4 April 2015 – Catch Report from: Sam & Family

This week 18-year old Sam fullfils his angling dream in France with his family and lands the fish of a lifetime!

This week we welcomed a non angling family with a fishing mad son. On turning 18, Sam’s dad, Paul, generously offered both of his children the freedom of choice of a week’s holiday anywhere they fancy. Chloe, who’s nearly 20 now, chose to go take the family to New York and now it was Sam’s turn. He  decided that he wanted to take the family on a French carp fishing holiday. The family trawled the internet for a suitable venue and I’m delighted to say that for them, our venue was the only one to tick all the boxes. On arrival I knew that they were happy with their choice as the smiles and compliments on the place flowed easily. I was keen to establish a little angling background on Sam so I could best judge how much information to give him on the tour. I must admit I was a little shocked when he told me his PB was 14lbs! I instantly knew that Beausoleil was going to be a massive step for him and I was a little unsure about how much information to give him. I decided to focus on re-enforcing the basics: find carp, catch carp! It was soon time to wish them well and leave them to enjoy the peace and tranquillity of the venue.

I was delighted to hear that he’d had a 24lb mirror first night. Catching early on a week long session is so important as it really settles the nerves! When I saw him on Tuesday he was delighted with his new PB and fishing hard for another bite (he’d lost another due to a hook pull as a good carp made a dash for the bridge). Sam seemed confident in his approach and was happy fishing simply over a spread of boilies (one of my favourite tactics!). On Wednesday I saw he’d had a small cat, well I say small, I mean 50lbs is small when you’ve got catfish twice that size right? All went quiet for a while until 4am of the last morning when Sam hooked a real catfish! He was fishing Island Point (not the ideal swim to hook and land a catfish from) and the pickup came from the end of the island. With Sam out on the bank by himself he managed to phone his dad while his 3lb rod bucked and shuddered and the clutch screamed for mercy. Despite the hour, Paul manfully slipped on a pair of boots and a jacket and trekked over to the other side of the lake to watch his son do battle with a Beausoleil beast! For an hour the wind and rain lashed their faces and Sam fought for all his worth to tame the creature. At 78lbs this smashed his PB of just two days earlier by another massive margin. What an angling journey: 14lb PB to 24lbs PB to 50lb PB to 78lb PB in one week! That’s the kind of stuff that dreams are made of and that’s the magic we aim to provide every single week of the year! Massive congratulations to Sam, Beausoleil is not an easy water and he did very, very well!