Fishing the UK, France & Holland - With Ade Kiddell

It is great to be writing this blog as I sit on board a ferry bound for the UK, that can only mean I am on my way to see family and friends and maybe a bit of fishing in the UK.

Fishing Holidays

With the weather well and truly spring-like, it's been a busy month for me fishing wise. I have fished in The Netherlands, France and Belgium. With a wide variety of species coming to the net in a wide variety of settings, I realise why I love fishing so much.

The good news is Betty is finally ready, who the hell is Betty you might say, well Betty The Barbel Bus is our new campervan. We had to wait a few weeks for delivery but she is ready to go and has loads of room for fishing tackle and bait along with me, my good lady and plenty of mod cons to keep us happy. A campervan is a perfect wagon for a travelling angler. We try to plan our trips to always involve a stop close to some fishing be it North, South, East or West, salt or freshwater the camper makes it so easy.

Silverfish Fishing in Holland

Early in the month, I took my first trip of the year to the River Ijssel in Holland with silverfish being the target, the Ijssel is a great river with a huge diversity of species its possible to either target specific species for example carp, barbel, catfish, or zander or just go for a day fishing with simple baits like maggots, worm and corn and catch a wide variety of silverfish.

Simple fishing with a feeder rig using Sonubaits Dutchmaster groundbait with castor and dead maggot in the feed I had a great day fishing. With a mixture of species and topped off by a small barbel, good fun and simple fishing. Point of note for any UK anglers coming over to Europe, coloured maggots are not allowed in many countries so do your research before you come over as a hefty fine could be for breaking the rules.

Carp Fishing in Spring

A trip to my club carp water resulted in some early action with one rod producing an 18lb common first cast and a lively grass carp almost the same size on the next cast. Unfortunately, that was it for the day, the fish were otherwise occupied with some pre-spawning rituals going on. My normal tactics of single boilies over a big bed of free offerings, with a PVA bag of broken boilies to accompany the hook bait again being the successful method.

Fishing in France

Due to covid restrictions, I hadn’t been back to the area in France where we had lived for the previous 5 years, so with Betty loaded we made firstly for Sedan, planning to stop a night there and then following the river Meuse downstream to the Belgium border in Givet.

Joining us on the trip would be family friends Tjikie and Manus, Manus isn’t an angler but was keen to have a go. Sedan looked like the perfect place with a nice camper stop right by the river the whole Meuse valley in that part of France is perfect for camping and fishing.

So the first night by the river and Manus enjoyed the fishing with plenty of small bream, a bit of crazy fun with a very nice wild river carp, the highlight of the evening was a catfish of around 20lb that took the bait and gave us some great fun on light tackle.

We spent the next few days slowly working our way down the Meuse stopping every day in beautiful surroundings by the river and enjoying a few hours fishing. We caught in every place we stopped with Manus catching his first barbel some very nice bream and enjoying his first fishing trip for years. I know it won't be his last as we are already planning a trip to North Holland in the next few weeks.