Feb 2013

Video of Arthur at 55lb, 1st Feb

Here's a short video of Arthur @ 55lb shot after Mark Lambert's capture on 31st Jan 2013...

You can read the full story of the capture here.

Jan 2013

Villefonds New Bait Range, 16th Jan

The 2012 season saw the Villefond bait range really excel and it definitely landed more fish than any other bait.

Every winter I feed the fish with a new flavour boilie and ever improving quality bait. I choose new flavours because over the year the fish get caught on the same popular choices and eventually start to become cautious of those baits. So over the quiet winter periods I choose my new bait after extensive field testing then I put lots of bait in so the fish can feed without fear of being caught.

This gets the fish keying into the smell of the house bait and then, once found, they know it’s a good food source. By the beginning of the 2013 season the bait will the best bait to use on the lake.

We are constantly looking to improve our bait firstly for the benefit of our fish and secondly to help anglers catch them. So I spend a long time field testing the flavours and using the knowledge of what has worked best in the past, I have come up with my main two flavours;

• Supreme Blood Worm
• Plum Nut

The ingredients I use are the absolute best because cutting corners will ultimate only effect our fish growth. Last year saw our fish continue to grow really healthy and put on great weight gains and this new bait is even better.

I will be able to offer different flavours if you contact me in advance... but these two will be the ones I will for the most part feed the fish with.

Please contact me via the Forum with any questions regarding bait or anything else.           

The following pictures are just a couple of the carp caught during the start of my field testing of these new baits.

Happy Fishing!

Mark (fisheries manager)

Jan 2013

End Of Year Report for 2012, 1st Jan

2012 has once again been a great year for the lake and for meeting some great guys and great anglers.

The lake was once again pretty solidly booked and saw lots of characters on the bank breaking personal bests and enjoying their break from work, all trying to catch one of the Villefond monsters.

As for the fish unbelievably they have continued their massive weight gains pushing the average size of the fish over 40lb up from last year’s 38lb! We now have over forty 40lb+ fish and at least 4 x 50lb+ fish.

The very unpredictable weather this year meant that the carp spawned heavily twice, and over a drawn out period, so we saw weights Yo Yo and catch reports rise and fall as they fed up and then stopped feeding.

The amount of new uncaught fish has now slowed down as we slowly improve our documentation with pictures. However, we still have some really elusive fish & some of these came out during 2012 including some fish that haven't been on the bank in over two years and some fish that have only ever been caught twice in four years! As we always say, Villefond is tricky water, the carp are very clever and some anglers this year really struggled and then there were some times they seemed to jump on the hooks.

We had the usual bloom of naturals in the lake and all the same wild life around the lake such as foxes, hares, rabbits, bird life, pine martins, hedge hogs, coypu, the list goes on.

2012 was the first full year we offered the food packages and as you can read on our feedback page we received some great feedback, so we will continue offering this service into 2013. Also the bait proved itself again to be the best fish catcher and with bait choice so important on the lake we will be offering an even better improved bait for 2013.

Work round the lake this winter will continue as always with many man hours going into clearing brambles & weeds, improving swims and access, plus a spruce up of the shower block and mobile home. We have introduced some new rules to help keep the fish in pristine condition as they get bigger and harder to handle along with more rules to help us keep the lake as clean as possible. These rules can be seen on our rules page.

To conclude the lake is still rocketing skyward on its way to becoming something really, really special & we would like to thank all the anglers this year that came to our lake for looking after the fish they caught. This meant they are still pristine for the next angler. We hope that we carry on seeing the faces that make our job a pleasure and wish everyone the best for 2013.

Best wishes,

Mark, John & Debbie Lambert