A sizzling hot week but there were still plenty of catfish caught, one of them was huge!
This week we welcomed David, Ray and his son Dan to the venue for their first trip. David and Ray are seasoned French regulars and for Dan this would be his first fishing trip to France which is always an important moment for any angler.
On a non-tuition week, I wouldn’t normally be on site much but we knew this week was going to be different and the temperatures were going to go through the roof. In times like these we have to be very proactive so despite the oxygen being good we put both aerators on full 24hrs per day and I was on site every morning to take oxygen & temperature readings. I don’t like disturbing guests and I don’t like to shatter the peace and tranquillity by turning the aeration units on but this was an unprecedented week with record temperatures across France. We had a red weather warning for the whole week and our stock was going to be put under severe stress. This was going to be a severe test of our ‘new and improved’ fishery management approach.
By Monday, Ray had had 6 catfish and a nice carp, Dan was also off the mark with a couple of catfish. Considering the water temperature (27.6°C), that was a good start. Most importantly the oxygen was also good at 6.2mg/l which is something that we’ve traditionally struggled with when the water temperature passes 25°C.
My daily visits continued all week and it was great to see fish being caught every day. Okay sure the carp fishing was rock hard but this week was going to break all records in terms of heat. On Monday evening Ray hooked into an entirely different class of fish. Ray is an experienced angler, a French ‘veteran’ with two massive catfish to his name (85lb, 96lb), these are huge fish for sure but this was even bigger. David and Ray got in the water to lift its head clear of the water and they couldn’t believe the size of it. The head was the same size as Ray’s torso! Banking one of these creatures is hard, doing it in 38°C is even harder. It took him an hour to land and he did it on standard carp gear and a tiny little size 6 hook. They were sure glad of the kettle bell test for the knots! Without this, the outcome might have been different.
Over in Island point, David was yet to get off the mark but to be fair all of the bites were coming from the zone that Ray was covering. Sometimes you just gotta wait your turn! Later in the week the guys all moved over to the point swims and as they were only fishing two rods each they were able to cover the open water between them.
After 5 days of punishing heat the likes of which we’ve never seen (it was the hottest week on record in France) The guys were really looking forward to the rain that was forecast… Now what could be better right? A nice cooling shower to finish the day before retiring to the lodge for a well earned beer… we’ll sometimes you gotta be careful what you wish for! The shower turned out to be a small tornado! This was no joke, the wind came from nowhere and ripped through the trees like a knife. It turned the lake into a sea of white, felled 4 trees in the lake and ripped multiple honking great 10m long lumps of healthy oak tree 20m into the lake. The mess was horrendous! What’s crazy is that we live 20 minutes away and had nothing more than a few gusts and a short sharp shower!
All in all, the lake performed much better than we expected, demonstrating its strongest oxygen performance under extreme summer temperatures.
Finally, we want to say a big thank you to the guys for:
- enduring unbearable heat without losing their sense of humour,
- respecting our wish of not taking any fish out of the water (hence no photos),
- using small traps only,
- bearing with us while we cleaned up the banks and hauled trees from the lake.
It was wonderful to see them happy and smiling on departure and to hear that they are planning a return trip.
