Angling Lines Blog

The first week of April finally saw the rain ease off enough at Holly Pools to net the carp and cats lake.

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.

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

Tags: Carp Lake Management, Holly Pools

As we told you back in January, at Holly Pools over the winter we have been working on the bottom part of the lake which formerly was only partly accessible from the old stalking swim. This has now been replaced with a water level swim much like the Dam swim. We had to remove 13 trees or former trees to clear this area – the largest of which fell into the lake during a storm last December. The stump of this has been left to form part of the new swim retaining wall – we hope it will weather in and look more natural! At the top of the access steps is a huge area big enough for 2 bivvies. This means anglers can bivvy together and fish the new stump swim and Pauls swim (which is just 25 meters away) while socialising in one “camp”.

continue reading…

Tags: Carp Lake Management, Holly Pools

Here is the new swim map; taking into account the swim changes effected over the winter.

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.

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.

 

 

Tags: Carp Lake Management, Holly Pools

We arrived for the opening of the Roseau 2013 season on the 9^th March to find the complex covered in snow with temperatures down to -10, straight away it was not only clear that France has had a harsh winter, but also that the work load involved to get the complex ready for our customers wasn’t going to be easy. As always we were prepared for the hard work ahead.

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 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 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.

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

Tags: Carp Lake Management, Roseau

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

Molyneux French Carp Lake

Tags: Carp Lake Management, Molyneux