Questions and Answers at Blue Lake in France


Angling Lines field-tester Paul Cooper answers an anglers questions regarding the features and lake depths for each swim at Blue Lake. The lake is a 15 acre gravel pit and varies from 3ft at its shallowest to over 15ft at its South West end.  It’s a fascinating mixture of bars and areas of sand, rocks, gravel, clay and silt, so we can understand why this angler wants to get as much info as he can before he turns up!

Hi there,

Just been reading through your write ups online regarding Blue lake… I’ve just booked myself on for a week this year. I’ve never fished the lake before and was wondering if you had much knowledge on the lake bed? I’m trying to get a sketch or drawing of the lakes depths and bars.

Can you help…

Paul Cooper Answers;

I have fished Blue Lake on 2 different occasions and have fished 5 different swims. With it being a larger than average French venue, the lake has various types of lake bed make up. There are lots of gravel bars and silt pockets in some swims, and in others the depths remain constant. I will try and go through what I can remember from my experiences on the lake.

A swim map drawn up after our first field testing trip to Blue Lake
A swim map drawn up after our first field testing trip to Blue Lake

Swim 1 I don’t have much recollection of this one, but from what I can remember it was a corner swim with good margins down to both the left and right with deep water and silt.


Swim 2
sits on a point, sloping gravel margins to the waters edge. 40 to 60 yards out is a gravel bar which goes left to right . To the right of the gravel bar there is around 9 foot of water over gravel and light silt.


Swim 3
is a corner swim with a silty bay to the right, and at 70 yards is hard gravel in 7 foot of water.


Swim 4
is a corner swim which can hold weed in around 4 to 6 foot of water. When the carp are in this swim you can have a bumper catch. I took around 17 carp in 2 days.


Swims 5 and 6
, the depths vary greatly as there are holes, gravel bars and plateau’s all over the place. Good plumbing needs to be done but the results are there.


Swims 7 and 8
you have open water with light to deep silt and around 8 to 10 foot of water at 90 yards. Very good swims.

Carp Fishing in France at Blue Lake
A picture from my trip to Blue Lake

Swim 9 is a corner swim with a large weed bed at around 40 yards but the fish do get in this corner. Very silty.


Swim 10
has deep margins and the fish were feeding at no more than 60 yards out over soft silt in about 12 to 14 foot of water.This is a very good double swim.


Swim 11
had depths of 19 foot over soft silt, not my first choice of swim.

Well I have covered what I can remember about the swims, take a plumbing rod and lead about to find the numerous features in this lake and you will have a very successful week. Don’t forget the wind direction and showing fish as they do move on a warm strong wind.

Also, have a look at the videos below to give you some idea. On the 1st one that we did we drew a sketch of the lake and talked through it on the video.

I hope that this helps.
Paul Cooper

For more information on Blue Lake follow the link here – Fishing France

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