Graeme and his wife returned for their third visit to Lac Lucie and in the midst of a heatwave, with temperatures at 35.1°C, so they chose to set up camp on the main bank where there is more shade throughout the day. As on previous years, Graeme chooses to fish from early in the morning until lunchtime, on occasion getting up before 4am to make the most of the cooler air.
With more fish in the lake this year and a good catch report from the previous week, we were hopeful that Graeme would catch more fish this year than he has previously. He prefers to cast rather than use a bait boat and whilst this limits how much of the lake can be fished, he can still reach a fair distance along the margins.
He started out with two rods (one for his wife) to both the left and the right hand banks and by Monday morning he had his first fish out – a 40lb common and we all hoped that this would be first of many.
By Monday afternoon the temperatures had soared to a peak of 39.7°C (only 0.6°C below the department record) and there were very little signs of fish feeding on the lake.
There was a change in the weather on Wednesday and we saw a nice few cooler days where some mornings a jumper was needed, so we were hopeful. Graeme lost one when Nigel was down chatting with him on Thursday morning but it was not until the Saturday when another common was landed, a 47lb, slightly smaller than his biggest carp from the previous year which had weighed 49lb.
Sunday morning saw Graeme lose another fish when we were there but later in the morning he landed a 24lb mirror and a 36lb common.
We have had very little rain this spring and summer so far and we were hoping that the forecasted rain on Sunday and Monday would bring us a bit of a deluge to help the lakes as well as the ground. With the aerators on full time now we have to do what we can to keep the water as oxygenated as possible. This is one of the reasons that Graeme prefers not to photograph the fish but gets them back in the water as quickly as possible. The fish health is of paramount importance. After all our hopes we ended up with around 5mm of rain and there is still only a very small trickle of water going into Kingfisher and therefore into Lac Lucie.
We were hopeful that a change in the weather would bring more fish out but temperatures started rising again through the second week and there was no more rain. There was a nice breeze however which made sitting by the lake much more bearable. As Graeme had caught all of his fish from the right hand bank he decided he would fish all his rods to that side and just leave his wife’s to the left. But with no fish by the second Thursday of his trip he moved another to left. We saw a few fish jumping further down the lake but not in reach of his casting and only one more carp ended up on the bank, a small 10lb mirror.
Final summary zero babies, 1 at 10lb+, 1 at 20lb+, 1 at 30lb+ and 2 at 40lb+. More than last year so hopefully when they return in 2026 that number will go up even further for him. Until the next time bonne journée et à bientôt…..