Feb 2019

A one night winter session , 11th Feb

Mark Lambert, fishery manager at Villefond in France, is keeping a winter diary of his short sessions on the lake this winter. Here's the results of the first night. 

Feb 2019

Bait changes and info , 1st Feb

So , I’m getting alot of questions about bait so here is some general info.

The following is the bait I will be selling this year now ;
Pre-cooked maize : 3 euros a kilo
Pre-cooked hemp : 4 euros a kilo
Prepared particle ( feed over winter ): 2.50 euros a kilo
Feed pellet : 3 euros a kilo

I get a lot of questions on what I recommend for one person to bring for a week so here is some more general guide lines.

The prepared particle is what I feed the fish 🎣 over winter and they love it and feed on it confidently so I would recommend that. They love all particle like all carp and the longer you keep them in the swim the more mistakes they will make.

The longer they feed in a spot the more chance you have of our wise carp picking up the hook bait, the longer they feed with out getting caught the more confident they get.

So all the particles are great for that and if I was preparing a weeks fishing for myself on there I would at the time of writing this this bring the following minimum: 20kg feed particle, 10kg hemp and sweetcorn which they love and makes a great hook bait.

Ofcourse I’d bring extra pellet, boilie and bits but hemp sweetcorn and the feed particle are my main items for feeding and holding the carp on my spot. Over winter I boat most feed bait out in front of the cabin swim as my main spot and then I also chuck some around the margins as the season comes around and as they start moving around more.

A quick note on boilies and bait in general, remember the better quality the more chance the carp will want to eat it, you don’t want to spend all the time, money and effort to come to France and then scrimp on the most important bit, the bait. What’s in the lake is the most important part of fishing, bait, rigs etc etc come with the best bait your giving yourself the best chance. 

Hope this helps.

Our feed particle

Jan 2019

Stocking of giant Zander , 2nd Jan

Over winter we normally get cormorants visit our lake which have never really been a problem although I have seen them eat a 2lb pike whole. Well a unforeseen problem occurred when the cormorants desimated our perch population. Normally when our carp spawn our massive shoals of perch go around eating all the baby carp fry. This is what we want but without the perch these youngsters grew on. We began to get reports from anglers of 3lb carp then 5lb carp then 8lb to 10lb carp appearing. These where amazing little beasts with massive shoulders and at 18 months they reached 10lb!

Amazing fish for the future but we are a big fish water so they had to go. We had the fisherman net them as they was caught apart from a select few, surprisingly most the babies were commons from stock that are mostly mirrors. So we sold some to a friend and when his friend a fish farmer saw them he asked if he could have some. I arranged a deal to swap them for some Zander to replace our perch while their numbers replenish. Zander are a cool fish and I have always wanted them in our lake so was really excited when the delivery came. But I was blown away at the size of them when they did arrive and even the fish farmer said how rare and big they was. So as we stocked them, about 10, we took quick snaps but didn’t weight them but I’d guess the bigger ones were in the 12-13lb range.

Not the best pictures below but you can see the size , can’t wait to catch them and see them again.