Angling Lines Blog

The Limousin Stone Farmhouse

The Notaires Lakes are located deep in the French countryside in the region known as the green heart of France. Your accommodation for the week is a renovated 200 year old Limousin stone built farmhouse with a swimming pool overlooking the carp lake. Peace and quiet are guaranteed. 

38lb

The fish stocks have been added in stages to ensure their health and vigour and now range from 15lb to a terrific 41lb, with the average in the high 20’s.

Notaires is set in its own 75 acre estate of lakes, woods and fields in one of the quietest areas of France. This makes for a unique holiday experience; the calm, quiet atmosphere is appreciated as a counterpoint to the busy modern life in England. If you stretch your legs round some of the hidden fields you could well catch sight of deer or boar as well as buzzards, kestrels and sparrow hawks.

Outside is a generous garden that overlooks the lake and features a 200 year old oak tree, great for providing natural shade when you’re sitting or eating outdoors.

“Absolutely fantastic place, I cannot wait to come back. The gite has everything you could need. Clean and warm and welcoming.
Steph and Chris are lovely – we were made to feel very welcome and were shown all their beautiful animals.

Thanks for a fantastic holiday. See you next year.”
Jordan Hay and Family, May ’13

Fantastic venue. All fish were in great condition. Chris & steph are fantastic hosts and always is a pleasure to stay!
Tony Crane, Nov ’12 continue reading…

Winter has been long and wet though not particularly cold this year, so it is a pleasant surprise to see the crocuses starting to come through so early at Notaires. The ‘warm’ wet weather has been good for the fish as the aquifers are refilled after the drought of the least two years and there have been plenty of opportunities to feed the carp with the lakes not freezing over at all this winter.

Even so, the fishing was excellent last year and the lake record was repeatedly raised until it stood at 45lbs 8oz to Matt.

We started a fish chipping campaign in 2012, using micro RFID chips. The person who catches a carp not previously tagged gets to name it. This has proved very popular with guests. A summary of the fish that have been tagged so far can be seen below. (Note, these fish form only a small proportion of all those caught in 2012.)

The larger tagged fish feature more often in the catch reports (due to their appetite?)  and while twenty-three carp have been tagged so far there are still another seventy or so waiting to be caught, tagged and named. So, what are you waiting for!

Fishing Holidays at Notaires

 The Horse – 45lbs 10oz

Matt Baker has only been freshwater fishing since April and had a previous carp PB of 12lbs but at Notaires he hooked into a big fish from the dam wall which proved to be ‘The Horse’ and weighed in at 45lbs 8oz – setting a new lake record.

This means that the Crane party who have just made their third visit to Alder & Notaires now hold the lake record for both lakes!

Fishing holidays at Notaires

It has been a very busy year at Notaires with new pigs arriving, new sheep and a surprise delivery of baby alpaca – llama crosses (huarizos).

Here at Notaire’s lakes we have 75 acres of lakes, woods and fields in one of the quietest areas of France. This makes for a unique holiday experience; the calm, quiet atmosphere is appreciated as a counterpoint to the busy modern life in England. If you stretch your legs round some of the hidden fields you could well catch sight of deer or boar as well as buzzards, kestrels and sparrow hawks.

We decided that we wanted to add an element of self-sufficiency but with very low impact. As a result our smallholding is like an old fashioned farm with a few pigs, sheep, turkeys and chickens (OK and a herd of llamas, but they are just for fun)!  Around the farm (in addition to the swings and swimming pool) the farm animals are a source of great interest for children.

Brendan the alpaca was allowed to stay in the girls’ field after he ‘grew up’ as they would spit him off whenever he made an advance, but in the heat of the night, one by one they succumbed to his blandishments (hence the story of the brown bear jumping on the back of a llama that one of our visiting anglers told us) and now we have a new flock of very cute brown huarizos, the offspring of a llama mother and alpaca father. Brendan and the other male alpacas will soon be getting a special visit from the vets.

This year we have a small flock of Suffolk and Charolais sheep (I thought that Charolais were cows but they are also a race of ovines). It turns out that the Charolais – Suffolk cross is a very good meat sheep, but that is more fortune than planning. Lambo the hand raised lamb is growing up to be the ram for the herd.  Oscar the llama is the boss of this flock as having a llama in with the sheep protects the young lambs from foxes. The Suffolks have a black face and the Charolais have a light face; strangely one of ours has a pink face and always seems to be scowling at me.

Our pedigree Berkshire pigs have settled in well and are always keen to eat any vegetable scraps that guests have spare. Oberon the boar was a little unhappy after being separated from the girls but settled down after being given extra treats and tummy rubs. All being well Oberon should be siring the next generation of Berkshires on the farm in the spring and guests will be able to meet the piglets. The Berkshires are a heritage breed but are becoming increasingly popular as consumers tire of watery supermarket pork and are looking for meat with natural fat levels and flavor as often advocated by TV chefs.

The turkeys are full size now and the dominant male is strutting his stuff trying to impress the other turkeys. A black turkey doing his turkey dance while waving his wattles is quite a sight. It’s a bit ‘redneck’ but few people can resist doing turkey calls to make the male gobble back and dance.

The carp are also growing well and the lake record has been broken twice this year, currently standing at 43lbs 10oz.

Fishing Holidays at Notaires

43lb – the new Notaires record

Robert had already landed a forty on his first night of fishing at Notaires and had a steady week of catches.  No surprise then that when he found out that the following week was free they decided to stay on.

So instead of packing up on Friday evening  Robert was able to continue fishing and landed “The Horse” (tag: 961001200054441) which weighed in at 43lbs 10oz – setting a new lake record for Notaire’s.

Robert was fishing Activ-8 Boilies on a standard 10 inch hair rig with a size 4 hook and had been groundbaiting with boilies and lake carp pellets.

Congratulations go to Robert for the fine catch.

Fishing holidays at Notaires