4 July 2015 – Catch Report from: Mick and friends

A tough week in heat wave conditions but still some nice carp banked!

This week we welcomed a new group lads from Bolton to our quite little carp fishing venue. We always keep a very close eye on the weather and were pretty sure that it was not going to be an easy weeks fishing them. Although we do our very best to control every aspect of the venue, the weather continues to elude us! Mick and the boys had been looking forward to the holiday for a year or more and Mick especially had kept a very close eye on us through social media. It was a pleasure to meet them finally and take them on a tour of the venue. We do our best to convey through the website what the venue is really like but apparently we aren’t doing a good enough good as during the tour the lads told me that it’s  ten times better in reality than they thought it would be! Note to self: Must try harder!

We had a great chat on arrival and the lads decided to rent a couple of bivvies and bed chairs as it was clear from the previous week that the only real chance of a pick was going to be at night or very early morning. We don’t store these on site so I nipped back on Sunday with all the necessary so that the guys had a realistic chance. Don wasn’t up for doing the nights and was content to play the role of head chef and have a little fish from home swim as and when he fancied. In normal conditions he’d had stood a chance of a pickup but that was never really on the cards in such tough conditions. He still had a fabulous holiday though and loved the venue just as much as Lee and Mick that were very serious about landing some of our carp.

I called in again on Tuesday to see how the lads were doing. Lee had managed two sturgeon of 17lbs and Mick had had both rods cut off by our awesome catfish. At this time of year it pays to fish very heavy for both carp and cats as banking the catfish on a standard carp setup is difficult. Mick had been going through feedback forms filled out by previous visitors to the venue and had noted how many clients have commented that they’ve found my advice very useful. I’m always very careful to let our guests fish the venue their way and will never comment on rigs etc. unless there are safety issues. I’m always interested to see different approaches especially if they are successful as then I can learn something! Mick asked me if I had a enough time to go through their setup and of course I said yes as I never have anything planned on lake days. I spent a very pleasant few hours with them and covered hook sharpening, rig tying, slack line fishing, bite indication, fishing locked up, boating our rigs, baiting strategy and loads more. The guys are experienced anglers and have fishing France a number of times so I was most flattered that they found the session of such benefit.

I returned to see them Thursday and was delighted to hear that they’d caught some carp and credited my advice as making the difference. Whether that’s true or not is very difficult to tell. It was an absolute pleasure to meet them and we look forward to welcoming them back in the future.