Details of your catches:

12 fish 1x 50 , 4x 40s , 5x 30s , 1x 20 , 1x double 4 fish lost!

Your best tactics/bait/rigs:

Different tactics worked, half the fish came from the washing line method, using the bait spoon to drop under trees on far margin. Casting to fizzing worked also. 50% of the takes came within minutes of going out, hand full of bait over each rod!!! . Ronnie rigs, blowback rigs, bottom bait rigs all worked. Bait..... cell, dna bait, odyssey xxx, nutcracker

Were the facilities what you expected?

Yes

Were you happy with them?

Yes

Would you recommend the venue to a friend?

Definitely

Would you recommend the services to a friend?

Yes

General Comments:

Lovely lake, Mehdi is a lovely guy and made us feel right at home. Poisson Chat were challenging at times but we knew that when we booked it. Huge fish will be back!!!

Details of your catches:

Anglers: Lee Heath, Stewart Cliff, Mark Gilbert and Andrew Gilbert mirrors: 34, 38.12, 44, 34, 39, 40, 53.9, 45.4, 51.9, 53.8, 44.8, 38.4 commons: 18, 41.7 One bream

Your best tactics/bait/rigs:

Everything from pop up's to fake corn worked. Boilies used were air dried for several months, although towards the end of the week we did start using a few of the nash pineapple boilies (which are incredibly soft) without any extra attention from the poisson chat. All hookbaits were shrink wrapped, but by the end of the week we didn't bother as any retrieved baits showed no sign of being nibbled. Tactics wise it was mainly to position rigs on the far margin where the lake bed began to rise up. Nothing was presented really tight as the far margin begins its accent a reasonable distance out. Personally for myself in swim 2 there's a really nice feature quite a distance from the rear margin that did all of my runs.

Were the facilities what you expected?

Yeah they were perfect for what we needed, plenty of fridge and freezer room.

Were you happy with them?

Yes

Would you recommend the venue to a friend?

I certainly would

Would you recommend the services to a friend?

Yes without hesitation

General Comments:

I will be completely honest with the following statements and I don't want to contradict whats been previously said, but this is exactly how we found our week. With regards to the poisson chat, we barely had any issue. Between the four of us we hooked six chats (a few were monsters) during the week and this was using fish meal boilies and matching popups. We also used sweetcorn as loose feed but decided against using hemp as we were concerned that this may encourage the chats. The weather for our stay was incredibly hot so what chat were in the lake would have been very active. I am sure there is a reasonably sized population of poisson chat in the lake, but for us it really wasn't an issue. With regards to fish location, we found carp in the far margin the whole way across the lake. All anglers caught so it wasn't a case of one particular swim dominating any other. Bite time seemed to occur around six-ish in the afternoon and then go dead by around midnight (the only morning fish was 7am on the last Saturday while packing up). I would advise to really pay attention to your line and not so much the indicators as we had a few carp that would give just a single beep on the alarm and the mainline would just tighten up without any movement on the bobbin. Its really important to not disregard these little movements as poisson chat activity. I find if you hook a chat, its more of a jerky pull on your mainline as opposed to a smooth tightening up. Another observation was the quickness of bites after resting a swim. I decided not to put any rods in swim two until 7pm on Sunday, but steadily applied bait on the spots from Saturday afternoon. My first cast hit the spot and was off in fifteen minutes. The group lost several fish during the week through the normal means, but we were very satisfied with what we caught. The stamp of carp in this lake is incredible, almost to a point where its spoiled me. If you want the chance of plenty of forties and fifties, this is the lake of your dreams. Mehdi is one of the nicest people you will ever meet and was there if you needed him, but also gave you your own space. The match lake the other side of the back bank was a bit noisy at times, but of course that's nothing to do with Mehdi or Angling Lines. There's a little grey wild cat that patrols the lake (who apparently is called 'bon bon') who must do a fantastic job of keeping the vermin in check as I only saw one rat all week. All in all this is one hell of a French carp lake, it can be moody as anything but you know that when you hook one, it's more than likely going to be something very special.

Details of your catches:

4 fish caught 49lb 8oz mirror 40lb mirror 37lb mirror 32 mirror

Your best tactics/bait/rigs:

Bottom of shelf far bank, hard to keep any natural bait n the hook for more than half hour. Poisson Chat were a nightmare

Were the facilities what you expected?

All good

Were you happy with them?

Yes

Would you recommend the venue to a friend?

Yes and no. Only early season or later in the year when poisson chat aren't so active.

Would you recommend the services to a friend?

Yes

General Comments:

Medhi is a great guy and the venue is fantastic with fish of a life time swimimg in Old Oaks, however although Medhi has worked hard to remove 400 plus kilo of possion Chat that bearly touches how many are in it. The weather was unbelievably hot from weds hitting 37-40c everyday. All the fish were caught Sunday to Tuesday. The water temp reached 38 degrees C. The only thing feeding were the chat!! Damn things love hot temp. Any bait be it particle, boilies, sweetcorn was attacked like piranha shoals, even plastic bait had the hair chewed of three times. Take plenty of mesh or shrink tube for your baits, you will only be fishing singles as anything you put in will be gone in 5 min. *Angling Lines note* We are really sorry to hear of your issues this week, whilst we have noticed a massive decline in the numbers of poisson chat, it would appear the weather was really working against you this week. We know that France reached record breaking temperatures which has really affected the fishing all over the country. Thank you for your feedback.

Details of your catches:

10 carp, x3 50lb, x3 40lb, x2 30lb x2 teens. Chat and bream

Your best tactics/bait/rigs:

Only options were pop ups or plastic baits, anything on the bottom was destroyed by chats within minutes, even pop ups were attached. Anything they couldn’t eat was knocked about until tangled around debris.

Were the facilities what you expected?

Perfect, all you need for drive and survive.

Were you happy with them?

Yes, no complaints.

Would you recommend the venue to a friend?

Nice venue with top quality fish if you can get to them. So yes on that basis but would warn them regarding the chats and ensure they are comfortable wrapping baits, plastic or pop ups.

Would you recommend the services to a friend?

Yes, used many times and always hassle free.

General Comments:

Medhi top bloke as per other comments, we’ve fished Laroussi twice previously so knew facilities were similar and perfect for what we needed. Chats are a problem even with management by Medhi but guess they are more active than ever at this time of year. It was very swimmy when we went, all fish with exception of 1 pasty came from swim 1, even pasty was caught fishing across towards 1. Nothing elsewhere, but hey that’s fishing.