Wednesday 31 October 2012

Carp Fishing in France Webcast – October 2012


In this edition in addition to our normal news round-up there’s a feature on fish farmer Lauren Bigot.  Lauren explains the range of activities he gets involved in throughout the year.
Carp Fishing - 56 technical videos available.

    Monday 29 October 2012

    Animal Magic at Notaire’s Lakes


    It has been a very busy year at Notaires with new pigs arriving, new sheep and a surprise delivery of baby alpaca – llama crosses (huarizos).
    Here at Notaire’s lakes we have 75 acres of lakes, woods and fields in one of the quietest areas of France. This makes for a unique holiday experience; the calm, quiet atmosphere is appreciated as a counterpoint to the busy modern life in England. If you stretch your legs round some of the hidden fields you could well catch sight of deer or boar as well as buzzards, kestrels and sparrow hawks.
    We decided that we wanted to add an element of self-sufficiency but with very low impact. As a result our smallholding is like an old fashioned farm with a few pigs, sheep, turkeys and chickens (OK and a herd of llamas, but they are just for fun)!  Around the farm (in addition to the swings and swimming pool) the farm animals are a source of great interest for children.
    Brendan the alpaca was allowed to stay in the girls’ field after he ‘grew up’ as they would spit him off whenever he made an advance, but in the heat of the night, one by one they succumbed to his blandishments (hence the story of the brown bear jumping on the back of a llama that one of our visiting anglers told us) and now we have a new flock of very cute brown huarizos, the offspring of a llama mother and alpaca father. Brendan and the other male alpacas will soon be getting a special visit from the vets.
    This year we have a small flock of Suffolk and Charolais sheep (I thought that Charolais were cows but they are also a race of ovines). It turns out that the Charolais – Suffolk cross is a very good meat sheep, but that is more fortune than planning. Lambo the hand raised lamb is growing up to be the ram for the herd.  Oscar the llama is the boss of this flock as having a llama in with the sheep protects the young lambs from foxes. The Suffolks have a black face and the Charolais have a light face; strangely one of ours has a pink face and always seems to be scowling at me.
    Our pedigree Berkshire pigs have settled in well and are always keen to eat any vegetable scraps that guests have spare. Oberon the boar was a little unhappy after being separated from the girls but settled down after being given extra treats and tummy rubs. All being well Oberon should be siring the next generation of Berkshires on the farm in the spring and guests will be able to meet the piglets. The Berkshires are a heritage breed but are becoming increasingly popular as consumers tire of watery supermarket pork and are looking for meat with natural fat levels and flavor as often advocated by TV chefs.
    The turkeys are full size now and the dominant male is strutting his stuff trying to impress the other turkeys. A black turkey doing his turkey dance while waving his wattles is quite a sight. It’s a bit ‘redneck’ but few people can resist doing turkey calls to make the male gobble back and dance.
    The carp are also growing well and the lake record has been broken twice this year, currently standing at 43lbs 10oz.
    Fishing Holidays at Notaires

    A Massive Haul of Monster Carp at Villefond


    Arthur @ 54.07
    Nick Johnson returned to Villefond for the third time on the 20th of October 2012 with Dave Procter (his second visit) and they both done brilliantly. Their amazing catch report reads as follows;
    Total weight of carp caught; 635 lb 12oz
    52lb mirror carp
    Arnold @ 52.10
    Average weight of carp; a massive 41.6lb!
    Fish caught in order of size;
    *  54lb 7oz (Arthur the common)
    *  52lb10oz (Arnold a mirror)
    *  47lb12oz
    *  45lb12oz (Dorian a mirror)
    *  45lb 4oz (Measles a mirror)
    *  43lb10oz
    *  40lb.8oz
    *  40lb 4oz
    *  39lb 10oz
    *  38lb 12oz
    *  38lb 7oz
    47lb carp from French lake Villefond
    47lb
    *  38lb 4oz
    *  36lb 8oz
    *  33lb
    *  29lb 4oz
    *  and a future Villefond monster – an 11lb common.
    These sorts of weights is what separates Lac du Villefond from all other lakes it’s a real specimen water, and although it’s very tough, it’s worth it if you get it right and as normal all the fish are different fish no re-captures.
    What makes the weights even more impressive is some of the fish like Arthur the common at 54lb 7oz were still down in weight from the late spawning at the end of August/ beginning of September. So these fish will be even heavier when at full weight and Arthur who normally puts 4lb on over winter could well come out next spring at over 60lb!
    Arthur is our second biggest common and hasn’t been out since April 2012. Arnold is our second biggest mirror and hasn’t been caught since July 2012. Nick and Dave have been a real pleasure to have on our lake every time they have been and we are really happy for them and hope to see them again catching more monsters.
    Mark, Villefond Owner
    Carp Fishing in France at Villefond

    Thursday 25 October 2012

    Wednesday 24 October 2012

    Clearing Dead Trees from the Island at Molyneux


    As those of you lucky enough to have visited Molyneux will know the clearing the dead trees from large Island was one of the major tasks I had set myself this year. It has sadly been left to grow wild over a number of years. It is over run with brambles, and the trees have suffered as a result. Many of the trees have died as a result of having not enough light or room to grow. I decided that this autumn when we had no guests on I would start the mammoth clearance job needed to try to improve the overall look and at the same time try to enhance new growth where we could.
    Helen and I started this project yesterday, I cut down a number of trees and today we commenced the clearing of these. It was not possible due to their size to drag them across to the mainland as planned so we decided to chop them up where they were, and burn them in situ.
    French Carp Lakes – Molyneux

    Tuesday 23 October 2012

    Cots and Weigh Slings FOC at Bletiere


    Fishing Holidays

    For the 2013 season at Bletiere I will be again supplying carp cots and weigh slings for all our guests to use free of charge.
    I have decided to re start this as it not only saves guests the space and the smell in their cars but also this year some of the unhooking mats used have not been big enough or safe enough for the fish.
    I will put some photos of the new equipment as soon as I have them which should be next month.
    Tight lines, John
    Fishing Holidays at Bletiere

    Friday 12 October 2012

    Return to Monument for a weeks excellent carping…



    Carp fishing in France
    47lb 5oz carp caught in March this year 
    My last visit to the Brittany’s, Monument Lake was back in March this year, when I saw out the throes of winter. The trees bore no foliage and the water was as cold as ice and yet I still managed to winkle out a few carp to 47lb 5oz. My departure from the lake saw the coming of spring, and the arrival of a fishing colleague of mine, Pat Gillet.
    Pat took full advantage of the opportunity of a warm spell by catching over 20 carp in that spring week.
    Carp Fishing in FranceCarp Fishing in France
    Pat with a couple of his many carp caught the week after my departure
    It is now the end of September and I have taken the opportunity for a revisit to Monument Lake.
    With my friend and fishing colleague, Paul Brooks, I arrived at the lake around midday on the Saturday. Now having done all my homework on the 1st visit to the lake, I was fully aware of the depths and lake bed makeup, however I still needed to lead to investigate the presence of weed in the lake. The weed was very brittle and broke away as soon as the lead was pulled through it and was only present in the shallower parts of the lake leaving the deeper water weed free.
    Paul settled onto the orchard swim which has deep water right in front of it and was clear of weed through out the swim and I settled on the more weedy area of the pads swim.
    The weed in front of me was patchy right the way across to within a rod length of the island, so some accurate casting was called for.
    I selected 3 areas to fish within a yard off the margins of the island which gave me depths of around 4 feet.
    Paul again selected areas off the island margin, but at the side of some obvious fishy looking snags.

      Mehdi’s New Record Vegetables!


      566kg French Pumpkin
      566.5kg!
      Laroussi & Old Oaks owner, Mehdi Daho has been at it again!
      Here’s his latest record beating vegetables…
      *  Pumpkin of 566.5kg
      *  Super squash of 425.5kg (the new French record)
      Well done Mehdi!
      The French Record Squash
      The French Record Squash
      Carp France at Old Oaks

      Lake Depth Map for Beaurepaire


      Here’s a fantastic depth map of Beaurepaire sent to us by Dave Gifford.  Thanks for sharing Dave!
      Angling Holidays at Beaurepaire

      Thursday 11 October 2012

      Which bait do you suggest for Margot?


      This post first appeared on the Quest Baits Blog & is reproduced with kind permission.
      Hi Shaun,
      I have been using your bait for a couple of years now & I’m going to Margot on 20th April next year.  I was wondering if you could give me any idea what worked well out there for you… if it was just boilies or pellets introduced worked its magic too.  There doesn’t seem to be many blogs which help!
      Many thanks, Roy
      Shaun Harrison Answers:
      Hi Roy,
      It is a few years now since I visited Margot but the winning method for me was a wide scattering of 10mm boilies of mixed flavours (I actually mixed every flavour and colour we do) and bulked that out with Garlic Feast too. I fished 3 rods on the same baited area with different set-ups to start with – pop up, bottom bait and snow man.
      Most of the takes that week fell to a snowman set up with different flavour combinations but the Special Crab did appear to shine through that week.
      I was baiting with around 2kg of 10mm’s and 5kg of Garlic Feast each afternoon and sprinkling the odd catapult pouch of boilies over the top at intervals too. This was around August time from memory so the weather and water temperature will possibly be a little cooler when you are there but not significantly different.
      Certainly the mixed bed of different colour and different food signals is something that has worked well for me on a lot of waters.
      I would have thought that Angling Lines would have some up to date news if you check their website and blog. They usually keep them up-dated. Like I say it is a while since I went but the above methods produced around 70 fish for me that week.
      Hope this helps.
      Best wishes, Shaun Harrison

      French Carping Session – 40lb Mirror Carp from Margot


      Mark Bushell sent us this short clip of a 40lb mirror caught on his September 2012 Margot trip…

      How to catch carp 2 – tight lines and shocker rigs


      In part 1 of this series ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RllcHsyq53U ) Duncan de Gruchy demonstrated how to catch carp using slack lines and running rigs at Oakview.
      Here in part 2 Gary Hewes demonstrates how to achieve similar results using tight lines and shocker rigs.  Gary is fishing the same spots from the same swim that Duncan fished 3 weeks before.
      It just goes to prove that there is often more than one ‘best way’ to fish a particular spot.

      Monday 8 October 2012

      New lake record on first French carping trip


      Stuart Hayhurst has just banked a new Lords lake record common with this 49lb 7oz stunner.
      Stuart said it’s his first proper fishing trip to France and he’s still learning the ropes.
      He also had a whopping 80lb cat. Fast learner!!
      French carp at Lords

        Monday 1 October 2012

        Carp Fishing in France Webcast – September 2012


        In this edition we bring you up to date with our latest videos plus all the big carp captures – including a magnificent 61lb common from Old Oaks. Plus there’s an extended update on Billy’s trials and tribulations as he navigates through French red tape & neighbour objections as he continues to work towards an opening date for his lake.  As you’ll see, nothing is easy!
        Carp Fishing Videos – 55 Technical Videos