Fishing report from: Shane and Julie

A perfect week of escapism with carp to 40lbs!

This week we welcomed back Shane and Julie for their 3rd trip. They first visited us in 2017 which seems like a lifetime ago now! Shane doesn’t even describe himself as a carp angler, more of a course angler that also catches carp. He’s a quiet and modest man and even on his 3rd trip his only wish was to catch one carp and that’s the best way to approach any session.

Attack of the kittens

The first night was a busy one for all the wrong reasons. Shane is used to carp fishing with boilies but as we near the drain down and netting, lets just say the small cats aren’t hard to catch. By the morning he’d clocked up 3 of them to about 12lbs. Yeah, carp fishing with boilies at night is tough going at the minute!

Homegrown specials

In the spring of 2015, our carp spawned successfully for the first time following the full drain down and de-silting operation. The results were thousands of small carp that were gradually reduced in number. These days we have 13 small mirrors and 10 small commons.

Well, I say small, this year we’ve seen one of these commons hit 24lbs and this week Shane met a super lovely scaly mirror at 25lbs. That’s a great result in 7 years. Don’t be fooled into thinking that these “smaller” carp are easy to catch. These are descended from some of the trickiest carp I’ve ever fished for and they are actually quite a rare capture!  Shane was very pleased to have met one of these fish as they mean a lot to us.

Time for a chunk or three

On Shane’s last visit he banked one of our 40s. He never imagined that he’d reach those heights again but actually nowadays we have quite a few over the magic 40 pound barrier so it’s actually getting easier (slightly!). This time he met a carp named Merlin at just over 40lbs. Merlin is one of the stockies and has settled in to the venue very well since he was introduced in 2017. All of Shane’s other carp were mid 30’s which just goes to show how high the average weight is nowadays.

Bait, rigs and tactics

All but one of Shane’s carp fell to a Scopex Squid boilie presented over matching pellets, flake, syrup and small seeds. He swapped to the tigers at night but that only produced one common. Not that he was complaining as it was another chunk! Shane used his normal Beausoleil style rig for everything and I think that may have been the reason why the tiger plan wasn’t as effective this week.

Tactics wise, Shane is very diligent and used the rowing boat and a prodding stick to place every rig by hand. Hooks were hand sharpened and one scoop of mix was thrown over the top every time. It was simple and very effective.

A week on the wild side

At the start of the week there was a big storm which, at one point, required Shane to hang onto their gazebo for grim death to avoid losing it across the fields. Not that this deterred the intrepid duo. Shane is a keen wildlife photographer. Unfortunately his new toy wasn’t delivered in time for this trip so he had to remain an observer. We’re very happy to know that we have at least three different species of owls that hang out at the lake! I must listen more carefully next time to distinguish the calls.

Apparently, we need Doctor Who?

Julie fully participates in all aspects of the fishing holiday and spent every night out in the bivvy with Shane. She doesn’t fish as such but while she was minding the rods she did bank a small catfish all by herself so congratulations on that! Julie absolutely loves Beausoleil. She was so sad that the week had come to an end so fast and demanded that we install a time machine so that they could have the holiday over and over again. I’ll give the doc a call and see what I can do!

Can’t wait to return

It was so lovely to meet Shane and Julie again, they are super chilled and were delighted with their five carp. So they should be as it’s a very good result at this time of year! Congratulations guys, we can’t wait to see you back here ☺️