2006 Season Summary

Hi everyone. This is going to be, hopefully, a summary to which anyone can refer to see what happened over the course of the last year and maybe use to provide an indication of the potential of our fishery. We expect to see at least a five pound average weight increase in each fish so roll on spring 2007.

The story of last year really starts with the drain down in December 2005 at which time we removed most of the unwanted roach and rudd etc. We also removed the remaining “feral male commons” in order to reduce the violence during spawning. We accept that it is impossible to completely eradicate these unwanted fish unless we drain the lake and leave it dry for 12 months so we are aware that we must continue with regular netting virtually every day throughout the winter of 2006/7.

April 2006 saw plenty of rain in Burgundy but after the heaviest downpours the anglers who sat it out were paid back handsomely. By the beginning of May we had already seen 11 NEW FORTIES on top of the originals as well as “the mother” slightly down in weight but at 51.08 lb no-one was complaining. One of the new forties is now called “the eighteen” because the only previous photo of the fish was of me holding it at 18.00 lb. The other impressive thing was that we were seeing dozens of carp between 37 lb and 40 lb.

May was a truly fantastic month and the surprises continued to hit the nets. It was also a time when individual anglers showed us how it should be done. David Pougher and Mark Wilson in particular hauled enormous amounts of carp; David's totalling 822.12 lb including 11 thirties and 2 forties; Marks totalling 794.08 lb including 7 thirties and 4 forties.

June was much quieter from the number of angler’s point of view but still the forties and the surprises came. Notable moments were when two of the known fish pushed the weight gains to unexpected totals; “Single Scale” grew to 46.08 lb while “Gilbert” managed 47.04 lb. My good friend Nick Helleur paid us a flying visit and caught a shed-load of fish to upper forties and Wayne landed “the long common” at a new common PB of 41.05 lb. Although anglers tend to avoid June because they are worried about catching the carp spawning we now appear to have overcome that problem. As mentioned at the start we removed a lot of male fish and now, while spawning obviously still takes place, we don’t have a week of fishing ruined because of it. With the reduced numbers of customers, Wayne and I fished through June to help push the fish around and everyone continued to catch big carp with some of them continuing to show at “best ever” weights. (Including new forties)

July was again a special month with similar numbers of anglers to June and with the fish continuing to come to heavy baiting campaigns. Every week saw at least two forties hit the bank and I notice from my notes that the final week of July produced, to eight anglers, 89 carp including 29 thirties and 5 forties for a total of 2475 lb. It appears, from the detail of the season, that the only anglers who have seemed to struggle have been those who have held back on the bait and tried to fish to small bags or stringers only. I must just add that July was also very special for me personally with a new PB at 56.07 lb.

Being closed for the first two weeks of August meant that the fish got a short rest but the temperature soared to 40 degrees plus. The carp continued to show but suddenly decided to refuse the big bait areas and switched to small bags and small hook-baits. We just about worked this out quick enough to help advise our customers and we continued to see at least two forties landed each week.

September saw the carp slowly revert back to wanting beds of bait and gradually the momentum of carp catches built throughout the month. The first week was something of a failure because we didn’t apply the bait properly and didn’t realize quickly enough that the carp wanted more than we were offering even though Roy Dawson managed a 43 and 44 brace. The third week saw six anglers introduce 80 kg of boilies and land 79 carp including 34 thirties and 3 forties. The final week saw Lee Ward give us all a lesson in bait application and end his first visit with 45 fish including 15 over twenty five pounds, 13 thirties and 3 forties.

October opened with a bang. The first week saw seven anglers bag 96 carp including 37 thirties and 4 forties. Week two was for five anglers who produced 50 carp including 19 thirties and 2 forties but they were slow to listen to our advice to fish with very slack clutches. The result was that they lost a lot of fish which would have made the totals much more acceptable. As the last group of anglers left I was left to experiment with the new “Moorlands Special Live System” from CC Moore and 200 boilies scattered around the swim produced a bite within 30 minutes. The fish turned out to be 43.04 lb and was our 99th forty for the season.

We only had one angler booked for the middle of November so again Wayne and I fished in order to be able to help with night time captures, photos etc. The week produced regularly for all of us and we ended with 58 fish including 15 thirties and our 100th forty to Mark Jones. What a finish.

My advice for anyone coming to Moorlands for 2007 is to get at least one baited patch going right at the start of your week. Don’t bait the whole swim but perhaps scatter a lot of bait to the left for instance. If, as I expect it to, this begins to work very early on then you can adjust the rest of your swim to suit. If, on the other hand, the fish only want small helpings, you can still fish this method to the other side of your swim using bags or stringers.

Don’t be afraid to ask for advice. We live on the lake all year round and have the last five years experience of the place to draw on (On top of my previous 40 years general carp fishing experience).

The most successful rig (by miles) has been a free running light lead fished with light bobbins and slack lines and light clutches. Sometimes we only use leads as light as 20 grams and the carp seem unable to deal with them. We have also found that fluoro or mono hook links tied “D” rig style score extremely well. We have discovered that it is essential to use a suitable hook pattern to suit “semi-stiff” hook links to ensure good hook holds. The “common” hook pattern with a slightly in-turned eye creates too strong an angle so I advise a hook with a slightly out-turned eye such as the ESP “stiff-rigger” or the “continental carp hook”.

Bait ? No question for me; C.C. Moore’s “Moorlands Special Live System” in 14 mm.
Be lucky and best fishes for 2007.

Keith Moors

< back to top >

SUMMARY FOR APRIL 2007
(including 15 March captures)

19 Doubles

68 Between 20 lb and 25 lb

131 Between 25 lb and 30 lb

118 Thirty pounders, (32 over 35 lb)

14 Forty pounders

22 Catfish over 25 lb with the two largest at 87 lb and 95lb

< back to top >

Hi everyone. 11 anglers arrived last Saturday and I must admit that the weather conditions have looked perfect all week but the fish have not responded as much as I had expected. I can only assume that the high pressure has slightly reduced their willingness to feed because on several occasions there has been two or three carp being landed at the same time. It suggests that the “feeding trigger” has been squeezed from time to time as the pressure has dropped. The weather has generally been muggy and we have all been waiting for a massive storm to arrive to clear the air. The fishing has been fairly constant throughout the week with carp coming in daylight and darkness and a few personal bests as the icing on the cake. Other than the fishing the highlight has been seeing two adult coots taken by the big catfish so they’re doing their jobs.

Carp caught are as follows;

Doubles.
15.08 lb,     10.08 lb,     14.00 lb,     18.00 lb,     19.00 lb,     19.08 lb,     16.00 lb,     19.14 lb,     19.00 lb,

Low twenties.
23.02 lb,     22.02 lb,     20.00 lb,     22.08 lb,     20.04 lb,     21.00 lb,     22.00 lb,     22.12 lb,     22.12 lb,

Upper twenties.
27.02 lb,     25.08 lb,     27.08 lb,     29.04 lb,     28.08 lb,     28.00 lb,     25.04 lb,     28.10 lb,     26.08 lb,
29.12 lb,     29.00 lb,     28.12 lb

Thirties.
36.00 lb,     31.12 lb,     38.00 lb,     36.00 lb,     32.12 lb,     30.02 lb,     32.04 lb,     34.02 lb,     37.04 lb,
37.00 lb,     31.08 lb,     31.06 lb,     35.04 lb,     37.06 lb,     31.00 lb,     36.00 lb,     30.04 lb,     31.12 lb

Forties.
41.08 lb,     44.08 lb,

Summary.
9 doubles
9 low twenties
12 upper twenties
18 thirties
2 forties

50 carp in total

None of the adult catfish landed this week but several of the kittens of 8 to 10 lb range.

Just to end I’d like to let the Kent Tackle boys know that three more anglers have been Ayatollah’d” with the early morning alarm. You can’t go carping without the crack.

See you all next week but I think that, as we only have two customers on the lake this week, the fishing is going to be difficult. The next set of results will depend on whether they want a relaxing holiday or to fish hard. We shall have to wait and see.

Keith Moors

< back to top >

23rd June 2007

Hi everyone. Sorry for the gap in the news but the first week of this fortnight saw a couple of anglers who wanted to relax and stay in one swim. The weather was terrible with rain during the most oppressive humidity and heat that I have ever experienced. On top of this they didn’t surface until just before breakfast each morning so were totally unaware of any signs of feeding fish. The overallresult………..no carp.

The lessons from this for all following anglers is, whenever the lake is quiet, you need to be preparedto find the fish early in the morning and either move onto them or at least take a rod and try to stalk out a few.

Anyway, the following week saw six anglers arrive and, by their own admission, four of them were very much novice to the “big carp” scene. With this in mind they chose their swims well so that they were well spread out and were prepared to move if necessary. Most of them were also prepared to listen to our advice on bait and presentation and I’m pleased to say that all four of them had personal best carp and three of them ending with mirrors and commons. I think it’s true to say that a common mistake this summer has been the use of fishmeals which simply have not produced the big fish as regularly as the milk proteins. In the light of this we are again about to “tweak” our bait and remove the tutti flavour. Let’s hope it works.

We have already made the decision to, once again, drain the lake this autumn. This will give us a chance to sort out the biomass again and remove the roach and any other unwanted fish. We are also planning to pump out and clean the holding pools and only the perch, bass, catfish and carp will be returned so we expect 2008 to be an outstanding year. We already have an order in place for a batch of fast growing twenties and thirties and with these available it gives us the option to remove any of the existing stock which are no longer showing growth potential and also we can remove some of the fish that we have seen recently with mouth damage. My own feeling is that even a biggish fish deserves to be released into the wild if it is showing damage following a few years service which have resulted in disfiguring injuries.

Captures this week;

Doubles
15.02 lb,     17.06 lb,     19.12 lb,     19.08 lb,

Low twenties
20.00 lb,     22.04 lb,     21.05 lb,     24.08 lb,     20.08 lb,     23.07 lb,     24.09 lb,     20.08 lb,     23.08 lb,
24.08 lb,     22.04 lb,     24.04 lb,

Upper twenties
25.00 lb,     25.04 lb,     25.00 lb,     27.13 lb,     28.04 lb,     28.12 lb,     29.14 lb,     26.12 lb,     28.12 lb,
25.12 lb,

Thirties
31.08 lb,     34.07 lb,     33.01 lb,     30.00 lb,     30.09 lb,     31.10 lb,     36.07 lb,     33.04 lb,

Summary;
4 doubles
12 low twenties
10 upper twenties
8 thirties
34 carp in total.

That’s it for another newsletter and there will be another two week break because we are now closedfor a week so that I can take my lovely wife down to “Les Sts Maries de la Mer” in the Camargue fora few days R & R. Hope fully the weather will be more settled for the next group of anglers and we can produce a more positive newsletter.

Keith Moors.

< back to top

Well here we go again with another week completed. Saturday 30th June saw six anglers arrive with a very much mixed bag of targets. I think that they would all accept that at least four of them did not have too much carp angling experience as far as big fish are concerned. Yet again they started their campaign with pellet and groundbait mixes and it was at least two or three days into the week before they accepted that the lake is rich in natural food and the carp, for some reason only known to them, have decided to home in on the bloodworm beds and need quantities of boilies spread about the swim in order to offer an alternative.

It rapidly became apparent that everyone had decided that the main bowl of the lake was the placeto fish and all were soon encamped around it. Within a couple of hours the carp could be seen heading off up the Southern arm into quiet water but nobody wanted to move. On Thursday it was obvious that they were creeping along under the overhanging trees of the forest bank until they reached rocky bay and only then were they moving out into the main water of the arm. As no-one else wanted to move I decided to do two nights in “the leaning tree” with baits cast to within two feet of the far bank. A scattering of boilies over each hook bait resulted in 9 carp including 4 thirties to 34.05 lb.

I must advise anybody still to come down this year to spend a lot of time watching the lake and trying to work out where the fish are travelling. If you are prepared to move these carp are not difficult to catch.

Anyway, a big well done to young Lewis for his first thirty and to Tim for upping his PB to 36.08 lb. Jason managed his first moggie in double figures although his plans to be the next Steve Irwin took a bitof a battering. Paul and his son Doug both went away with new PB,s with a 34.08 lb common to Paul and “Minty” at 44.08 lb to Doug. That is her biggest ever incidentally so maybe she will surprise us in the autumn.

Fish caught this week

Doubles
17.08 lb,     18.00 lb,     17.12 lb,     19.08 lb,

Low twenties
21.10 lb,     24.00 lb,     23.01 lb,     20.02 lb,     21.00 lb,

Upper twenties
27.08 lb,     28.12 lb,     26.03 lb,     26.08 lb,     25.00 lb,     26.04 lb,     25.02 lb,     27.12 lb,     27.15 lb,

Thirties
32.08 lb,     39.04 lb,     30.00 lb,     32.00 lb,     30.02 lb,     36.08 lb,     31.04 lb,     34.05 lb,     34.08 lb,
31.01 lb,     31.13 lb,

Forties
44.08 lb,

30 carp caught
4 doubles,
5 low twenties
9 upper twenties
11 thirties
1 forty

Roll on the autumn when these carp really get their heads down and I can be writing about busy and successful weeks.

I will just end by saying that next year could see beds of pellet scoring well. With the other cyprinidsremoved this winter any baited spot will be homed in on by the carp and the cats because the only other species will be perch and black bass ( and maybe some zander if I can source them). I truly believe that we will see massive weight gains in these fish next year with the reduction in competition for the spring bloom in caddis and other naturals.

Whilst writing can I just say thank you to all of you who have supported us already this year and also to those still to sample our hospitality later in 2007. This will have been our best year ever so far and by the phenomenal amount of bookings already for 2008 it suggests that next year will be even busier. I am determined to stick rigidly to our original plan of 12 anglers per week maximum no matter how popular we get and we have, as a lot of you already know, introduced a system of closing the lake for a group booking of 10 and the option of having the lake exclusively for a group of 8. should any of you want details of either of these options give me a call. On top of this should any of you be considering returning to us next year, my advice would be to get some dates booked as soon as possible. I must also explain that, because of the amount of interest, we must nowstart a system whereby booked holidays can only be held without deposit payments for an absolute maximum of 2 weeks. Any holidays that have been booked but deposits not received after the two week period will be removed from the diary so that those dates are available again to other customers.

We have fallen foul of bookings not being paid for and then not taken up after we have already turned away other potential customers. Anyway, with the vidange (emptying) planned for November I am confident that 2008 will turn up some remarkable results. We are already seeing some unknown upper thirties coming through and thesemust be from the young originals which had been born in the lake just before we bought it. I have always thought that the future of any fishery is the young fish which grow up without being moved from one lake to another and I think next year will be the proof of this. As fishery owners we all need to buy big carp in order to provide the initial target fish but once the fishery is established I think it is a major benefit to then allow the youngsters to come through. They seem to hold their fitness throughout the season and continue to grow on whereas the big “purchased” fish go backwards before settling in and beginning to grow again.

In spite of this belief I am keeping an option on 2 suppliers of carp both of whom have large fish (one has Italians) on offer for the winter. I will keep you posted.See you again in 2 weeks.

Keith Moors.

< back to top >

MOORLANDS HISTORY
FISHERY AND FISH

This article has been quite some time in the planning and thinking stage and that in turn has been generated by quite a few of my customers, now good friends, remarking on the original “Live your dreams” articles an-d asking for a follow up. I’m not sure that this will ever be published in the magazines because it will probably be seen as being too much of an advertisement but it is truly a conglomeration of lots of discoveries and questions that have been uncovered as I have developed the fishery.

In order to start at the beginning I need to go back to mid 2001 when we first agreed to buy the lake. We were given details, and indeed photos, of the fish stock and we paid a premium price for the property because I believed that the fishery was virtually ready to roll and would only need “tweaking” to make it top class. We moved in in January 2002 and alarm bells began to ring when we found that even the light switches were missing. Anyway, we had been given to understand that there were several thirties and two forties already stocked by one of the previous owner’s friends. As soon as we were in I started to fish the lake while carrying out the normal decorating and other “simple” jobs such as building a dining lodge and cutting swims. In short I struggled to regularly catch fish above twenty pounds and discovered that the lake was teeming with low doubles and singles with the majority of them being commons. Eventually I did manage to catch a 32.00 lb mirror, a fish which is now named “The Slag” because everyone’s had her. It also became rapidly evident that the lake had millions of roach, crucians etc. and the decision was taken to empty it as soon as the 2002 season ended. In the meantime, in order to at least provide a reasonable quality of fishing we purchased 50 upper doubles and low twenties from a local fish farmer, M. Denderes.

As soon as October arrived we started the vidange with the assistance of Monsieur D and I can vividly remember the astonishment of seeing the fish spread across the mud as the water disappeared. The first result was confirmation that the promised big fish simply weren’t there. The only thirties were “The Slag”, which by now had dropped to 27.00 lb because of the use of tiger nuts and a beautifully plated carp of 34.00 lb which had never been landed. What weight had she been in her prime assuming that the tigers had made her lose weight in the same way? I made two major mistakes at this point, one was removing everything that wasn’t a carp and the second was not taking notice of the fish farmer. As we sorted the fish he informed me that some of the fish had the appearance of wild river carp, long and lean. I was worried that to remove these fish would reduce the stock to a level that would not provide sufficient action for the anglers. As it turned out the end result was that we left in too many carp and too many low doubles were caught during 2003. that was also the year that the carp spawned like I have never seen before and the water level dropped like I never want to see ever again. I had decided to empty the lake again to remove the small male or wild commons but this plan was immediately halted by the news that no vidanges would be allowed during 2003 because of the overall water levels. Without being able to drain the lake we decided to raise the level by building the overflow control higher by 12 inches. In fact we raised this again by another 6 inches and our calculations showed that over the surface area of the lake plus the extra water which is held back in the feeder streams we have added well over six million gallons to the volume.

We had to bite the bullet in order to provide reasonable quality fishing and in February 2003 we were told of a batch of carp for sale which included 30’s and 40’s. We drove half way across France to the Brenne national park and chose individual fish from the tanks of a “professional” fish producer. The fish had already been netted from his lakes and were corralled in concrete tanks. We then had to drive like maniacs to keep up with his delivery driver while water spewed from the doors of the van at every corner and roundabout. It was probably at this point that I started to question the system employed in order to provide or purchase carp in France, but more of that later.

Even though the lake was overstocked with carp we still noticed reasonable growth rates on the fish, probably because there weren’t any other species, except for a few roach as catfish food, to compete with and summer 2003 produced some regular captures of 30’s and the occasional 40. In November 2003 we had one of our farming friends suddenly turn up at the gate waving his arms about and telling us that there was a local lake being emptied and it should hold some big carp. We followed him to the site and arrived as the last of the fish were being scooped out of the mud of a five acre pond. We weren’t really ready to buy any more fish and couldn’t understand how this village had got permission to empty when nobody else could but there in the tanks were about ten beautiful mid twenties and one grass carp of about thirty pounds. The price they were asking was ridiculously low and I would have been stupid not to buy them. We raced home got the trailor with some tanks on the back and collected our new stock. To my surprise the fish started to grow immediately

2004 was a bloody nightmare with thousands of baby carp trying to eat everything that they could find. We added perch and catfish in an attempt to eat the problem away but we would have needed over 100 big cats to even make a dent in the numbers of carp. November 2004 arrived and this time we decided that we were going to be ruthless with the drain down and remove anything that wasn’t suitable for the anglers. We decided to do all the work ourselves and spent three weeks in chest waders netting individual fish as the water gradually dropped. At the final weekend we resorted to calling in M. Denderes again just to cart away over three and a half tons of baby carp. On top of this we removed all of the lean, male shaped carp which we thought were possibly the ones to which he had referred. The total of large carp (between 12 and 23 lb) removed was over 100 and, as M. Denderes had alluded to them possibly being river fish, we decided that the only fair thing to do was to return them to the river to live out the remainder of their lives. Once this work was complete we also purchased some more cats and a large quantity of big perch in order to eat any fry produced.

With the reduced stock levels 2005 produced some amazing growth rates and some spectacular catches. Forties became much more regular and we even began to see occasional fifties. These results helped to calm our nerves and proved that overstocked fisheries were certainly not the way to go. The decision was made to only purchase a few hand picked fish each year and these should replace any “natural losses.” During the summer of 2005 we decided that we had made another mistake by leaving in the roach and rudd. At the time the thinking behind this had been to provide food for the cats but the silver fish proved to be very adept at spawning and producing numerous offspring so the cats weren’t being caught. Simply they had more food than they could cope with and didn’t need to eat angler’s baits. Yet again we decided to drain down in December 2005 and remove the silver fish. Just before we were ready for the drain down we received a phone call from one of our French angling friends. Were we interested in some big carp that one of his friends was about to move from his pike lake. Obviously we were interested but why was he getting rid of them? Apparently he has a lake which he uses to produce pike for the table and he sells them to local restaurants. Because small carp are so cheap to buy he stocks the lake each year with fingerlings for the pike to eat but some evade being eaten and outgrow the predators. Every now and then he empties the lake and removes the carp. When I asked what he would do with them if we didn’t buy them the answer came back “Oh just throw them in the river.” Needless to say we looked at and bought the three upper thirties that he had on offer.

In the middle of our 2005 drain down action we were informed that there were a batch of wide mouth bass for sale at Tournus. On our trip to view these fish we passed the 5 acre pond which had been vidanged in 2003 and saw a sign giving the dates for another drain down. Apparently this pond is drained down every two years. Out of pure curiosity we attended the drain down and were astonished to see, and buy, another dozen mid twenties plus a couple of low thirties and one beautiful 38.00 lb mirror. I couldn’t believe my eyes and asked how on earth fish could reach this weight in two years to be told that the local people only buy the smaller carp (for the table) and the larger carp are put back to grow bigger after each vidange. This sounded feasible but during the previous vidange we had bought all of the big carp so any fish which were “put back” would not have been in the twenties range so where did these big fish come from? It was quite unusual to hear them say openly that “now that they had English anglers who wanted to buy large carp it was worth them keeping the big fish in the pond whereas in the past they would have been killed or put back into the river.” I couldn’t help wondering whether they had seen an opening to make an extra few bob and were “manipulating the rules to suit their pockets. There were certainly a good number of local anglers at each vidange.

Throughout 2006 the stocking levels seemed to work very well. The fish were packing on the weight and the anglers were catching numerous thirties and we even managed to bank exactly 100 forties so I was happy that we were now on the right route and would soon be a top flight carp fishery. I am now expecting 2007 to be very special and I can’t wait to see what top weights we eventually achieve.

Looking back I have some questions going through my mind, most of which I don’t have and probably don’t want answers to. When we go to “legitimately” purchase carp in France we don’t have a clue about their lineage. Where do they come from before we choose them from the stew ponds of a fish farmer? Has he really grown them on in his rearing ponds for the last eight years? Has he really just been and netted a private lake down the road? I have asked to be allowed to go with them to help with the netting and I am deterred each time with the excuse that if the owner sees an English lake owner he will put up the prices. Did the three thirties that we bought from one of our friends really develop from fry which were introduced to his friends pike pond as food fish and which then avoided being eaten and grew to be too big until he had to empty it? Where do the local villagers buy their stock fingerlings from to be able to grow to thirty pound plus in, let’s say, four to six years? I haven’t got answers to any of these and I’ll be honest, if I turn up at Etrigny for this years vidange and there are mid twenties and above again I won’t hesitate to buy them. From my past experiences I have discovered that the carp bought from small local ponds and then introduced into our 15 acre lake grow like you wouldn’t believe. It appears that they are stunted in the small pond and then given a massive boost with the extra room in our lake. Long may it continue but as a guide to the “Moorlands lineage” here are some of the known fish and their personal history.

“ The Slag”. My first thirty from the lake and one of the originals. Best weight in 2006, 37.04 lb.
“ Scaley”. The 34.00 lb uncaught plated mirror discovered at the 2002 vidange. Still not caught very often but best weight in 2006, 44.02 lb.
“ Arfur”. Bought as a mid twenty from the local pond in 2003 and best weight in 2006, 41.00 lb.
“ Waddle”. Bought from the Brenne fish farmer in February 2003 and now fifty plus.
“ Gilbert”. Bought from our friends pike producer at upper thirty and best weight in 2006, 47.04 lb.
“ Single Scale”. Bought as a thirty from the local pond, best weight in 2006, 46.08 lb.

hope you’ve enjoyed this potted history and also that you catch the fish of your dreams.

Keith Moors

< back to top >