Once we started, of course, the heavens opened!
We managed to remove 10 small and medium catfish, as well as some small and genetically less-than-ideal carp. This will leave much more room for the remaining larger carp and cats to grow on.

Earlier this month we also improved the swims around the lake, take a look at the results here.

Some fish we had never seen before came out…

…and some known residents go back in.

That completes our winter programme here at Holly Pools – and just in time – the season is upon us. As I write this piece it’s 24 degrees and sunny. What are you waiting for?

See you on the bank!
Nik

For more information, articles and feedback on Holly Pools follow the link – Carp Fishing

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Oak Swims New Step

Old Stump Swim

Pauls Swims New Step

We have decided that we will not implement this as a rule yet, but for 2013 (in common with an increasing number of venues) we are asking anglers to consider handling all larger carp – over 30lb – in the lake. This has obvious massive fish welfare benefits, with little danger of damage and no harm done if the fish flaps around or is dropped accidentally. We have a floating carp cradle and floating slings to help with de-hooking, treatment and posing for pictures. What we did need was far better access to the water, so with that in mind we have added steps to the 2 swims that are not at water level. It should be interesting to see how this works during the season.

Lastly, this week will see gravel the access path extended right around to the stalking swim. We hope this all makes fishing at Holly Pools more comfortable and sociable than ever before, whilst access is superb in all weathers. See you on the bank!

Carp Fishing at Holly Pools

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Depth and Swims

Holly Pools has also added a Tackle Hire, Bait and Essentials Shop on site.

Just in case you don’t have ‘all the gear’, or maybe you want to fly into Limoges and travel light; we have all the kit you need for hire right here. For this season, quite a lot of the rental tackle is new. There’s a Viper Icon mk3 Baitboat, 9’ rods or 11’ rods, a new JRC bivvy, reels, weigh slings, tripods and scales – we have had a proper upgrade!

We also realise that despite the best of plans, sometimes you forget something. Getting a carp first aid kit (it’s a must and in the rules as essential to fish!), some tungsten putty or even barbless carp hooks isn’t just a trip to the village. To make life simple – it’s pretty much all available here – at low prices.

Essentials available on-site

Lastly we supply Carp Cuisine fresh rolled boilies, paste, pop-up’s and hookers. When we say fresh we mean it – it’s made and air-dried the week before you arrive – it’s not been frozen! Most of the ingredients are milled on site too – we know EXACTLY what we are feeding our fish – and they like it! We also have quality carp pellet, and attractors for you right here.

We try hard to make your life simple and maximise your time on holiday – whether it’s on the bank or enjoying the region.

Nik,  Holly Pools Carp Fishing.

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Repainting the Lodge

During our first week we concentrated on the lodge area. The plan was to repaint the lodge, creosote the outside of the lodge and varnish the lodge floor. Work started pretty much straight away after arriving but with the temperature being so cold our attentions soon turned to warming the lodge up, a gas bottle was purchased from the local store and installed on full power! It wasn’t long before we all started to warm up and went full steam ahead with some great results…

The Pool Table

The lodge now painted and creosoaked my attentions turned to the lads arriving for the work party who were arriving on the 16^thMarch, happy with the work carried out during our first week I was very much looking forward to the work scheduled on the lake/swims. The lads arrived nice and early and seemed even keener than I was to get started straight away. We had a walk around the lakes and returned to the lodge for a discussion on the plan of attack, this was obviously over several cups of tea and coffee but a plan was hatched…

Another major task was to get the water on and the shower block up and running however, due to the weather conditions being as cold as they were this wasn’t going to be an easy job, infact it continued throughout the week and it soon led to more work for Andy & Paul who have worked their butts off even when things looked like they wasn’t getting anywhere they continued to battle against the elements but we are so very close to finishing and all will be ready for Saturday 23^rd as planned!

We had a plan for some of the swims but decided to start with peg 3, this swim is a great peg (when fished) but it needed improving, we decided to create a bivvy area with the aid of a chainsaw and some logs, we didn’t just lay them down though, we dug 3ft of clay out then logged of a decent size bivvy area before joining the logs together with some heavy duty and very expensive decking screws. Happy with the work carried out we finished it off with some sheeting and 2 tonne of lovely gravel. The bivvy area now complete we decided to improve it further by installing a decked area at the water’s edge, we started by cutting some scaffolding tubes into 1mtr lengths , some more decking, more logs and again some more gravel to finish it off, I’m sure you’ll agree it looks great, all it needs now is to be left alone for a week or two to settle down.

Peg 3

Decked Area

Peg 3 now complete we went straight into peg 4, a similar plan was made but this proved to be much harder, with the bank rising even more clay had to be removed which was a task in itself.  We soon had the shape of the new swim all logged out and screwed down to eachother, some larger harder gravel was laid first before the top layer went down, this work is still in progress as we speak but it will be completed by the end of the week…

Our next challenge was to create a social area in pegs 2 and 3 on the small lake, this area gets fished the most but again needed improving, we have decided to create a decked area with the aid of some sleepers and decking with a steps going down to the platform with logs and our new gravel, this is in progress too but will be fishable for our guests arriving Saturday morning.

We have now finished these pegs and wanted to improve peg 10 on the large lake, we placed a sleeper to the front, dug down into the clay and brought the swim deeper into grass bank,  we finished it off with some gravel to fill it in.

Digging out the Bank

Peg 4

During the work party week the guys did manage to fish in between working and they had some great catches with lots of 20’s and 30’s too, the weather improved throughout the week, they are devastated to be leaving the complex but I’m sure they’ll be back for more Roseau Carp!

It’s been an absolute pleasure having all the guys here this week, they have worked so hard to get the venue ready for our customers and I hope you all like the work carried out. We will continue to operate work parties to make the venue better year after year!

See you all soon

Roy

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Single Swim Before

I decided this year to improve and enlarge Jacks swim. As you will see in the photo on the right, when we arrived at Molyneux it was just a half gravelled rough slope leading down to the water’s edge. It was muddy, slippery and treacherous.

Not long after arriving we added a platform to the front of the swim and tried to tidy up the slope, as much of an improvement as it was, I still wanted it to be much better.

This year with the help of Paul Forster, Jack Cuthbertson and one other we got a mini digger in for a couple of days and set to. The idea was to flatten out the slope, remove a huge chunk of the hill to the right of the swim, level, flatten and board out the swim. We also increased the frontage to the swim, thus enabling it to be comfortably fished by two anglers with loads of room to spare.

With the water level as high as it currently is it was not an easy task, though we managed to finish it in the allotted time. The results are stunning, with wide steps leading down to a huge 5.50m x 5m swim, leading to a 4m x 2.5m frontage. This has been built at water level and as such need to dry out prior to gravelling, but other than that it is finished and I am so very pleased and proud of it. I look forward to seeing it occupied…

Wally

Single swim after, just frontage to gravel when dry.

Molyneux French Carp Lake

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The weather has been absolutely atrocious over the past couple of months. We have had rain virtually every day and Gilles has impatiently been waiting for the opportunity to drain down the main lake and remove all the surplus grass carp which have become more and more annoying to our anglers over the past 2 years.

Last year we had drought conditions and so couldn’t empty the lake as we weren’t certain it would fill back up ready for the season. It’s a very tricky situation which calls for patience from us and understanding for our anglers.

More importantly some additional larger carp had been ordered before winter and a delivery slot was eagerly awaited. We finally got news of their impending arrival and happily it coincided with a break in the weather which enabled us to take some nice photos.

These three beautiful mirrors from the fish farmer Frederic Delmares weighed in at 55lb5oz, 50lb9oz and 43lb3oz respectively. The biggest one unfortunately had some injuries to its tail during transport and so will prove to be highly identifiable when caught. Hopefully it will recover well and grace the nets of many of the anglers later this season.

Tight lines to all our anglers coming over this year… we look forward to seeing you.

Gilles

50lb 9oz

50lb 9oz 

55lb 5oz

43lb 3oz

 Fishing Holidays at Mas Bas.

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Warren with a 46lb 01oz Mirror

A huge vote of thanks to Warren, who was fishing on his own, for giving Vaux a great start to the new season by achieving a catch of 28 carp up to 46lb1oz, including three NEW 40s and seven unrecorded 30s.  It was a February week of bitterly cold conditions, with some snow and some rain, but despite the harsh weather, he spent the week bivvied up lakeside.  Warren is an astute, technical angler encompassing rigs, baiting and overall tactics.  He fished a combination of pop-ups and assorted bottom baits, slack lines with small leads and tight lines with big leads.  His slack lines accounted for one of the 40s and his tight lines for the other two.

He was enjoying a very good hit rate during the night that he caught his first two 40s, however, because it was so very cold, with the air temperature down to -6^o and because he was fishing alone, he was physically unable to get his rods back out into the water.  Although he would have liked to carry on, he was therefore prevented from fishing on through the night.  48 hours later he banked his third 40lb-er.

41lb 5oz Mirror

Over the eleven years that we have owned Vaux, we have come to realise the importance of fish management, especially during the winter months.  The normal winter feeding pattern at Vaux is determined by when and where we put the food into the lake.  It is more their normal winter feeding pattern that seems to trigger the carp into feeding in the winter months than it is air or water temperature related.  However, whilst the feeding pattern is important, part of the overall management policy is to have young carp continually growing on and gaining weight.  All the 20s and 30s that we have at the moment are fish that have bred in our lake and our policy is to keep them growing and so to feed them throughout the winter, even down to the lowest of temperatures, so that winter anglers have the chance to catch feeding carp because they will feed all through the winter to maintain their weights;  because they are constantly feeding so winter anglers have the chance to catch them when perhaps the larger fish are in the digestion cycle of their pattern of feeding.

45lb 2oz Common

Clearly our winter feeding programme is paying dividends because Warren’s 40s are all new for this year which means that they continue with the same feeding pattern.  We have previous photographs of each of the three to show that they have gone through the 40lb barrier.  Even Warren’s seven low 30s have not been previously recorded and may well be new 30s for this year.

Part of the management programme is also to create a limited number of hot spots by constantly putting food into the same areas to increase the chances for anglers to catch in the winter.  All Warren’s fish came from the two hot spots created this year.

Chas took the opportunity to fish on two days in the first week of March, following on from Warren’s visit, trialling InnovateBaits boilies.  He fished days only and to the same two hot spots that Warren had, the only difference being that water temperatures were rising to about 10^o, whereas during Warren’s week water temperature had been on average only 5^o.  Chas banked five 40s up to 49lb and three 30s up to 39lb from these winter hot spots, but with water temperatures still on the rise, the carp then moved off to their usual Summer haunts.  None of the 40s caught by Warren and Chas were the same.

Josie and Chas

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Double Swim Before

As well as improving and enlarging Jacks swim, we also decided to make improvements to the double swim here at Molyneux, easily the most popular on the lake.

It was another that when we arrived two years ago needed immediate work carried out on it. There had been some very rough steps dug out at some point, these were uneven and very dangerous. The swim itself was simply spoil from other areas which had been dumped into the lake, making it prominent from the bank. It was incredibly muddy and following heavy rain could become very squishy and slippy.

We initially flattened and levelled steps, making sure they were all the same height and logged them to make them useable. The swim itself was an awful lot of work, Jack Cuthbertson, a very good friend, came over and helped me to build a massive platform at the front. It was 3.20m wide across the front and with both sides angled to allow easy landing and releasing of fish.

We had limited resources and even less time so this was as much as we could feasibly do before anglers arrived.

I always had it in mind to flatten completely the swim, and gravel out the whole area. While we had the digger we decided that this was the moment we had been waiting for. Approx two foot in height was removed from across the back of the swim and the spoil from this was then used to widen the swim. This had helped not only to flatten the area but also to enlarge it quite considerably which was an added bonus. It is now approximately 6m x 6m, more than large enough for two anglers needs.

We added sides to the swim to help retain the gravel, increased the number of steps to the rear of the swim by two to make up for the difference in height. We then spread and raked 2.5tonne of gravel over it.

Double Swim After

Once again I have Jack and especially Paul to thank for their help in completing this swim. It has improved considerably and I am sure will become even more popular than before if that is possible…

Wally.

Molyneux French Carp Lake

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Our drain point

Just as importantly try and ask around the locals (or previous owner) if anyone knows how long the lake takes to refill.  This is really important if you’ve ordered more carp following the netting – it’s no good ordering fish only to find out that the lake takes weeks to refill.  This can be the case if it’s not spring fed… then you’ll be hoping for rain, & lots of it!

These pictures show our overflow pipe and where the water flows into the stream below the lake.

The outflow point

There are a lot of rules for doing a drain down and these have been covered in previous blogs , but you must seek permission with the appropriate authorities before doing one.  I have already been told that to do another drain down I would need to build a proper brick wall at the drain point and install a mesh gate to stop any fish getting out of the lake and into the stream, so always check before proceeding.

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On the plus side a well frozen lake meant that we could reach the overhanging willow branches that were dipping down into the house lake on the far side, this area is a great fish attracting area with both shade and rich natural pickings for the carp but with the consequence that the carp made a run for the trees when they were hooked (and as the records show there were plenty of carp caught in the house lake this year, but that is for the next post).

We had thought of using the boat to reach the branches but a boat and a chainsaw sounds like a fast trip to casualty, this only left the option of partially draining the lake and slogging around in the mud, even then each year we have been defeated by the onset of cold weather before the slow drainage had reduced the levels sufficiently, so here you can see the results as we trim back the willows and do a 360 degree pan around the banks from the center of the lake.

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