We had first timers on our Kingfisher lake this week with brothers, Kevin and Shane, Kevin’s son, Max, Shane’s grandson, Kai and son in law to be, Aidan travelling the hour to catch the overnight ferry from Portsmouth to Caen and then the 5 hours on the lovely French roads in the van to us. On arrival they sat and enjoyed a beer with us and we found out that although they all fished regularly in the UK, none of them had been to France fishing before. They all had PBs in the mid 20s and some of them had never had a catfish before. They had kindly bought Jo some wine and Cadburys – always gratefully received and much appreciated!
With the weather forecast to be in the mid 30s all week you never can be sure how the fish would respond but we were hopeful, as always that there would be some fish on the bank. We walked round the lake, with Nigel introducing them to each swim and pointing out the places that most fish were caught from and where he fed them over the winter. Once we had done this we left them to get their van unloaded and they then popped out to the supermarket before it closed to stock up on some supplies before tea.
They had opted to use our tackle and had a bait package each, some with the maple syrup flavour and some with spicy fish. They had also chosen to rent our new Ultracat bait boats and Nigel gave them a quick lesson on these after their tea, showing them how to save their spots, recharge the batteries and use the GPS.
They had had a darts game before they came and the swims were decided based on who had won. Aidan and Shane opted for swim 1 together with Shane fishing to the right and Aidan to the left, Kai had the new hut on swim 2, Kevin was in the hut on swim 3 and Max had his bivvy set up on swim 4 with the shallower water.
On Sunday morning they came up to the house for their breakfast and told us that Kevin had had a 56lb catfish (a new PB) which he described as a big beast, at around 3am. Aidan had also had a a 44lb catfish and Shane a 8lb catfish. Aidan went on to have another catfish at around 11.30 am weighing 17lb. Nigel just happened to have finished doing his weekly bee check then and went down to share a beer with them to celebrate.
At teatime they reported that the lake had been very quiet all day and they had caught nothing more but Sunday night ended up being the busies of the week with lots of action at both ends of the lake around 3am when Kai caught a new PB, a 39lb common from swim 2 and Max on swim 4 had a 37lb mirror and a 34lb common. The looks on their faces tell us exactly how thrilled they both were. And there were also several catfish who were caught but lost from swim 1 – not much sleep was had by all accounts.
On Monday afternoon they popped round to the house to see if we had any better end tackle for the catfish, there is nothing worse than playing a catfish and then losing it. In Kingfisher the catfish are quite smart and know where they can dash to for safety so it is not uncommon. Nigel showed them a different set up and they borrowed a few bits from him to try again.
When we took their breakfast round on Tuesday morning Max was the only person who had got any fish to the bank as he had had a 19lb common at 22.40 and a 15lb common at 00.35 overnight.
Tuesday turned out to be the hottest day of the week and they decided they would have a break away from the lake for the afternoon and went to the fishing shop, Europêche in St Junien and found a bar for a couple of drinks before coming back when they went in the pool for a bit and had a BBQ before setting up again for the night. Our pools are usually open from June to September but Kevin had asked if there could be a possibility of them being ready early as the ‘youngsters’ were keen to use it. With the temperatures so high all week they all really benefitted from being able to cool off at various times of the day.
They were all in agreement on Wednesday that they were going to move swims in the afternoon but before they started packing their kit up, Aidan had a 21lb mirror at 10.10 which he described as a beautiful fish and followed this up with a 27lb catfish at 11.51 and a kitten at midday.
On Thursday morning we found Kai and Max on swim 1 with Kai to the right and Max to the left, Shane on 2, Aidan on 3 and Kevin on 4.
Max had lost a fish overnight but told us that he had done some stalking in the shallows on Wednesday afternoon. He said that there were lots of carp swimming around but even though he did not catch anything he really enjoyed it.
There were clear signs that the carp were spawning under the trees opposite swim 1 when we were round there so we think their minds were on other things apart from food. As we were chatting to Aidan on swim 3, Nigel suspected that Shane might have a fish on so we wandered back to see and watched him land a small kitten, weighing about 8lb so did the photography duties!
And Friday morning seemed to come around again far too quickly. When we went round for breakfast Shane had caught a 19lb common, Kai had lost 2 catfish and Max had caught a small cat overnight but nothing for anyone else. They decided that they would pack most of their things up in the afternoon and enjoy the evening, apart from Max and Aidan who opted to get one more nights fishing in before they headed off again early Saturday morning. And it paid off as he caught the last fish of the week and a new PB for Aidan with a 27lb mirror.
It has been a great week with these guys and considering the temperatures, no one blanked and 4 out of the 5 of them went away with new PBs. We have enjoyed their company, sharing a beer or two with them and admiring Max’s shirts every day, even if Nigel can still not remember everyone’s names. We are hoping that Aidan might come back and help us over the closed season as he is a tree surgeon back home but whatever we hope that all or some of them will make a return trip one day.
In summary there were 0 babies, 3 at 10lb+, 3 at 20lb+, and 3 at 30lb+ and 5 catfish up to 56lb. Until the next time bonne journée et à bientôt…..