from Imperial Baits: Monster’s Paradise, Fish, Elite and Elite Strawberry.

All together we had 800kg of feeding potential, which we would be happy to need it over the 3 weeks as certainly we did not want to take back home anything of it.
In last years we were pretty successful with this tactic on such big waters.

The break down calculation of 800 kg feed to better understanding.
Finally we share the 800kg for 3 fisherman and for 3 weeks. Which means 250kg each hunter and it’s about 80-90kg for one fisherman a week. That is approx. 13,33 kg each day. That means 3,33kg per rod for one day. Only 1,25kg of it are boilies. This is quiet a better info to have a good imagination about what we feeded.
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We were arriving in a heavy rain, we just build up our Camp and because it was pretty late, we decided to leave everything else for the next day.
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Next morning after detailed exploration we didn’t find any significant anomalies and we placed eight buoys.
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We put one rod behind the first edge and remaining rods in different areas of cutted trees, with max depth of about five meters. We feed massively large space in front of ours buoys and distributed the rods around it. Takes started to come regularly every night. Not much, but good fish and it was a pleasant start.
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Our favourites where we go everywhere in big lakes to catch!
IB Carptrack Elite Strawberry 24mm boilie + V-pops 16mm. Elite with Black Pepper wrapped in paste from inLiquid / Powder and Carptrack GLM full-fat.
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Hookbaits coated with the famous Carptrack Liquid-Powder Paste
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Liquid / Powder INFO

Before putting rigs to the water we added PVA bag with Aminopellets 4mm boosted in Carptrack Liquid / Powder and GLM full-fat.
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In addition to us three fisherman we had a cameraman as we have been intended to produce a DVD about big lake fishing.

Here is the YouTube Video of the Trip, enjoy:

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At the bottom of the lake there were a lot of stumps overgrown with mussels. Therefore, we have to maximize our rigs to withstand the most possible.
We used braided line Snaggy Water, which is the best I know and very resistant against mussels and there is no risk of cutting it.
Other slim braid lines or monofilament lines were almost impossible to use in these conditions.
It exist also in grey.
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The last 30m of line I used Shock-it 70mm, which is very durable and abrasive. Even though I had to change it after every fish, as it was chopped like from filleting knife,
I was very happy and thankful to have it. Better a chopped still working line than a cutted line!

All used lines:
Invisible / Visible Touch Snaggy Water (braided mainline) – 0,30 mm & SHOCK-it

We used 280g leads going to bee loose while run. The hook link Ive chose Easy Soft 25lb Brown and RSH 1000 hook number 4. + maggot hanger.
This rig is adapted for tricky fishing and can keep even the biggest carp. Never happened to me that carp would cut the rig or just release itself.
The problem was, that most of the fish swam under the stump! With nothing else than to use anchor it was possible to get a peace of line behind the stump, cut it and make a new knot.
Unfortunately I often caught the line straight on the hook link and ripped the hook from its mouth.

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The full Carptrack inLiquid / Powder POWER in the paste as well.
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It was raining all the time and the water in the lake instead of decreasing, as it is usually in this time of the year, it began to rise.
The lake began to roll a large amount of muddy water from the tributary.
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Enjoy the monster meal 🙂
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Incoming water brought a lot of impurities in the form of branches and grasses that began to catch on our lines. All day and night I had to walk out and tighten my reels drag, so in the morning they were tighten to the maximum as the pressure on the line was really big. All the dirt stretched our lines. The whole night I didn’t sleep as my alarms beeped all the time.
That was also the reason why we could not use subfloats.

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All the effort brings fish!
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Carptrack inLiquid / Powder Paste
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All our Hookbaits were coated with the „wonder paste“! Made of inLiquid and Carptrack Powder.
The original recepie is ready to buy, so less work on the bank if you want.
We count on it and it works perfect!
Nothing else from all the bait market seems to have more pulling power on carp when it comes into water
than this Paste made of Carptrack inLiquid and Carptrack Powder.
Boilies below are Elite Strawberry and Elite wrapped intp the paste.
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The twelve’s day in the morning Vilo came to chat while I was lying on the bedchair.
I did not sleep all night. We were talking a short while, when suddenly the line from my right rod began to unwinding (despite so much tightened drag)…
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Vilo and his dog
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He is a very good friend and a gook cooker as well 🙂
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A lovely meal for us, not for the dog!
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THE BIG FIGHT AGAINST MOBY DICK STARTED
The rig with Elite Strawberry Boilie and wrapped into the Paste was on a spot already for two nights. I didn’t wait for anything and jumped to my iBoat. On the way to my spot the line is five times stuck in a stump! So I have to “anchor” the line, cut and connect again. Its exhausting work, but if you want to get your catch in the landing net, you just can not avoid it in such an extreme situation. Everything went well, I arrived over the rig and its also in a stump. I placed the rig in 4m depth and now it was in 5.2m! It was clear, that there will be a carp on the end of the line. I gently pulled the shock line and felt that the fish is still there. After about five minutes he moves the open water – YES!

I’m getting over the carp that pulls me relentlessly about 500 meters without any signs of fatigue. I started to suspect, that it is a really huge fish! A catfish I would recognise, I caught many of them on boilie and some of them were really no “kids”. I know how they fight. In the distance I see something black on the surface and I think its a buoy. Fish goes in the same direction and suddenly I see that it is not a buoy, but a sunken tree that rise high from five meters depth to the surface. OMG! The fish does not want to stop and approach the tree and hang there for a while. I got the worse scenario in my mind, everything is covered with mussels, only a little bit and fish will be gone. Endless seconds, either me or….., I put all my strenght to my favourite rod „max nollert – Temptation MKIII“ and after a second I see huge bubbles on the surface and the fish is free from the stump. Happy again…

“I won’t let you go there again!”,
and I “took” the carp very hard to my hand! About a meter below the surface, I see an incredible body, which is moving toward me. I knew immediately that I have the largest fish on my hook that lives here in this huge lake – Moby Dick!

My heart started beating strongly and it came the moment for which I have been waiting for more than twenty years!

I make ready my landing net. An incredible experience that I deeply etched in my memory.
The battle is not won yet, the carp is going into depth again! Four times he comes back to the surface and goes down in the depth again.
But finally ends in my landing net.

For a moment I’m the happiest man in the world!
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I just cant believe it! I put the carp carefully to the boat and I’m going back to our camp. He is totally full and it seems that he joined our boilies well!
Within moment there is 1kg boilie on the unhooking mat.
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Along the way, I could assume great emotion and I shouted strongly and loud several times.
To Jarda on the bank was clear, that it finally came to that what we have dreamed of! Next to us were sitting Vili Strba and Zolt Bundik from Hungaria and they were waiting with Jarda for my arrival.
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They helped us to consider and document the fish, for which I would like to thank them. Hand weighing stop just below 36 kg.
We all agree on the weight of 35,8 kg and document the fish quickly while it is raining.
Photography and filming is taking place all the time in the water, so there is no chance of hurting this jewel.
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After a few minutes we return Moby Dick back to his home and I’m so happy that I even can’t talk!
I would like to thank all my friends and especially to my family for the ultimate dream that came true on this beautiful huge lake.
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CHEERS!
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Summary:
During the twenty days we had 32 takes, and lost twelve fish in the roost.
In 90% we had to use an anchor during the fight.
We managed to catch four mirror carps, which are very rare on this lake.
Currently the commons are dominating strongly.

The largest fish caught:
3x 15kg
2x 15,5kg
2x 18kg
20kg common
20,4 kg mirror carp
and the Moby-dick 35,80kg

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Tomas Blazek and friends
www.imperialbaits.cz