News at Laroussi

Great news on Laroussi this morning!

Craig Brown just smashed the lake record common with this superb 58lb2oz! In just a few hours, off the same rod, he caught a 51lb mirror and this 58lb2oz common.

This common was last out in March this year at 53lb, meaning it has gained 5lb over the season. 

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Some photos of the big carp caught last week by Nick Delcolle - 44lb and 46lb8oz common, 44lb and 50lb4 oz mirror.

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Following on from the last report...

Over the winter, Mehdi is working to remove all but one catfish from the lake. Mehdi reports that these big cats are hardly fished for but he will leave one of the largest ones for anyone wanting to pit their wits against it. 

There are now between 1-3 sturgeon left in Laroussi and he doesn’t believe a single one has been caught in 6 weeks. Mehdi will continue to reduce as they are caught to leave just one. 

Mehdi has also consistently removed any grass carp under 40lb. But is removing fewer and fewer as less are being caught so their numbers are really reduced.

Readdressing this balance should mean a very healthy stock of carp for years to come and the continuation of the big fish on the bank we come to expect at Laroussi. 

Last week one angler had 12 carp with 8 of these being 40lb+ - an incredible average weight.  

As mentioned in previous updates, Mehdi has been working hard over the last 12 months to re-address the balance of carp, catfish and sturgeon in Laroussi.  We now believe there are three sturgeon left, the biggest one at 70lb+ and four big catfish left from 124-185lb (weights as last caught). 

We removed one sturgeon yesterday at Laroussi. So only 3 left and I will remove the others too.

So far, I removed only 12 baby catfish this season, so all that work is starting to pay now off now. 

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It has been a long and very wet winter. Despite the tough conditions, we managed to look after the lake very nicely.

We trimmed the whole 1000 meters lake perimeter, cut the branches along both sides of the car track, inscreased the size of each peg, and removed underwater snags on every swim (that will reduce danger for anglers lines).

After severals weeks of efforts, the amount of branches was absolutely HUGE! Then we spent a few days to mulch them all and spread all those wood chips on every swim.

Now they are very confortable without any mud. For example, peg 1 has 2 gaps to fish from. Both gaps are now wider.

We also refilled the gravel track, repaired some fences, and placed a strong weed barrier under the picnic table.

To prevent any weed problem that could happens during the hot summers, we introduced some young and small grass carp.

When they are under 20lbs, they do a really good job and regulate any excess of weed quckly.

The second effect when they reach 20lbs is they almost feeding of weed and start eating baits as carp. This is why we will ask to any anglers to save in retention slings any grass carp weighting between 20 and 40lbs.

There is a fair amount of grass carp over 40 and 50lbs. (About 20 fish over 50lbs up to 56lbs)

Also, we decided to remove all the catfish to avoid any risk of breeding. The small ones and also the big ones should be removed.

We already took out about 150 catfish, so there's not much left. (Thanks a lot to all anglers who save them)

The result can be already seen. The first carp caught in the last 2 weeks are already bigger.

A mid 40lbs common has been caught by Craig Lancashire at 52lbs! He also caught the famous Ziplinear at a new maximum weight: 38lb7oz (photos coming) and a 43lb8oz mirror that was a high 30lbs last year.

During the same week, Andrew Pritchard landed a few good fish up to a nice 52lb5oz.

Last week, Jamie Dyke, for his first visit to Laroussi and despite bad weather conditions (frost nights, cold and srtong north wind and high pressures) had 6 fish up to 53lb7oz, while Nathan Francis captured a nice 48lb10oz mirror.

We are looking forward to see the next catches on the bank. Tight lines!

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We saw some fifties out in October and November off Laroussi (you can see photos of some of those in the Fish Gallery).

We are working hard around both Laroussi and Old Oaks, removing some snags from both lakes, filling holes with gravel on the tracks, cutting bushes and trees around each swim, we will mulch the branches and spread on each swim. 

We look forward to welcoming anglers in 2019. 

July and august fishing has been very good this year. September is still ok but the changing weather has affected a little bit the results. Still we have had weeks at 17 & 28 fish out this month including a monster catfish out this week at 7.5 feet long.

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