Last June when Graeme and his wife were here we had record temperatures just below 40°C and it was just too hot for fishing so this year they decided to leave it until right at the end of the season when hopefully it would be a little more manageable. As you know this year it has been even hotter and with very little rain over the last few months we were just hoping that it would cool down before their trip.
This is the fourth year he has fished Lac Lucie and in the previous 3 years Graeme has managed to land 9 fish in total from the full 6 weeks of fishing. But he is obviously not one to give up and whether you are catching or not there is nothing nicer than sitting by Lac Lucie for 2 weeks, enjoying the water, the peace and quiet and the abundance of wildlife around us.
This year Graeme had treated himself to a bait boat and he was hoping that it would hit the right spots and improve his chances of having more carp on the bank. With no one on Kingfisher for the rest of the season we were able to top the water levels up on Lac Lucie to help with getting the fish in and out of the water.
Graeme had a daily routine for his fishing, getting down to the lake by 7.30ish every morning and staying there for most of the day until late afternoon. He chooses not to fish nights and does not always weigh the fish and does not take any photographs. His wife was beside him for most of the day and acted as his trusted assistant with every catch and they worked together like a well oiled machine.
With no one on the lake the week before the fish had been feeding on naturals so were quickly on the bait on Sunday when a 40lb common reached the bank around 2pm which is the same weight as he started last year. But Monday was a blank and there was a concern that it was going to be another slow fortnight. This soon changed though with two 30lbers out on Tuesday, a 20lb and 35lb 15oz on Wednesday and a 29lb on Thursday. So five days in and Graeme had already matched what he had landed last year.
And so it continued with two further fish on Friday, a blank day on Saturday but two commons on Sunday including the smallest of the session at 17lb and a 37lb one which apparently put up a tough fight. On Monday Graeme had another two weighing 28lb 5oz and 38lb 9oz so was quite happy with how things were going.
As usual we popped down to see them every day and enjoyed our chats with them, and sharing the love of the wildlife. They had seen a red squirrel, very rare in the UK but there are only red ones here and we regularly see them going through the trees. They had also seen a crane in the field and heard and seen various other birds. There was a question for us one of the days as to what could have left this print on a coat in the bivvy. We deduced it was probably a small badger in the end but happy to be corrected.
Nigel had a hip replacement on Monday so he did not manage to get down to the lake on Tuesday but Graeme blanked that day again and just had the one fish on Wednesday morning weighing 28lb. They were keen to observe that they had had no fish out after 2pm and most of them had arrived in the morning. On Thursday he had one more and then a further two on the bank on Friday weighing 27lb and 31lb, the bigger of which was very docile.
Graeme and his wife have enjoyed the weather far more this year with temperatures ranging between 16.3°C and 27.8°C and with several days of periods of rain making it far more comfortable for everyone. Maybe autumn has now finally arrived.
There has been a total of 16 carp on the bank this year for Graeme but who knows what has caused him to catch more fish? Knowing the lake better, improved weather, bait boat, air pressure, lunar cycle….the list could go on we are sure but it is great to see that he has kept the average weekly catch per angler at 8 for us this year. Some fine angling once again.
The catches consisted of zero babies, 1 at 10lb+, 6 at 20lb+, 6 at 30lb+ and 1 at 40lb+ and 2 of unknown weights. They have already booked again for next year so until then bonne journée et à bientôt…..