This week was a last minute cancellation and was soon snapped up by Andy, his wife, Clare and daughter Freya who also bought along her boyfriend, Ruben. Andy has done a lot of French carp fishing before but had not bought his family along before so his plan was to fish most nights and go out with the family during the day, making it a great time for everyone. With temperatures in the high 20s/low 30s all week and there having been very little rain in the last three months we knew that fishing would be tricky which is often the problem in August.
After driving half the way here on Friday the family were with us mid afternoon and Andy got himself set up on the main bank with rods going out in all directions on the Saturday evening and used his bait boat to get his lines exactly where he wanted. As he had also seen some fish in the shallow area of the lake he put some bait in there and told Ruben they would try and get those ones later in the week.
It was Saturday evening when the first fish was landed a stunning looking 28lb mirror and Ruben got in on the photo with Andy.
They decided to enjoy a couple of days just chilling by the lake so once they had got some provisions in they set up down by the lake. Sunday evening saw another mirror on the bank weighing 20lb 14oz
On Monday afternoon Andy let Freya and then Ruben reel their own rods in which resulted in a 32lb common for Freya
and a 23lb mirror for Ruben plus a new little common for our nursery pond weighing just 4lb.
On Tuesday Andy took them out to have a look at the big public lake near to us where there is a manmade beach and some leisurely water sports. Freya was not so keen as she thought they would be just sat by yet another lake but once she arrived she did not want to leave and so they promised to visit the next day.
Unfortunately Wednesday saw the last fish of the session out on the bank in the morning which was a 27lb mirror.
The family went off to the lake in the afternoon, swam, ate pizza and had a go on the pedaloes and loved every minute of it. With temperatures over 30 degrees on Thursday and no more fish on the bank, they decided they would go back to the lake for the day then. It was probably getting too hot for the fish to want to be thinking about eating as the lake temperatures climb quite quickly over the course of the day when it is hot like this.
Ruben decided that he would sleep out for the night with Andy for their last night as they were starting the journey back north on Friday morning. We don’t believe he lasted very long though, but probably longer than Jo would do!
Final summary of the week was 6 fish in total including 1 baby, 0 at q0lb+, 4 at 20lb+ and 1 at 30lb +. None of the big fish but that was probably due to the temperatures. We hope to see you all again sometime but until then bonne journée et à bientôt…..