Angling Lines Blog

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

The fishing was good all year and, although it can slow down during a heatwave such as we had this summer, it never stopped and nobody blanked. The stream-fed lakes maintain a steady level and the fresh oxygenated water keeps the fish active. For most of the season the fish fairly flew out of the water. The majority of our clients went home with new PBs, and one of our specially printed keyrings or torches as proof!

The Notaire's House Lake

The lake record for Notaire’s still stands at 41 lbs but this year saw several 40s and a lot of high 30s coming out. 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 in clients this year too, at just 90 minutes from the airport you can be baiting up your rods in next to no time!

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 odiferous bait. All flavours produced good results. Our fish do seem to like a good bed of groundbait and a steady trickle of particles or pellet keeps them interested.

The cats enjoyed being spoiled by you and, while a couple of them are still struggling to lose those few extra kilos they accumulated, they are at least condescending to eat cat food again. For the first week or so after the holiday season has ended, we get pained looks of ‘what’s this meant to be?’ when we put a bowl of Kitty Chomp in front of them. Believe me, they miss you! And so do the chickens. They sat mournfully in the gîte garden for several days before they realised that it was closed up for winter now.

The Guinea Pig gardeners at work

The guinea-pig gardeners have moved out of the gîte flowerbed and are currently living next to the barn. They did a great job keeping the weeds down in the flower garden, but we’ll round them up soon and put them in their winter cages before it gets really cold.

We have reached a truce with the sheep, one by one we reinforced the latest place that they were escaping from and now they seem to feel that sheep honour is satisfied and are content to wander around the field munching. They have become very tame and barrel down for their treats whenever we are letting the chickens in or out. Hopefully Ramesis has done his job and next years visitors will be greeted by bouncy spring lambs. The sheep, llamas and alpacas enjoyed their summer visitors. They especially miss Kiera, Adam and Evan.

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 continue reading…

Just to let you know that the new Angling Lines Website went live yesterday.

It has a host of new features including;

*    a cleaner, modern presentation that’s easier to navigate

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*   ability to check availability live on-line 24 hours per day

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*    a comprehensive venue search facility that suggests venues that fit your search criteria

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*    if you search for a week & it’s full it suggests alternative dates up to 4 weeks either side.  If there’s still no availability it suggests alternative venues based on your initial search criteria

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*    a private customer area where you can check all the details of your holidays future & past, including how much money is still left to pay, plus add feedback & fish photos.

Take a look

Here’s a photo of some very hungry baby swallows here at Notaires. I’m pretty sure this is the parents’ third brood of fledglings this year. Swallows lay 4 or 5 eggs which take up to 21 days to hatch. Then it’s another ten days until the babies open their eyes, but another ten or so until they’re ready to fly off on their own.

These swallows are hirondelles rustiques – country swallows. As well as these, there are three other types to be found in our region of France, Limousin. They are hirondelles de rochers (rock or cliff swallows), hirondelles de rivage (bank swallows) and hirondelles de fenêtre (window swallows). All four types are protected under the nature protection act of 1976. It’s forbidden to destroy either them or their nests. You face a fine of up to €9,000 or imprisonment if you do.

We all know these days that swallows migrate to and from subtropical Africa, but in the old days, people thought they spent the winter hiding in reeds around lakes. They didn’t believe such small birds could make such enormous journeys. Swallows have been known to arrive in Limousin as early as the 21st of January (in 1991 and 2002), but usually it’s around the 20th of March that they begin to appear. They really do announce the arrival of Spring.

Swallow numbers are declining. According to the species, they have decreased between 60% and 80% since the 1980s, which is extremely alarming. The reasons include destruction of habitat in Europe, droughts in Africa, use of insecticides, climate change and loss of hunting grounds. Last year we lost most of our swallows here at Les Fragnes during the freak spell of cold weather in May that brought snow and strong winds. That was a disaster for French swallows.

Our swallows are country swallows and they build their nests against or under beams in barns and other rural buildings. They are very happy to share their environment with other animals. Most of the nests here are in the stable where the guinea pig cages are and in the old woodshed which is now one of the llamas’ sheltering places. There are several nests in the llamas’ other shelter, an open-fronted stable. So it really does seem that the swallows like company.

Window swallows build on houses, along roof edges or above windows. These make themselves unpopular with home-owners because of the inevitable pile of poop that builds up underneath. This is a main reason for their nests being removed – illegally. The simple solution is to attach a piece of wood to the wall beneath the nest to stop the poop falling on heads or pathways, and to clean it once the swallows have departed in autumn. That isn’t too onerous, now is it?

Rock or cliff swallows are found on cliff faces, large rocks, barrages (dams) and bridges, while bank swallows inhabit anywhere sandy where they can burrow their nests, usually close to waterways.

We love our swallows and spend hours each year watching them catch insects over the lakes at dusk, or as they sit in long lines on the telegraph wires alongside our driveway. They dive and swoop around us as we do jobs on the farm and it’s always wonderful to see them arrive in spring. We don’t enjoy their departure in autumn so much as it means winter is on its way. And winters here are long and cold …

When you’re carp fishing 2 takes at the same time is quite a rare occurrence… so surely it can’t happen twice in one day? Well, as this video shows, it did at Notaires last week…

I’d been planning a blog about the economic impact of the Tour de France. I’ve done lots of research and it’ll make for interesting reading, I hope.

But as I sat down to make a start on it this evening, in between watching the exciting last stage of the Tour, I noticed an unfamiliar shape out in the llama field here at Notaires. Very small, medium brown – definitely a newcomer! I did my usual ‘just seen a baby camelid’ sprint outside, closely followed by the rest of the family, and we all went to make the acquaintance of Cadella Cavendish of Les Fragnes.

For non-cyclists out there, Cadella is after Cadel Evans who won the Tour de France this year, and who we’ve been cheering for, and Cavendish is after Mark Cavendish, the green jersey winner and phenomenal sprinter.

Cadella has been born on Elrond’s first birthday. July 24th seems to be a good day for alpaca arrivals.

Cadella’s mother is Ciara (the suri alpaca formerly known as Popham

Acoria) and her father is our very own Brendan, a huacaya alpaca. She has his colour, maybe just a shade or two lighter. And we’re pretty sure she’s a suri, judging from her slightly curly wool. However, we’ll see what happens as she gets bigger. There’s a 50% chance she’ll be a suri.

What a wonderful surprise on Tour de France final day!