The Accommodation

The on site accommodation is a completely refurbished house sleeping up to 10 people. Satellite TV, washing machine, dishwasher, fridge/freezer. Situated in a very quiet location 2 hrs from Caen with views over the lake. One hotspot is an underarm cast a metre from the house! The owners Chas & Josie are very enthusiastic about their fishery and it is advisable to listen to any advice on swims and hotspots offered by Chas as he knows the lake so well.

The Stocks

The lake holds approx. 280 carp, mirrors and commons. Also present are some large pike, rudd, a few koi, trout and perch. The carp range from a few singles to many mid to high doubles. At least twenty from 23lb-29lb, 2 or 3 low thirties. Given the documented gains over the last 6 months of 3-4lbs, it shouldn't be long before the lake throws up more surprises.


The Lake and Fishing
The lake started as a quarry supplying stone for the Breton houses in the nearby village. At 2½ acres and stream fed, it has depths at the dam wall of 3 ½ metres, where the stream enters at the opposite end it shallows to approx ½ metre. It has a sloping marginal shelf in the main body of the lake of 1½ metres in the margins. The old stream bed consists of course sand, silt covers most of the bottom but the margins are clean hard clay.

As it is stream fed, the water is completely replaced every two days. This keeps the water temperature fairly constant thus producing good winter results. On our visit, the weather wasn't favourable. We had hailstones, torrential rain and ground frost at night resulting in frozen mats, slings and Optonics... YET the fish still fed!

Most of the fish came from casting across the lake clipped up to the far margin to within a metre of the bank with bottom baits maple 8, pepperoni over pellet and artificial maize. The nights weren't anymore productive than day fishing. The most productive time each day appeared to be 3pm - 7pm. We only loose fed a small amount over each margin rod for one fish at a time. This meant walking round the lake and putting bait in by hand.

Further down the lake, where it narrows slightly, a small PVA Stocking bag could be clipped up and cast accurately across to the far margins. The fish were usually on the bait within 2 hours of baiting.

The weeks fishing produced 80 fish up to 31lb 3oz, 9 twenties over 24lb, the rest mainly doubles between 14 & 19lbs - all immaculate and hard fighting.

We thoroughly enjoyed our stay at Etang des Vaux and would recommend it to the carp angler and family on holiday.

Thank you Bridget for arranging this. Just one note - I suggest you drop the Reims reference on the directions. It's not necessary and leads to confusion.

Many thanks
Steve & Damien