News at Vaux

It is with very heavy hearts that we have to report that Buddy, our loyal companion and everybody's friend, died on Saturday, 10th March 2012 after a sudden and unexpected illness

He bounced into our lives at the age of three months shortly after we moved to France and would have been only nine years old this year on 16th May;  never happier than when chasing after a ball, stick or frisbee, sitting patiently in the yard of an evening with a row of balls and toys which he had lined up beside him in readiness for Chas to go out and play, tagging on, uninvited, to anyone he knew who was off for a walk, excitedly watching and investigating a carp being landed, making himself comfortable in anglers' bivvies, on anglers' bedchairs, on anglers' laps - full of character and irreplaceable.

We will always miss him.

Chas and Josie

Arrival	Chas's buddy	Chilling
Inspecting a carp	Something caught their eyes

Well, here we are at the end of our eighth season and we have again been delighted to welcome back so many anglers from previous years, plus it’s been a pleasure to meet all the anglers new to Vaux and those families which accompanied them.  A huge vote of thanks to our visitors for once again keeping the gîte in good and clean order – it is very much appreciated.

This year has seen a further increase in the number of larger carp caught. 

Out of a total of 541 (2010 – 490) recorded carp landed in 2011 (unfortunately not every angler leaves a catch report), there were;

*  141 x 30lb+ (2010 – 109) and of those, 68 were 35lb+ (2010 – 39)

*  22 x 40lb+ (2010 – 8), of which 6 were 45lb+. 

And here's a strange fact - at the end of seven of the holiday weeks, the last fish banked on the last day of each of them was a 40lb+ mirror: 

*  at the end of the first week of April - Matt had a 41lb12oz, his PB

*  at the end of the second week of April - Duncan had a 42lb11oz

*  at the end of the third week of April - Jeff had a 40lb08oz, his third PB of the week

*  at the end of the fourth week of April - Chas had a 49lb01oz

*  at the end of the last week of May/beginning of June - Lester had a 42lb11oz, his second PB of the week

*  at the end of the third week of August - Jayne had a 44lb01oz

*  at the end of the third week of October - Damian had a 41lb05oz

In the fourth week of May, on the second to last day, not quite the last fish on the last day, Richard landed his PB of a 44lb 02oz mirror.  But just to buck the trend, Bob banked a 43lb mirror, his PB, on the first day of his holiday in the first week of October, following on from Chas’s fishing holiday.

The most thirties landed in one week by a visiting angler was eight, which occurred on four occasions throughout the season, although Chas did manage to bank 21 on one of his sessions.

There were just three weeks when only carp under 30lb were caught. 

The largest number of carp caught was 53 during the first week of Mark and Jayne’s two week holiday in August and the average number banked per week in 2011 increased to 18.

We wish all of you a Very Happy Christmas and a New Year full of promise!

Chas and Josie

For the first time in several years I found I had an opportunity to spend a few days in September fishing my own lake.  I followed on from a week of low numbers of fish caught, apparently weather related because I noted that several other lakes were similarly affected.  Temperatures rocketed during my stay and I decided to fish nights only with a limited number of rods, using my new 'large carp' tactics:  the usual heavy lead set-up, the end tackle being a heavy boom section whipped to the hook section with 40-50mm braided hook lengths incorporating long shank Mugga hooks size 6 and 7 or just Mugga hooks, again size 6 and 7, tied KD style

I targetted two spots in the lake and baited one with 25-35mm carp and trout pellets plus a scattering of 25-35mm boilies.  For the other area I took a different approach.  Roach and dace which I had caught in a feeding situation were humanely despatched and using a food processor were then incorporated into my method mix base of wheat and maize, instead of the usual tuna.  In this way a very high oil content is released into the method mix.  Because the roach and dace had been feeding when caught and then incorporated without delay into the mix, I was in addition trying to establish if there is an enzyme or some other trigger within the roach and dace which would spark a feeding response in the carp

It took three days from putting the method mix into the lake before the carp started feeding, but then over a period of eight days I banked 35 carp including 4 x 40lb+, 21 x 30lb+, 9 x 20lb+ and 1 at 16lb - plus one 42lb catfish.  Of the 21 thirties, 15 were over 35lb.  71% of the carp landed were over 30lb and with a total carp weight of 1145lb 4oz, I had an average weight of 32lb12oz.  On one particular night I had two lots of doubles:  46lb4oz and 41lb8oz mirrors, followed by a 28lb common and a 37lb14oz mirror

All the larger fish were taken over the method mix, the small ones over the carp and trout pellets.  For me, this first trial was a big success

Chas

46lb 4oz	41lb 8oz	40lb 4oz
44lb 8oz	39lb	38lb

Mark and Jayne returned for a two-week holiday again this year, accompanied by Kevin.

Between the three of them in their first week they caught 53 fish, including two at 40lb+, seven thirties up to 37lb, 39lb 11oz and 39lb 12oz and 18 twenties.

This second week has turned very hot, but they are still catching, particularly at night.

Over the past two years, we have been developing and trialling a range of new baits for Vaux – the Vaux lake boilie – where we have taken into account seasonal temperature changes, the ph changes in the lake water and also nutritional values for the carp.

In addition, we’ve been developing a range of tactics designed to catch the large carp. These tactics and our baiting programmes have been tailored to try to catch fish when lakes are supposedly switched off, when anglers are blanking and when carp are supposedly not feeding. Our new tactics revolve around large leads, pop-ups to sizes up to 50mm, boilies of 20-50mm and hooklengths and hooking arrangements to suit these large leads and baits.

Results in the last seven months have seen both field testers and visiting anglers catching many of the big fish in the lake, with 79 landed at over 30lb, 34 of those at 35lb-plus, and ten forties. One field tester fishing a five day/one night session, accompanied by a novice angler during two of the days, caught a total of 16 carp which included eight thirties, six of them over 35lb, six 20s between 23lb and 27lb 8oz and two forties, 47lb 2oz and 49lb 1oz.

With bait trials now complete, anglers’ catches in the week commencing 9th July included 8 x 30lb'ers taken in just five days and in week commencing 16th July a young, inexperienced, holiday angler, whose previous PB was a low 30lb'er, landed in one night a 38lb+ and then the new official lake record, a 46lb+ carp. And he still has another six days of his holiday to go!!

Over the next few months we will be explaining the tactics via our web pages, but Vaux lake boilies are already available to buy at the venue.