Regular Updates of carp and catfish captures from Domaine des iles in France

AUG 2006. -
Bonjour Bernard,
Here is my fishing report for the weekend 11 - 14 August for the back lake swim 1 & 2.
The weather during our stay was very wet, it rained & rained for practically the entire weekend! However the rain didn't affect the fishing & I caught 11 fish mainly during the day as I brought in my rods at night.
The fish were as follows... 12lb 4oz Mirror, 24lb Mirror, 15lb 4oz Mirror, 24lb Common, 14lb Mirror, 21lb 10oz Mirror, 15lb 4oz Common, 12lb 3oz Mirror, 24lb Mirror & 23lb 4oz Mirror & the biggest being a lovely 36lb 4oz Mirror. Please see attached photograph.
I had a great time & look forward to returning again next year
Regards,
Brian

Bonjour all at Domaine Des Iles,

I would like to take the time to write you an e-mail further to my weekend at DDI, as once again I had a brilliant time.

I would like to thank every one at DDI especially Bernard for making us feel so welcome and David Elford for all the help and advice prior to my visit.

We arrived after an easy drive down from Dunkirk and were greeted by Bernard at the gate who kindly escorted us ( I managed to persuade my girlfriend to come this year ) to swim 12 known as 'Little Britain which I had reserved. He gave me some general information about the swim i.e.. depth and snaggy areas to watch out for and also showed me where the best spots were. He informed me that generally the fishing had been a little bit slow due to the heat wave but then raised my hopes again by telling me that this end of the lake had not been fished for a while.

We slowly set up in the sweltering heat, feeling tired after our journey and getting up at 'stupid o'clock' to get the ferry, but I had a feeling that we were going to have a successful weekend!!!!!

The first day was very quiet with me having just one run which I lost. As soon as the sun set and it cooled down the fish began to feed. I could hear the buzzers from other swims around the lake and was extremely confident I was going to have a few during the night.

By sunrise the next morning I had caught 3 mirrors, a 29lb 6oz, 28lb 2oz and a 19lb 12oz. The early morning produced 3 Grass Carp in quick succession, a 28lb, 27lb and a P.B. 29lb fish. Again it was going to be a hot day and the temperature soon picked up which put a stop to my early morning run of grassies. I did not have another bleep until 12 o'clock that night when I had a take on my rod next to the island. After one almighty scrap a chunky mirror of 20lb 02oz slipped into the net. At 2 o'clock I was woken by another take on the island rod followed about 5 seconds later by another take on the right hand rod!!!!! There we were in the middle of the night with two fish on with Diane playing a carp in her pyjamas!!!!!!! After 5 minutes of mayhem we had both fish safely landed and unhooked. Mine weighed 24lb 8oz and typically Diane's was bigger at 27lb 8oz!!! By 10 o'clock in the morning I had caught another mirror at 21lb 8oz and Diane managed to catch a 25lb 8oz Grass Carp.

It was a lot cooler and the sky was looking stormy which looked a bit more promising but the heavens opened in a big way and actually prevented me getting 2 of my rods out for the rest of the morning. I had one Carp during afternoon, a small common of 12lb 14oz from the small channel on the right of the swim. Once again whilst playing the common the another one of my rods went I had two fish on at the same time for the second time in the trip! Unfortunately Diane lost her fish in the bushes on the Island.

I had nothing for the rest of the day and just before evening I put all my rods out for the last night. I had caught a good number of fish and all that was missing was a thirty. My goal before I came was to have one, I would not gone home disappointed if I had not caught one as I had so many twenties but a thirty would have been the icing on the cake.

All was quiet in the evening but shortly after going to bed my island rod sprung into life. It felt like a good fish and gave me the run around, taking me to every corner of the swim trying to find the snags. Eventually Diane (now an expert landing net operator) slipped the net under what was definitely a 30lb + Mirror. It weight 35lb 4oz. This was followed by 4 more Mirrors before my alarm woke me in the morning and it was time to pack up. They weighed 27lb 12oz, 19lb 6oz, 18lb 10oz and 23lb 10oz which left me with little time to sleep that night!

As we began to pack up I was sent home with a lovely looking 25lb 14oz mirror which rounded off the weekend nicely.

Bernard has in my opinion set up the lake perfectly with the benches with a fridge and power supply in each swim which are very handy indeed. The fridge alone makes life on the bank a lot more pleasant as you can bring food other than pasta and rice which is what i have lived on on previous fishing trips as it can be kept fresh. You can also bring things like a kettle which is save you a lot of messing around with gas stoves for cups of tea and stuff.

Overall we both had a great time and I would highly recommend the lake to people in the future. I will most definitely be back next year.

Once again thanks for a superb weekend.

Kind regards

Glenn Lesiak