Details of your catches:

38lb, 39lb, 45lb, 50lb, 50lb, 52lb, 54lb, 59lb, 64lb mirrors. The long common at 75lb 10oz new lake record.

Your best tactics/bait/rigs:

Used Mainlinebaits Hybrid boilies and pellets with sweetcorn in small amounts. Fished far side at different depths.

Were the facilities what you expected?

Yes, very good

Were you happy with them?

Yes

Would you recommend the venue to a friend?

Yes

Would you recommend the services to a friend?

Yes, excellent service from Angling lines, whilst I was fishing in France they kept me informed of the changes to travel and what I needed to do.

General Comments:

Lovely venue and good facilities, Mehdi is one of the nicest people and has some amazing carp for you to go and catch.

Details of your catches:

8 Carp - 34lb, 34.5lb, 37.5lb, 38lb, 47.5lb, 48lb, 49lb, 57.5lb (PB)

Your best tactics/bait/rigs:

We tried many baits between the 3 of us, if anything Mehdi's 10mm wafters with Mainline yellow topper (with sweetcorn in the mix) did slightly better. Fishing the far margin seems to be 'the way' but in my opinion finding the right depth on that margin is critical, this week most fish came from about 6ft - 7ft of water.

Were the facilities what you expected?

Yes, everything you need is there

Were you happy with them?

Yes

Would you recommend the venue to a friend?

Yes

Would you recommend the services to a friend?

Always

General Comments:

I’m new to Old Oaks so I’ve little to back-up these comments but hopefully they will be food for thought. This was a very finicky week, one fish, 49lb came out on the first night from deep water. We then struggled for a few days with little or nothing showing. It was obvious fish were visiting the far margin but we couldn’t buy a bite, fishing the bottom of the shelf. The far margin shelf is a slope of 1:3 (3ft out is 1ft deep 12ft out is 4ft deep 24ft out is 8ft deep etc.) Eventually, by trying various depth we found that 6 to 7 ft deep was best. This is a very small sample to base a theory on especially as 2 of our 8 fish came from the deeps. Given our time again I think we’d place baits from along the far marginal shelf from 4ft down to 12ft between us and hopefully find the sweet spot. But as you well know things change week by week and month by month, so good luck.

Details of your catches:

Only 5 carp caught during the week plus a 10lb pike. We put this down to the high pressure of 1028 mbar and the 140kg of bait used during the previous week which when added together made for some pretty laid back fish who did not seem very hungry.

Your best tactics/bait/rigs:

A couple of underwater cut tree branches made for two very difficult bites which caused one Carp to be missed and one to be landed after hand lining the branch in. Luckily the fish was unharmed. Strong 18lb lines recommended. Keep rigs simple and size 6 hooks (or 4s) and back leads.

Were the facilities what you expected?

Brilliant as always.

Were you happy with them?

Yes very happy, can't wait to go back next August.

Would you recommend the venue to a friend?

Highly recommended venue, I only caught two carp all week but both exceeded my previous personal bests.

Would you recommend the services to a friend?

I cannot recommend Angling Lines enough, they are very friendly and helpful and worked closely with us thoughout the pandemic to get us there.

General Comments:

I always fish Peg 2 - 2 metres off the far margin and it usually produces a few good fish.

Details of your catches:

18 x carp 1x 20’s 4 x 30’s 4 x 40’s 6 x 50’s 2 x 60's 1 x 70‘s

Your best tactics/bait/rigs:

Pop ups and waiters over lots of boilies

Were the facilities what you expected?

Brilliant

Were you happy with them?

Extremely

Would you recommend the venue to a friend?

Without doubt, what a venue

Would you recommend the services to a friend?

Yes, brilliant from start to finish

General Comments:

By far a trip to remember and maybe never repeated for myself. Mehdi’s hard work throughout the last few years on poisson chat removal has certainly paid dividend!!! The fish have benefited massively on the return of anglers and all the bait going to the carp not poisson chat. This was proven over this week with huge weight gains and PB’s being toppled frequently. A truly incredible week to remember with lake records for both common and mirror carp being recorded. However I can’t see these records lasting for the future anglers as these fish are only getting bigger , so good luck lads and girls . This is a lake of dreams ?????