News at Alder

In central and eastern France the temperatures crashed down this week, on Friday morning we faced between -13 and -15 degrees C, not exceptional by global standards but setting a new PB for us as we walked Ruadhri to school.

Alder lake had frozen over, pretty much over night but we could see motion under the ice - fish - small roach were wriggling around, they acted like they were getting ready to spawn in the mild weather a couple of weeks ago, splashing around the tree roots.

Here is a short clip of them;

Firstly a big ‘merci bien’ to all our customers who made the year so pleasant and successful. We’re looking forward to meeting quite a few of you again next year since you’ve already booked to come back. A return visit really is the biggest compliment you can pay any venue.

The fishing was good all year and, despite the summer heatwave, the large mass of the lake coupled with the stream feeders kept the carp active and vigorous. Many of our clients went home with new PBs, and one of our specially printed keyrings or torches as proof!

The lake record for Alder still stands at 43 lbs but the year saw several 40s and a lot of high 30s coming out. The individual catch record changed hands three times this year with Bill Holcombe setting a new record of 82 carp (1,685lbs) in one week, which will be hard to beat.

Stephen Horrocks won the bottle of champagne for landing our rather shy catfish for the first time. I’ll get another bottle in for the 2012 season for the first angler to catch the catfish.

The total catch record went to the Crane party again. As before, they hired both lakes. Last year they set a total record of 2,000lbs, which they quietly exceeded this year with 2,150lbs

We are into the winter fish-feeding programme now, even though the temperatures have remained unseasonably high. This extended feeding season should be reflected in the size and condition of the fish next year.

We welcomed our first fly and fish clients this year too. Since we are just 90 minutes from Limoges airport you could be fishing on the bank just a few hours after taking off.

A lot of you took advantage of the fact that we stock and sell Quest Baits to save you having to load the car up with boilies. All flavours produced good results. Our fish do seem to like a good bed of groundbait and our sales of maize, hemp and particle mix reflected that. Bill Holcombe’s secret was to feed little and often with a steady flow in from his baitboat.

One angler reported that he thought he’d seen a bear chasing one of our llamas. Don’t panic, there aren’t any bears in this part of France. What he’d seen was our dark brown alpaca Brendan chasing his sweetheart Windy around, and futilely!

We’ve begun on the winter lake and ground maintenance tasks. We’re repairing a couple of patches of banking and plan to thin out some of the alders, time and weather permitting.

New additions for the year included the shower room in the stable block, a gas powered cooler down at the fishing lodge (who remembers “the flame that freezes” from British Gas?) and solar powered lighting for the lodge and toilet block.

So while we have a busy winter ahead of us, we hope you’ll have a more relaxing time, and in particular a happy and peaceful Christmas and New Year.

See you in 2012!

Individual catch record	First capture of catfish	Steve Horrocks, winner of the bottle chapagne
Brendan the Boussac bear

Every angler worth his or her salt wants to know as much about the weather conditions as they can find out before each fishing trip, even more so for a holiday to France. Some sites do have weather feeds but generally these are of little use until the week before the trip. However, even then some feeds can be inaccurate or unreliable.

I have pulled together the seasonal trends for our area of France – Limousin. This area, set in the middle of France, has continental weather unmitigated by the moderating effect of the sea, which is quite different from the UK. The summers tend to be hotter and the winters colder.

The chart of daylight hours is quite useful for planning your trip. It shows the sunrise and sunset times (Central European Time) calculated for our longitude and latitude. The area between the curves visualizes the hours of daylight. Interestingly our longitude is only 2 degrees east of Greenwich, so mathematically our time zone could be aligned with the UK. However, for political and economic reasons our time zone is aligned with Germany to the east.

This chart shows the average high temperature for the month in red and the average low temperature in blue. The mean monthly temperature is plotted in brown. This shows you the possible range of temperatures that could occur at our lake. It doesn't show the absolute highs, as Alder sits in a natural bowl and the temperature has soared as high as 40 degrees C in summer! Fortunately the two streams fetch cool oxygenated water to the lake and the fish stay active.

Let’s face it, nobody really likes a rainy day but you need a reasonable amount to keep a fishing lake in top condition. Limousin is fortunate to have a fairly steady supply (on average) - neither flood nor drought.

Couple that with 8 hours of sunshine per day in summer and you have a recipe for great carp fishing.

Limousin can have overnight frosts from September to the end of April, although November to the end of March are taken as the frosty months. We would normally expect to see ice on the lakes in December and January.

The shortening daylight and cooling temperatures from September to October are said to bring the carp on to feed. That certainly occurs at Alder lake with anglers recording catches of 50 fish per angler in September and 80 fish per angler in October.

Hope to see you there next year!

The Alder lake individual catch record of 51 carp tumbled like the autumn leaves last week as Bill Holcombe landed an incredible 80 carp (1652 lbs) in an intense six  days and nights of fishing, that is an average of one fish landed every 1.8 hours – incredible work rate Bill!

The catch distribution shows no particular pattern with the fish coming at all times of the day and night, the median catch was just under 21lbs with the largest 28 lbs and the smallest at 6lbs – a grass carp. (Actually the smallest was 2lb carp but Bill didn’t count that!) . This went against the general pattern where the larger fish tend to be caught from the dam wall and the larger numbers of smaller carp caught in the shallows. Other anglers fishing towards the shallows landed six thirties the same week.
Bill said that the secret of his success was to feed well :–  “The more I fed – the more I caught ”.

Bill pulled the rods in on Friday night and we treated him to supper – if you can beat Bill’s record we will cook your supper too!

Alder in autumn	Bill playing another carp	It tries to throw the hook by jumping
In the net

Congratulations to Wayne Haskins and Jean Paul Picard who set a new lake individual catch record and new PB’s.

Jean Paul landed 42 fish, smallest mirror 14lbs to largest 32.8 lbs

... and Wayne set the new record with 50 fish, smallest mirror 14 lbs to largest 28.8 lbs.

Total 1051 lbs.

Most fish were taken on Cell tipped with buoyant maize.

The weather conditions were variable both hot and cold as well as heavy passing showers.

Wayne and Jean Paul didn’t take the easy route of just fishing a single hot spot but moved around the lake trying different locations.

Well done lads!

Wayne 28.8	Wayne; dedication!	Jean Paul 32.8