There are Thinking Tackle films and then there is the one Korda's Daryl Peck and German carp angler Christopher Paschmann just put out: a southern-French-Alps park lake on a Sunday community day, with diving lessons, water yoga and a metal-and-rock concert kicking off as they tried to settle into a session. It is messy, action-packed and very much the modern Continental carp trip — and the fishing is more than just background.
Peck sets the scene cold. "Where do you want to film a Thinking Tackle? Somewhere stunning. Tick. Somewhere with incredible carp. Tick. Somewhere absolutely bonkers. Huge tick."
His partner on the trip, Paschmann, runs Quantum's carp division in Germany and Peck rates him as one of the best-travelled European carpers around — "a German carp fishing machine" with "one of the best photo albums in carp fishing".
Paschmann's appeal is in his method. He travels light, hunts hard, and moves the moment the swim stops producing. "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 says. "It's just like action-packed angling. It gets boring when you have to sit them out."
"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 reasoned on camera. "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."
On the new bank, Paschmann set out the rods on what he calls "setting traps" — three rods spread across the clear spots between weed and gravel in three to six metres, with the deepest area of the lake to one side. Peck rigged hookbaits to match the European water and the crayfish problem.
"Something that I'd never leave home with when I'm going on one of my European trips is tiger nuts," Paschmann explained. "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. And there is one thing that you have lots of, especially in southern France — that is [crayfish and small catfish]. They can actually turn your trip into a nightmare when you do not come prepared. Then tiger nuts are the only option not only to bait up with but also as hook baits."
The rig discussion is also a window on where Continental carp tactics have landed. Both anglers ended up running a Combi multi-rig over clear spots almost without coordination, with the only difference being Paschmann's leader system. Peck stepped up his pop-up topper to a 20-millimetre bottom bait paired with a wide pop-up — a deliberate move to try and pick out the bigger fish in a swim where the average size is high.
The payoff came after Peck rowed himself out into a hard wind to reposition a rod and clawed back a small common — only for Paschmann's second rod to fire off seconds later with a fish heading straight for the weed. The film cuts to Paschmann's net dipping under what Peck calls "a good fish, that is, mate" and an unhooking mat that looks every bit the European park-lake catch.
It is, in short, a Thinking Tackle that captures what European angling has become — adventurous, mobile, willing to up sticks the moment the swim turns soft, and now apparently happy to fish on through a midday metal concert and a wave of swimmers.
