Posted 24 May 2010 - 10:49 AM
Well, another new venue to add to the list. A hard week at Cretelakes as they had started to spawn and the weather was roasting. I managed three fish a 32 mirror, 20 mirror and had a 38.06 mirror on the last night. Although it looks like most lakes in France were very slow last week.
A very new venue, first year all inclusive and they do have a few bits of fine tuning to do.
Will start with the web site, any website can make anything look good, that’s part of advertising and competing with other lakes.
The pick up was advertised as 2.00am. I got there at 1.00am to have a few beers with the lads going and we ended up hanging about until 3.30am to get the 4.30am ferry. This made most of us a little pissed off as we were all tired and eager to get going.
Luxury coach advertised, ended up being a normal coach with no toilet or hot drinks machine. They did have cold drinks for sale though.
We ended up at the venue at about 10.45am. The walk around the four lakes was very quick, actually bypassing several swims on lake three, if I had seen these I would have fished lake three for sure. I ended up in peg 3 on lake one.
The gear is driven to swims by the landrover and trailer, which saves you lugging it around, lake three is a long walk from the lodge.
Facilities are spotless, three showers and three toilets, all cleaned twice a day. However, there were problems with getting the showers to run hot, each shower had its own little knack to get the water running hot, something we were not told about at the start of the holiday.
There is no communal fridge to keep your beers cold, there is a large fridge in the shop but that is locked from 6.30pm to 8.30am, and with the weather hot you need somewhere to keep your drinks cold.
Also no communal freezer for your bait. These are two issues that need addressing.
Tea and coffee supplied all day in one of the chalets. There are three chalets, one is the kitchen, and the other two are for eating and watching TV etc. Seat outside to eat in the sunshine.
Food, the website states that the bailiff Les is a qualified chef, I found the food to be average and I have had better at lots more places. Only three puddings for the week, we did have a Bar B Q, which was good. One good thing the French bread was delivered fresh and hot on a daily basis and was delicious, I could have lived on just that all week!
We picked a week when Les was by himself, usually there are two bailiffs, as a result he was so busy that he didn’t get to visit the anglers and give them advice etc.
There are four lakes set in lovely surroundings apart from two banks of lake one, which were on a very busy A road and as a result very noisy especially at night, pegs one and two suffered the most. The lakes are set in 60 acres of land and all of them are very pretty and the swims are well maintained. There are a number of double swims, which were ample to take two anglers with room to spare.
Lake two is the weediest and this was fished by 4 of the 17 anglers. Lake three was fished by 3 anglers, lake 4 by three anglers and lake one by 9 anglers. Two blokes did move off of one and onto four when they were blanking by Tuesday. Another moved off of four and onto three where he had 11 fish with 5 X 30’s.
Most of the lakes had features to fish to mostly tree lines and far margins. On lake 4 if you didn’t fish the far margin you would not get a run, no fish has ever come from open water.
I had a clay bottom with patches of weed in front of me, with a depth of 12 feet rising to 8 feet that was a plateau and was the size of half a football pitch. All my fish came from this feature.
Between 17 anglers we didn’t hit 100 fish for the week, which is poor. They are stocking more fish into the lakes in November, which is needed as I really don’t think there is not enough fish in the lakes to keep your buzzers going. Four 40’s came out up to 44 and quite a few 30’s.
Beer was a €1 a bottle, water 80 cents, the shop had various snacks, crisps and biscuits along with sweets and ice creams.
I had 30K of boillies and 25K of pellet. I ended up selling 15K of boillies and 10K of pellet.
A great bunch of lads, quite a few French virgins and we had a belly full of laughs all week.
I would def go again once they sort the little things out and get some more fish in the lakes, it is really very early days for them and it looks like it will become a very good venue in the future.
Next trip 23rd October to Etang Des Duex Pierre, which I have been invited on by one of the old lads on this trip and looking forward to it.
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Mode101, on May 25 2010, 06:49 AM, said:
