onasession

Got back from my 5th (and last) trip on 09/04/16. Last trip as we're moving on to new (to us) waters. Cretelakes is a fine, well run complex, but getting too busy for my liking but understandable due to the quality of the fishing. I fished Lake 5 - peg 52. Found a line of gravel right across the swim about a rod length wide at about 60 yards, fished on this with all 3 rods for the whole week and fed 30 baits per rod to begin with as the guy who fished the previous week apparently only had 2 fish, so started with caution. The baiting was increased as the fish started to feed and be caught to about 100 boilies after each fish and the same amount each time the rigs were repositioned. Bait was Mainline Cell & Essential Cell (10 kgs of each). All my hook baits were chopped and mostly fished 3 half baits on the hair coated in pineapple goo. One rod fished with half bottom and half pop up baits and all tipped with yellow or white plastic corn stops and coated in Almond goo. Throughout the week, i had mirrors of 29, 31, 22, 26.8, 29, 34, 21, 26, 24, 26.12, 43, 39, 20, 24, 29, 24, 37 and commons of 23, 24.8, 30.8, 32.4 1 x 40, 6 x 30's and 14 x 20's. Total of 21 fish with only 2 lost fish, one due to me messing around trying to get my boat back before the gale that was blowing sank it , the other was basically an unstoppable run as soon as I picked the rod up it was at full pelt on the clutch, came off after about 3 seconds lol ! My mate had the biggest fish of the week off lake 1 - peg 9 at 66lb 6oz. Only 1 of our 7 group members failed to catch with the others all having some nice fish between 30 & 46lbs. Hope this helps

Cretelakes.com - 5 lakes and some proper lumps to go at ! Crystalwatersfishery.com - Fantastic lake, I've done 2 over 60lb from here !

Check their website for catch reports, updated weekly.

Doing my 3rd trip in April 2014, used the coach service on the first trip and some of my gear got damaged through poor loading ! Bedchair paintwork got chipped because they said no bedchair bags and my brand new bivvy bag got holes in it due to rubbing on something during the journey, could've ruined the bivvy if it had gone on any longer ! Also limited to 8 items of luggage each. It is a bonus being taken to the lakes if you don't like driving on the wrong side lol. We now go in our own transport.

Can anyone tell me the cheapest ferry company ( Dover/Calais or Dover/ Boulogne) to use in september/october ? I've used P&O, SeaFrance and LD lines in the past, but they all seem to have put their prices up loads since last year. 1 car with 2 adults & a roofbox.

Well, didn't do too good ! Got there on the sat lunchtime and it was blistering hot. Most of the swims were under water so wasn't much choice of where to fish ! Anyway, after a bad draw settled for peg 3, opposite the point swim which was taken. After finding some bars with the boat, markering them & not casting straight in (waiting for evening) did a bit of lure fishing and had a pike bout 5lb. Sunday weather was as saturday hot again but ended with a t-storm in the early hours. From then on It rained every day. we had the only swim with no gravel on it, so ended up in a mud bath. Took just 1 fish on wed at 3am a common of 27lb. My mate who doubled up with me had a 31lb mirror, 38lb 12oz common and a lovely mirror at 40lb 15oz. again in the middle of the night. Fish took Tigers and maize with ground tiger sticks and tiger slime. Shower was good but as there's not electricity on site, you needed to tell Chris the owner when you wanted to have one as it run on a generator he kept in his van. Over all, due to the lake being flooded, limiting swim choice, i can't say i really enjoyed it. I do think i'd go back again sometime but later in the year.

Anyone fished Juvigny in the last few weeks ? Whats coming out and on what is it coming out on ?

Is it Lac de Beaute near Le Mans ? (Paula & Alex's lake). If so, it's a very small, shallow & intimate water of about 3-4 acres with 5 swims. Peg 1 is very shallow only a couple of feet deep, with mainly smaller carp and visited at night by the catfish. Peg 2 is simular to peg 1 but a little deeper at about 3' , mainly smaller carp but cats were caught at night on a surfaced fished livebaits( this swim produced the then lake record cat at 61lb + on our visit). Peg 3 gets to about 4 feet deep with better stamp of carp being caught here on our trip, also some cats to 40lb + & sturgeon. Peg 4 which i fished produced carp to 25+, cats to 31+ and sturgeon to 26+ and is 4-5' deep. Peg 5 is the same depth as peg 4 & gave carp to mid 20's, cats to 40+ and Sturgeon to over 25. Most if not all the Carp and Sturgeon came from a little gully which goes from an outlet pipe that sticks up in peg 5 all the way across to peg 3. The cats were mostly taken from this gully and back to the far bank, also off the top at night. Nearside margins saw 0 fish caught from 12 rods over the week. Baits. Anything we put on caught fish but big Halibut pellets did very well with pva bags , sticks or by using the onsite row boats to bait up (which we did each evening). Do not pile it in. It is a small water and it's not needed. i'd recomend about 2 kilos of pellets and 1 kilo of boilies at dusk, then just use pva bags etc. during the day or fire some stuff out with the catty ( i fired about 30 boilies and pellets out after every fish - little and often !!!

I'm going in April so will let you know how we do

Try Lac de Beaute near Les Mans. I lost count how many runs in a day ! Carp average 20+ to over 50 Cats to 62+ Sturgeon to 35+ Use of caravan with 2 showers & toilets cooker (works on Euros) fridge all for £200p.p. drive and survive.