Andrew and his brother, Lee have been to Carp France several times before and decided to do a return trip with Lee’s wife, Sarah and his sons, Thomas and Ethan. Their evening flight from Manchester was delayed on the Saturday and they were hiring a car so it was nearly midnight before they arrived at the lake, no time to see the lake, set their tackle up or get fishing so they all made the most of a good night’s sleep in the chalet.
Early on the Sunday morning, before we had even taken the tackle round, Ethan was in the swimming pool, which was still a bit chilly, so very brave, but set the tone for the week as the weather got warm. This may have had something to do with the carp hiding and the catfish coming out, just as they had at the latter end of the previous week.
Andrew, Lee and Thomas were the anglers and spent Sunday getting themselves set up and getting some bait out. They had plenty of Nigel’s spicy fish boilies as well as a good mix of pellets, party blend and chilli hemp to keep them going for the week. Lee decided to fish from the swim nearest the chalet and Andrew took Thomas under his wing and they went to the furthest peg along the main bank. They both had bait boats to help them reach the spots under the trees.
The three of them had decided they were not going to fish overnight but did stay by the bank late into the evening and enjoy the stars and the sounds of the night.
On the Sunday they managed to lose 3 fish between them and then Lee started the catching with a 50lbs catfish on the Sunday evening. A lovely surprise for him, especially as the holiday was a present for his 50th birthday!
On Monday morning they decided it was going to be ‘catfish week’ as during the morning Thomas caught his first ever catfish weighing in at 18lbs. He then went onto have an even bigger one on Thursday at 25lbs.
Lee had the only carp of the week, a pretty 23lbs mirror on Monday afternoon
Andrew thought he was going to blank the week, despite all of the bait he put in and then on Thursday Sarah came round to the house asking for a catfish sling as Andrew thought he was into a really big cat. We went down to the swim just in time to see him and Lee just getting it into the net. It took a bit of lifting to get it weighed but it came in at 69lbs. A decent size cat.
The family enjoyed some time away from the lake here, visiting Piegut-Pluviers market on the Wednesday and Ethan and Sarah had a trip to the Aventure Parc in Massignac. They were heading to Oradour-sur-Glane, the war village, on their way back to the airport and we hope they found it an interesting visit.
Final catch report was 1 carp at 23lbs and 4 catfish of 18lbs, 25lbs, 50lbs and 69lbs. We hope they will all return for another visit one day.