Tag: carp fishing in France

Right, this isn’t a catch report but it is a good time (half way through the year) to put out some information on bookings and spaces. This year is full so that can be forgotten, but 2019 still has some summer and autumn spaces and spring 2020 also has limited spring spaces remaining.
There are a lot of interested people and many enquiries at present so if anyone is looking for specific weeks for the next couple of years, my advice is don’t delay your decisions.
So far, this year we have seen 28 DIFFERENT fifties banked (somewhere around 60 banked if you include multiple captures) but, probably more important, at least as many 48lbs and 49lbs fish. These are the very young, very fast growing fish that are very likely to overtake some of our existing, known, fifties and sixties.
I include some photos of Cav’s fish from this week as they included an unknown 49lbs mirror, “Garry Linear” at 50lbs 10oz which is close to its best and a fantastic post spawning weight. I’ve also included “The Peach” which weighed 64lbs 8oz and only weighed 51lbs 11oz on 14th July 2015. My target is to produce a stock density by autumn 2020 which includes 100 fifties. Let’s see how it goes.

Sorry for the gap in my posts but the last couple of weeks have been poor for catch results as the bigger fish have tended to hide away. On top of that I have had to spend a lot of time rereading and checking for spelling, the final pdf for my book. Hopefully that is all good now and we can get a proper print batch done.

It has been noticeable that these last two weeks have seen the fish ignore the big beds of bait which had been working so well. It is my impression that there gas again been some small groups of spawning fish which has led to the feeding carp following them to eat the eggs. That seems to be changing again now and early this morning the Lake was, quite simply, alive with fizzing and rolling fish. I’m confident that we are one the verge of seeing some big fish hitting the spreader blocks very shortly.

The only real highlight of these last week’s has been our first ever sixty pound common in the shape of Pipesmoker to Adam Garland. Well angled mate.

 There’s no point avoiding the fact that the Fishing was poor last week but there were factors at play which didn’t help. From the dam wall, early mornings, I could see a lot of activity down the Southern Arm from Wednesday on. The lads down there then commented that the fish were crashing around all night and it then became clear that spawning had recommended. However, even though only 21 carp were banked that number included 5 forties and 2 fifties so not all bad.

It was good to see Jason stick to his guns and put out a bed of bait on day one (he used 35kg of Dynamite ComplexT for the week) and continue to fish on it all week. The fish found it on Wednesday and continued to return every day from then on and he ended with six carp including a mid forty and two fifties at 52lbs 11oz and an unknown fifty at 56lbs 3oz. To date we have not yet been able to find a trace of this beautiful mirror as a previous fifty plus, so, at Jason’s wish she is now called “Bob’s Fish”.

Its also worth noting that all of the better fish came to beds of ComplexT.

well angled mate!!! I’m going to end on a bit of a moan but I simply don’t understand what would make a leaving angler think that the right thing to do with his left over boilies is to tip them on the ground at the back of the swim??? We work bloody hard to keep the rats at bay and then some moron encourages them by giving them a free meal????

 Another week completed and  a bit of a strange one. I don’t think any of the lads involved will argue with me when I say that a few of our guests struggled to get their heads around the need to get beds of bait in place right at the start of your week. It went against how they normally fish and was the main reason why a few of the swims didn’t produce as they should have done.  For the lads that did put in the ComplexT and kept topping it up the week produced some cracking fish.

‘The total of 37 carp banked is lower than I would have expected but that did include five forties and three of those were 49lbs plus and we also saw five fifties and a sixty so not all bad. The bigger fish were made with new fifty common at 51lbs 11oz, “Coffee Bean” at 52lbs 15oz, “Nemo” at 54lbs 2oz, “Andy’s Common” at 55lbs 8oz, “Dippy” at 59lbs 1oz and “The Peach” at 65lbs 9oz.

Well angled one and all.

 Another week done and, despite the hottest, sunniest and calmest weather conditions the five lads, plus me and Brownie did ok.  We ended the week with 58 carp banked and they included 11 forties, 6 fifties to 59lbs 3oz and the mighty Half Lin at 67lbs 13oz. Well angled one and all.

I will just end by saying that big beds of whole boilies proved, yet again, the way to go. By not using crumb, particles or pellet we managed to keep our baited patches waiting for the carp to arrive rather than being mopped up by the rudd.

Last week we saw 7 anglers enjoy their week while also working to get the best out of the Fishing. None of them were afraid to move and the moves that they made paid off with dividends.
By the end of the week they had banked 106 carp and that total included 17 forties, 11 fifties and 1 sixty.
I must just say well angled one and all.
Now while I’m writing I will add that we have seen 24 different fifties banked so far this year. Of those, 9 have been new fifties and we are still waiting to see several of the known fifties. The lake is looking in very good condition with the water carrying just enough color but no signs of weed growth and no signs of any algae. We will keep our fingers crossed and hope that it holds this condition throughout the year as that could lead to some massive weight gains by autumn.
This year has proved over and over again that big beds of bait are producing most and, generally, the biggest carp and I have a theory about this. I think that getting rid of the weed last year meant that all of the natural food item contained in the weed were deposited onto the lakebed and provided the carp with a massive harvest of food items wherever they went. With the weed remaining dormant this year, that food supply has not been reproduced. The fish also have nowhere to hid so they are keeping on the move rather than laying up in the thickest weedbed. They are therefore much more likely to settle onto big beds of bait as a replacement for the naturals.

This is going to be a very pleasant update. 

  Sorry for the delay in posting last week’s results but our planned trip to U.K. for my great grandson’s christening plus Jan’s trapped nerve have taken up more time than expected.   Anyway, as I type, I’m pleased to report that spawning seems to be done and plenty of signs of feeding fish at first light this morning.  Now to the results from last week. The lads fished to heavily baited patches and the fish responded by returning again and again. The week finished with the six lads banking 72 carp and that included 17 forties, (2 of them at 49lbs 12oz) 8 fifties, (2 of them at 58lbs 9oz) and The Peach at 64lbs 7oz.  I’m not going to bore everyone with a list of all of the forties caught so will just add those above 45lbs:-

45.00, 45.02, 45.06, 45.12, 46.00, 47.12, 48.15, 49.12, 49.12, 50.02, 50.08, 51.02, 52.08, 52.11, 53.14, 58.09, 58.09, 64.07. (18 in total)

Well angled lads. Can’t wait to see what the next surprises are.

 At last we are beginning to see improvements in the Fishing and some answers relating to previous weeks.  We reported seeing fish preparing for spawning by pushing through the mud, a couple of weeks ago. It now appears that what we thought was preparations was actually carp spawning on the Lake bed. This week we have seen several carp that are obviously spawned out and down in weight so it seems that removing the weed has made spawning totally different. Obviously the good news is that they now have a longer recovery period.   There are certainly some other changes to the Lake and the most noticeable to all our regulars is that the silt us reducing rapidly. This may be, in part, to do with the calcium carbonate but, I think more likely, the act of the aeration system without the weed causing a baffle to stop the water movement. Several of our regulars have been amazed at how little silt remains. The Fishing is certainly on the up and, following last week’s total of 7 carp landed this week we have seen 32 banked including 10 forties to 49lbs 6oz and 3 fifties to 58lbs 11oz.

There are still well over fifty other fifties that we haven’t seen yet so these next few weeks could be exciting.

There’s no point in hiding the fact that last week was extremely poor. The only saving grace, which doesn’t help our customers, is that the reports from most other French lakes were painting a similar picture.

The torrential rain on the previous Wednesday certainly acted like a massive switch and totally turned the fish off for most of the week. As an indication of that we saw 20 carp banked last week and 8 of those were on Friday when the water was beginning to fine down. Another strange situation is that we have only seen two carp caught during, the hours of darkness, all year.

It is certainly on the verge of turning on now with lots of feeding carp on show this morning and another beautiful fully scaled mirror of 37lbs 4oz banked at lunch time from Sunrise. I will add a photo of this one with the biggest fully from last week but would just underline that my target is now to get the carp of this quality up into the fifty pound bracket rather than trying to grow a few big fish. If I could double the numbers of our fifties over the next five years I will have achieved my goal.

As we have now completed our first full week of 2018 here is a very brief revue of captures so far. Our pre-season week saw just four of us battle the elements and some of the conditions were extreme indeed. Driving rain and bitter cold winds reall gave me the “I will be glad when I’ve had enough of this” feeling. The Fishing was tough and only improved very slightly, for the eight anglers last week, until a proper deluge on Wednesday flooded some of the swims and totally shut down the angling for the the end of the week.

Even with those conditions we managed to force one or two carp to feed and we have seen just 31 carp banked with most being thirty pound plus and including 9 forties, 1 fifty and Half Lin at 67lbs 14oz. She is down in weight whereas the fifty wasn’t a recognized fish so is probably a new fifty. My gut feeling is that this winter has been the longest since we moved to France and that some of the carp have simply spent the entire winter laid up and not feeding very much while others have gorged on naturals. I guess we will never know but I’m expecting several more to be up in weight while others disappoint us.   I will end by saying that the Dynamite ComplexT is doing well and has produced most of this season’s fish. We are still learning how to extract the best from it and continue to test glugs, liquids, pop ups etc. etc. and I’m extremely confident that it’s form will get better and better over the next few weeks.

This week sees a full compliment of anglers and all are using ComplexT so this could give us some proper conclusions.