Fishing report: end of April/early May

A record breaking week at Beausoleil 🏆

For the last week of April, we welcomed Peter and Janet along with the grandkids for their annual visit. This was always going to be a family holiday with some fishing and it’s not always easy trying to juggle family time and fishing time but Peter caught a very nice mid-thirty common and one massive catfish. It was so big he and Janet couldn’t quite lift it out of the water to show the kids! Peter is a big strong man and Janet is no wall flower so it must have been rather large. I don‘t think the kids really understood just how much of the catfish was still in the water! It was lovely to see them again and we hope to see them again soon.

Next up we welcome Jeff and Kay to the venue for their 2nd visit. They visited us towards the end of last year and I did the tuition with Jeff back then. He’s already booked in for the next two years so he’s really investing a lot into learning the venue, not just as a one off visit but as a campaign over several years which is a completely different mindset. 

I got my first update on Sunday morning with the news of a mid-thirty just hours after arriving before spending the first night in the gite. Good job too as Sunday was going to be a very busy day! To open Jeff had his first proper big catfish experience. Jeff’s had cats to 50 before but as he soon learned, a 50lb catfish is nothing compared to the power of our big boys! Kay was sound asleep in the gite so we don’t have a weight on this one but with a width across the mouth of 8-10” and a battle time of 30 minutes it was probably around the 90lb mark. 

Jeff was fishing from Catfish Corner, which is a rare choice, especially when you have the whole lake to yourself but it felt right and gave him an excellent view over the whole lake. Jeff messaged me later with his update and I nearly fell off my stool… he’d had six carp since the catfish in the morning. Blimey, that is busy!

With the action coming thick and fast during the day, Jeff made the sensible choice and slept in the gite rather than continue fishing but that didn’t mean he was going to take his foot off the gas. By nine o’clock the next morning, he’d had another two carp.

With the fish crashing hard along the back of the island, a move was in order. One of the advantages of not bivving up anywhere in particular is that it does give you the freedom to travel light. Obviously you can only do this if the weather is with you but as we haven’t had rain for weeks, that wasn’t a risk this week. From Island point, Jeff continued where he left off and was banking six fish a day. After two days down here, the carp had done the off so Jeff just moved along to the Big double and continued to haul.

One unusual tactical switch that Jeff made was to re-position rigs every three hours if they didn’t do a bite and although it worked well for him, I believe it was only possible due to the long sustained feeding periods. If you were to try this tactic on a regular week, you’d probably tear your hair out and cost yourself any chance that you would have if you’d have played the longer game.

With no rain and sunny days, the lake temperature had risen to just under 18 degrees in open water. As a result the oxygen had dropped from a heady 12 mg/l down to 8 mg/l in only a week. 8mg/l is still very healthy but the trend was a little concerning so to soften the landing I opted to switch the home swim aerator on. Hopefully this will just be temporary as the lake rebalances itself.

The week before, Peter had mentioned that he thought he’d witnessed some spawning activity. As the photos came in from Jeff, it was clear to see that there had indeed been some spawning activity among the smaller carp.

Bait & Rigs

To avoid the cats, Jeff went for a minimal bait approach and just fished small PVA traps with a few crumbed boilies, a few whole boilies and half a handful of 7mm veggie pellets. This enabled him to successfully target the carp and avoid the smaller catfish. 

With the slight drop in oxygen, reducing the quantity of bait is also the right thing to do for the health of the lake. 

For rigs, Jeff stuck with the classic inline trick running lead with tell-tale. At the business end, Jeff used a combi-multi rig. For hookbait, Jeff made up a 50/50 hookbait using ½ a bottom bait with ½ a wafter to create a lighter bait that hovered but didn’t raise the hook off the bottom.  It took time and effort to do but you can’t say that it didn’t work!

Kay doesn’t usually get involved much in the fishing but this trip she got caught up in the action when two rods bust off at once. Kay did a great job and safely landed a heavily scaled mid twenty while Jeff banked another carp. Even though she wasn’t “fishing” as such, she rightly claimed it as without her help, it wouldn’t have been banked! Although Kay enjoyed the experience I think she was happy that Jeff was managing to do many of the fish photos by himself. It left her free to sit back, relax and just enjoy the absolute peace and tranquility that the venue offers.

A record week

Jeff caught an amazing number of fish, in fact this week he smashed the record for the largest number of carp caught in a single week (26) and he also broke the overall record for the largest number of specimens caught (28) and that’s not counting two mid twenty pound catfish! Oh and he didn’t even need to do a night. TBH I’m not sure he had the strength! This approach really worked for him as the fish were in max attack feeding mode. On a more regular week, the day only approach can definitely work against you. Many congratulations to Jeff on a very very special week 🏆

To see all this week’s captures, click here

It was great to see Jeff and Kay enjoy the venue so much and we look forward to seeing them again next year and the year after!