Possibly our biggest catch from Lake Meillant?

Hi David,
Well, what can I say about our week?

We thought last years result might have been an exceptional freak week, after all we caught in excess of 180 fish. This year, despite the hot weather France has been enjoying, we decided to revisit the lake determined to catch even more and if possible break the 200 mark.

Despite our high hopes of a repeat performance I thought that the hot conditions would probably prevent us. Michael the bailiff told us that the hot dry conditions had made the fishing harder and that the lake had seen little, if any rain in months.

Little did he know that we would bring our own rain with us, within hours of arriving we managed to break the drought and turn our little part of France into Northern England, wet, cloudy and a lot cooler.

As a result, the fishing was fantastic, we caught from all over the lake and at all sorts of ranges on a variety of baits, rigs and methods.
Although a large proportion of the fish were caught at night and early morning, we also caught well during the days.

One angler alone managed 78 fish, another 61. In total, between 5 anglers we managed 192 fish, the breakdown being as follows:

1 x 50
12 x 40s (several over 45lb to 48lb)
70 x 30s (with many over 35lb)
86 x 20s
14 doubles
9 catfish, biggest weighed 74lb, an even bigger fish was put back unweighed.

To say we enjoyed ourselves would be the understatement of the year!

Fishing at Meillant puts a whole new meaning to drive and survive. Due to the constant heavy spombing, lack of sleep and prolonged hard fights put up by the fish we all managed to discover muscles we never new existed.

Even though we caught so many fish, we were really pleased with the size and condition of the fish caught, 83 fish bigger than 30lbs, 12 of which weighed in excess of 40lb and 1 over 50lb says it all. I’m fairly sure that many of these will be even bigger in a few weeks as the feeding conditions improve.

Thanks for a great holiday, we will be back in the future when who knows, maybe we’ll break the 200 mark.

Kind Regards,
Alan Woolhead

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