Last week saw Phil, Kate, Philip and Sam join us on Lac Lucie for their first fishing trip in France. With PBs in the teens and twenties they were all dead excited to be here with us and have a great family holiday that Kate had surprised Phil with for his 40th birthday late last year.
They flew in on the Sunday afternoon Manchester flight into 39°C heat and Nigel was there at the airport to collect them. We had had a bit of drama before he left as there had been a wildfire just 2km away and the farmers had been pumping water from the lake, as we were the closest water source, to help the pompiers. Luckily they only took a few inches before the helicopters appeared and started taking water from deeper lakes around us. It was all a bit scary though as we didn’t really know what was going to happen before Nigel left for the airport.
By the time they arrived everything had settled down a bit and we showed them round the chalet and took them down to the lake where you could feel the excitement buzzing from the 3 anglers. The lads all do a bit of fishing in the UK, in and around Liverpool and were desperate to get set up and sorted. As the supermarkets are closed on Sunday afternoon, Jo had got them a few bits in to tide them over, until Nigel took Kate shopping on Monday morning and we left Kate to get everything unpacked in the chalet.
As it was their first time fishing for big carp they decided they would stick with just one rod each with Phil taking the middle rod, Sam on the left and Philip on the right. Although there has been a heatwave in the UK at the same time, temperatures here have been a good 10°C higher but the fish were evidently still feeding as at 11.30pm with temperatures still at 26°C Philip caught the first carp of the session weighing 37lb 4oz
Unfortunately, in all of the excitement of landing the fish he cut his knee and so they decided they would go up to the chalet to sleep. Not that it was much cooler in the chalet and they all struggled to sleep a bit the first night. But they were back down by 9.30am on Monday morning ready for another day, whilst Kate went to get some more provisions.
On Monday morning about 10am Phil was off the mark with a 29lb common and Sam started his run on Tuesday morning, again around 10am, with a 39lb 4oz common.
The 4th carp on the bank was Philip on Tuesday morning with a lovely 18lb common for Philip and then he caught again in the night at 1.25am on Wednesday, a 30lb common.
Early on Wednesday morning it started to cool down a bit with a good rain shower and storm at 5am and gusts of wind at over 30km/h. Kate and the lads had been down there all night, having borrowed another bivvy and some more beds from us and they rushed back up to the chalet whilst Phil stayed down looking after the rods. It didn’t last too long though and Nigel took Kate and the lady from Kingfisher to the supermarket at 9am and whilst they were in there the heavens opened again and there was a massive hail storm. It did clear the air a little but temperatures still managed to reach 34°C by 5pm
Jo had to take her mum and neighbour back to the airport early on Thursday morning but when we went down to see them all we were thrilled hear that they had had 5 fish on the bank so far. And it quickly became 6 as whilst we were there Sam’s rod went off and with Phil’s help he got it to the new jetty perfectly where Phil netted it and unhooked it whilst it was still in the net and he ‘high fived’ Sam
Another common weighing 38lb 4oz
Thursday afternoon looked like being a repeat of Wednesday’s weather as big black clouds rolled in and we could hear thunder all around us. About half an hour away they reported a lot of damage by hail stones the size of golf balls. We were certainly pleased that this missed us but it did fortunately cause the temperatures to drop by over 10°C to a more comfortable 25°C so we all slept better that night.
On Friday morning Kate was busy up at the chalet clearing up and getting packed up as they were leaving for the late afternoon Manchester flight. The boys were also up at the chalet when we were doing our morning walk and as we were down by the lake chatting to Phil his rod tip started quivering. He struck into it and about 20 minutes later landed another common, this time assisted by Nigel. This one weighed 38lb 8oz
It has been great to see some new carp anglers on the lake this week. Phil told us that his lads like different things, one is into falconry (he has 2 hawks himself) and the other football but one thing they do all enjoy together is fishing. And we love seeing young, passionate anglers on our lakes and watching them have their first French carp on the bank.
Final summary for this lovely family was 7 commons in total with new PBs for all three anglers. There were zero babies, 1 at 10lb+, 1 at 20lb+ and 5 at 30lb+. Hopefully they will come back to try getting the big catfish out of Kingfisher. Until then bonne journée et à bientôt….