Carp Fishing in Northern France

 We acquired Lac Bernard a carp lake in Northern France only 2 and a half hours from Calais from a Parisian family who owned the lake for more than 25 years. It was their weekend retreat. Predominantly used for predatory sports like Duck hunting and Pike fishing it now lends itself to potentially being a fantastic carp water to catch a fish of a lifetime. Weed levels were high some 20 years ago so the previous owner decided to take the logical action and place 100 carp of all species to hopefully reduce the levels. 20 years on and now these fish have flourished , a brace of commons recently banked at 31lb & 34lb proves this point. Yet we are still in a position that we don’t exactly know what the lake holds in terms of fish. What we do know is that November of this year 2015 we are adding half a tonne of carp, biggest topping the scales at over 50lb, the smallest addition being 30lb 40z.

We have a strategic approach to re-stocking our lake the first of these phases is taking place in November. The lake is to be netted in the next few months mainly to extract silver fish and also have a look at the new generations of carp that have been produced over the last few decades. No bream are in the lake however we do have a number of large Rudd and Roach for those match anglers out there.

Between now and November 2015 we are renovating the entire site, building swims from scratch spending time on understanding the best possible position to maximise catching potential. Cabin on site that will provide a utility function such as Shower, Toilet, Kitchenette, UK plug sockets, Wood Stove and bed/couch.

The lake itself we are spending a lot of time removing snags, weeding, cutting back vegetation and trying to make the lake both a challenge for fishermen but also thinking about fish welfare by creating holding spots were the fish can be protected from lines and all activity, this way we’ll have a balanced lake that will thrive for years to come.