After a long and very wet winter, spring is here. 

Weather has been and still is very changeable. From January to early April, we had heavy rain, almost every day. All that water was welcome because after the very hot 2017 summer the lake level had lost about 2 feet of water (nothing too bad since the average depth is around 11/12 feet). Then quickly the weather turned really hot (up to 32°C) and pushed the fish to start to spawn. After 2 days, temperatures dropped to 17°C and stopped the fish spawning.

Early May, high pressures, hot temperatures and almost no wind during a few days restarted the spawning action. Then again temperatures dropped quickly within a few days and stopped them again.

Finally, in early June, the weather turned very wet and windy, with many thunder storms bringing huge rainfalls.

All those factors affected the fishing. Despite those bad weather conditions, some weeks produced some big fish and PB's.


Rigs and Trailing Lines

Some anglers as the feedback states have been pestered with one liners and have assumed its the sturgeon. In fact, I believe the main reason so many were being experienced is because of the rigs being towed around by some carp.

We were appalled at the nature of some of the rigs (one being glued) and also the type of rig that was used being banned. We are dismayed that the trust we place in anglers to fish responsibly has been spoiled by the stupidity of a few. However, we now back to making random checks on rigs to ensure the safety of the carp. For example, Mike Winstone has reported 4 different carp were swimming with other rig in the mouth - those rigs were not safe at all. The rubber connector holding the lead on the lead clip was very tight and impossible to eject, meaning any carp hooked on that rig, despite the barbless hook, has almost no chance to escape safely. A few other bad rigs have been discovered in mouth of the carp including an in-line rig with a swivel too big plugged strongly deep inside the rubber that would have never dropped the lead.

Also a couple of running rigs looking good at the first view, but a rubber stop was placed about to 2 feet over the lead, making lead release impossible.


Sturgeon and Grass Carp

To satisfy some of you, we have decided to remove one more sturgeon, that means only 3 left, all weighing between 60 and 70lb.

We are aware some weeks the sturgeon are very active and produce liners, but in our opinion it can be explained by a heavy pellets baiting. Then during several weeks in a row, they are quiet. When we first opened the fishery, they were 11 of them, but over the last few years, we reduced the number, following anglers requests. We can't do much more than this, some anglers want to catch them, but also, they are useful to clean the bottom of the lake.

We also keep removing small grass carp (20/30lber), but a strong majority of them are now weighing between 40 and mid 50 ( a 51 and 2 X 46lber out this week).

 

The Fishing So Far This Season

Now regarding the fishing itself, some good haul has been reported some weeks with 26 fish out, 24 fish, 27 fish etc... with plenty of PB's, in all species: mirror, common, catfish, grass carp, sturgeon, tench, and even big crucian carp.

Last week, the famous fish called "the fully scaled" (not really fully but it is her name lol), has been landed, spawn out at 51lb10oz.

Chris Kirk party had a good time catching 26 fish and a few PB's up to 57lb12oz.

In March, the lake record common has been broken with a 55lb12oz. Many 40lb+ and 50lb+ fish have been landed in carp, grass, sturgeon and catfish.

The average grass carp is now reaching easily 40lb+ with many specimen between 45 and 56lb.

Monster catfish have been lost in the last few weeks after sometimes 2 hours of fight! Two weeks ago, Mark Woodcock played twice monster catfish and lost them both after an hour and two hour of fight each, but finally caught one at 90lb which is the smallest in the lake!

He was also happy to land a 52lb2oz common, a 51lb10oz mirror, a 46lb4oz grass carp and a few other carp.

As people use to say, on Laroussi, you never know what's coming next! It could be one of the lake records: 76lb mirror, 55lb12oz common, 65lb half linear, 35lb zip linear, 62lb two tone mirror, 56lb grass carp, 73lb12oz sturgeon, 175lb catfish, the WR tench 15lb5oz and why not the 7lb crucian carp??

We are hoping to meet some good weather conditions in the next few weeks to help anglers plenty of fish. 

Tight lines