The weather continues to be all over the place, bucking every trend of what should be happening at this time of the year and it has impacted on this group as it has on the last few groups.
Despite the weather it has been another great session for a family of regulars, Ryan, Leigh and Oliver, and it came with a very unusual target: to catch less fish !!!!!!!!!!!
Now there’s a first !
The headline figure is therefore absolutely perfect :
13 Big Carp to 56lb
The last time these Guys were here was the same week in 2021 and they had a massive hit between them: 45 big carp to 64lb. It appears that after flying home and having time to digest the result Ryan decided that he was in fact quite cream-crackered and having caught so many fish it had actually taken the enjoyment out of his fishing and their family holiday.
He was just piling in massive amounts of bait with his bait boat and dragging out loads of big fish and felt that he missed the fun of the catch of each individual fish.
This time he was going to go about it differently, he left his bait boat at home and he was going to do things the old fashioned way, and if he caught 1 or 2 per day he would be more than happy.
He wasn’t going to chase the fish so he set up on swim 5, picked 3 good spots, and that was where he intended to do most of his fishing. The occasional dabble down in to swims 2 and 3 was planned as a casual afternoon event should the sun come out and the fish move down there.
Baiting was going to be primarily from the far bank using a scoop and a couple of buckets, all of which he left over there so that he could walk around on a regular basis without having to carry them with him.
The strange weather from last week continued through the weekend and although the rain stopped on Sunday it still took a couple of days for the sun to break through and start to warm the place up again, Sunday morning and Monday morning were particularly cold.
The Guys flew in from Southampton and by the time we got them back from the airport and settled in to the Gite it was too late to start fishing so Ryan settled for a walk around the lake just to check out the fish activity, but nothing was going to change his initial plan, he was going to be content to bait his spots and play the waiting game.
He knew that those shoals would come through at some point.
And wait he did, the Sunday session came and went without any action, although young Oliver did have one on which he dropped.
Ryan persisted with his spots and the weather slowly improved and around 9am on Monday morning Ryan slipped the net under the first fish of their session, a lovely little Mirror at 25lb.
Monday continued to produce and they had a total of 4 in the bag by tea-time, including a nice little Common for Leigh:
The early hours of Tuesday morning, at around 1am, produced their 5th fish, all seemed to be going well but then it just stopped!!!
There was no apparent reason, the only noticeable change was the air pressure was rising and the warmer weather was returning. Whatever the reason the fish had moved off down to the shallower swims.
The Guys did have a little dabble in the shallow swims on Tuesday afternoon but the fish were having none of it so they quickly returned to swim 5.
The air pressure and the heat rose so fast that through the night of Tuesday/Wednesday it built in to a massive thunderstorm, what was that going to do to the fish ????
As it turned out the storm was enough to move the fish out of the shallows and back in to the deeper water, the sun came out and was quite ferocious, Leigh started to sunbath and so did the fish, Ryan was happy because that translated in to another 3 in the bag.
I was up on the dam cutting the grass and doing a spot of strimming on Thursday and when I started everything looked normal but an hour later when I had finished every fish in the lake was in swim 6, rolling around on the surface waving their pec fins as they went.
I walked down to talk with Ryan but he was already aware of the fish and was trying everything he could to tempt them to a bait but as the sun got hotter the fish got lazier and he had to settle for just another 3 on Thursday.
But Ryan was hopeful for the night ahead as at least the fish were up his end of the lake.
Early doors on Friday saw 2 more for the net, Ryan took the first one at 7am, a lovely Mirror at a tad under 40lb:
Oliver took the second at around 8.30am, it turned out to be the fish of the session and everyone had a claim on it. Leigh helped Oliver with the netting:
Oliver claimed it as a new PB at 56lb on the nose. But Dad had to pick it up for the photograph:
Unfortunately that turned out to be the end of their session, as the sun rose in the sky the heat increased and the fish rose to the surface, sunbathing was once again the only thing on their minds, but what a great family holiday.
Ryan’s plan had worked, he removed the pressure of catching lots of big fish and they all had some great family time, their final tally was:
Zero Babies, zero doubles, 1 @ 25lb, 2 @ 28lb, 1 @ 30lb, 1 @ 33lb, 1 @ 35lb, 2 @ 37lb, 1 @ 38lb, 1 @ 39lb, 1 @ 40lb, 1 @ 42lb, and 1 at 56lb
Helen and I look forward to hosting them again in 2026 but I did suggest to Oliver that he gets in a bit of weight training before his next visit 🙂
We are closed down again for the next 2 weeks for another spot of R&R for the fish so there will not be a catch report next weekend.
Right now I am looking forward to Sunday lunch down the Pub, Helen is treating me, she has booked a table for 1230hrs and I am hungry already.
I will be as busy as ever over the next couple of weeks because the grass still needs cutting, the weeds still need strimming, and I have a couple of trees to drag out of swim 3, I will no doubt let you know how I get on.
Till then, take care.
Le Moulin de Graffeuil 