Netting the lake is essential to look after the health of the fish and once more we are delighted to see our Beausoleil stock fit and strong
This February, we partially drained down the lake in order to net the fish. This is something we do every other year to control the biomass and allow the specimen carp to continue to grow well.
In the net, we got near 100% of what we thought we had which is an excellent result. 80+ specimen common and mirror carp were returned to the lake, a few of these were upper twenties, most were good 30s and there were multiple 40s. We saw the king and queen of the lake, Mr Angry and Pepe, looking in superb form.
To minimise the stress on the fish, all the carp were counted and returned quickly. Also returned to the lake were our home grown specials consisting of a dozen gorgeous mirrors and a couple of chunky commons (mostly upper doubles). This brings the total carp stock to 95 with a biomass of around 1300kg.
We netted 17 big cats which is what we thought we had and decided to remove 5 of them. With two specimens around 120lbs, we felt that for reasons of angler safety and the safety of the animal, Beausoleil was no longer a suitable home for them. This will allow the rest of the fish to continue to grow in a healthy environment. We released 12 specimen catfish (over 60lbs) back into the lake and removed all the small catfish that we netted. We can’t be 100% certain as they are difficult to ID but we are confident that we still have at least a couple of different 100lbs+ specimens. Beausoleil will continue to provide one of the best catfish experiences you can get in a lake of this size.
The handful of baby zander that we stocked in 2015 have done really well and these have all been returned to the lake along with a handful of pike and some small perch. Some roach was removed but we left a population to help maintain the balance within the ecosystem.
We’ve never had any issues with crayfish or poisson chat and we can again confirm that none were found in the net.
Big thanks to David and his team for their efforts on the day and to Wayne, John and Alexandre who came along to give us a hand. Top job guys!
Once again, it was fascinating to explore the lake bed, particularly in the shallows, and to see how the feeding spots are evolving over the years. We will be releasing a video in March to show in details some of the features and intricacies of the lake and how to fish these features so make sure to check out our YouTube channel in a few weeks.
