Holiday Feedback Form Name of customer:
V Martin Venue: Beaurepaire Date of holiday: 05-07-2008 to 11-07-2008
No. of persons fishing: 2 Brief details of your catches: 3 mirror carp to 21.10 What did you find were the best tactics/baits: Nothing worked, we hooked 3 out of 4 runs we managed to get. We tried maple 8, crab, liver, tiger nut, tutti fruiti boilies, sweetcorn, meat and bread. We tried range, close, popped up, not, PVA samples, large baited area (17kg of particles and pellets. We did manage to get one line bite.
Were the facilities what you expected? Yes but dominated by A&J tour Were you happy with them? a lock for the toilet would be nice
Would you recommend the venue to a friend? NO
Would you recommend our services to a friend? Only when no AJ tours allowed
General comments: Reference Angling lines marketing, the lake is not pretty, it is mud banked and treacherous when it rains. It is probably good for 6 anglers but there were 7 when we were there, one being a professional who orchestrated a fantastic week for himself, his son and the A&J tours guest at the expense of ourselves and the other couple of self drive anglers. We left one day early the others 3 days early - says it all. The lake clearly changes depth dramatically we were told the lake was 7 feet above normal and it had already receded by around 5 feet- hence the mud everywhere. The coots' nests were 5 feet above the water and the scrub willow had aerial roots 4 feet above the water- all indicating the level is rarely or never as shown in the Angling lines marketing. One of the best places to bivvy up was under 4ft of water....
The facilities were adequate but usually there were towels, dirty or wet washing up, coats etc strung around to give the feeling you were definitely encroaching on AJ territory.
I strongly recommend that self drive people do not use this lake if an A&J tour is present. AJ have a Gazebo and a picnic table etc set up and a full time angler on the water. This means all of the good areas are well baited creating the best feeding zones and this is continuous for months on end, one week does not change this! And of course the AJ bailif is ready to sit his client on top of all of this as he is bivvied up in place. (We only heard second hand about the massive prebaiting that took place before we arrived on the Saturday).
One should also consider that the feed is limitless, a quick trip in the dilapidated AJ tour transit to Croix Blanche and more buckets of feed are available, also a barge sized bait boat.
I would think this lake is great to fish when you are over these prebaited areas - the AJ tour were catching 5 - 10 fish per day whilst we got 5 runs in 6 days.
Concentrate on the bank in front of the portacabin and sit right next to the AJ guys if you have to go, do not go to the other end which is very deep and cold water. There is no weed problem because the water is too deep but the marginal scrub willow is submerged about 10 metres out in lake to add to the difficulties. As for casting to rising fish, three fish rose within casting distance of the swim we used at the top right hand end of the lake in six days.
Overall the Angling lines package of travel was very good. The lake did not match the photos and it clearly was not a runs water. The Croix Blanche owner even suggested to us that Angling lines dessert their clients whereas AJ look after them. Thing is not all of us want that experience, we want to be us against the fish with just what we carried to the lake, not limitless equipment and feed, professional angling skills and detailed water knowledge.
Anyone know of a water where there is a limit to the numbers and the fishing is relatively simple for not massive carp? My local £6 a day day ticket water is always better than we experienced last week. (if it wasn't I wouldn't go there!)
It would be useful if all respondents noted where they fished on the lakes to see if there is indeed a picture of certain swims being favorite, it helps us but not the tour organisers so would not be popular. ******* Note from Angling Lines ******* The sharing of this water with A&J organised trips will never happen again - it will be stopped immediately. It has only happened a few times in the past & there has been no problem but that is clearly not the case on this week. In future anyone who boks a self-drive trip will definitely not have to share the venue with A&J trips. Has Mr Martin says the fishing at Beaurepaire can be very good as the A&J party proved. With regard to high water levels this has been a consistent problem in France throughout this year - it has been one of the wettest on record. Some venues can take this without problem but the water levels at Beaurepaire do rise dramatically with prolonged heavy rain. We do make this clear in the Website text... here is what the Website says "Throughout the year the lake can change in depth quite dramatically as it is fed directly by the water table. The near by River Aisne often floods in the winter months and while it does not flood the lake, the water table is raised, sometimes by as much as 3 metres. This can mean that the banks can look quite different in early spring, or after very prolonged periods of rain and the central point area can become submerged. However during normal weather conditions water levels remain constant and during the summer months the lake depths vary from a few centimetres in the shallows to around 2 metres." We are sorry that the receding water leaves the banks muddy & slippy but there's little the owner can do about that.
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