Phil, Ben, Andy and Garry are a group of friends that each year have an annual get together on a French lake for a weeks holiday. They put a lot of thought into the selection of their venue and we were delighted that for 2008 they chose Sweet Chestnut Lake.

It was previously agreed that we would position the 4 double-bivvies close together in the centre of the lake so that the guys could fan their rods out using our boat and be close enough to have a social. This proved to be a very good idea as all the captures were witnessed by the group.

They kicked off by piling in a huge amount of particles, pellets and hempseed into the margins and carefully placing their rigs on top. Phil had a low 20 on the bank just a few minutes after settling down and the highlight of the first night was a beautiful nicely-scaled 35lb mirror to Andy.

In the next couple of days further Royale carp graced the bank all 20's and 30's. One particular low 30, a really handsome specimen, fell to Andy and stole the show by displaying an erect dorsal the whole time it was out of the water, and when it was being released

Then Garry had a one-toner run which resulted in a very powerful fish being hooked, it turned out to be a fabulous, long scaly original mirror of 17lb 8oz. Not a huge fish, but a nice contrast to the Royales.

4 days in, Tuesday 10th June, turned out to be a very special day indeed. Phil broke both our carp and catfish records in under 18 hours. Amazing angling

The carp, a gorgeous deep-bodied mirror of 46lb, was taken at 5.30am on artificial corn fished over a large bed of mixed particles, including hempseed.

The catfish, a nicely-coloured and plump 49lb 4oz, was tempted at 10.30pm on a Steamer Baits fishmeal and liver boilie, presented amongst some free offerings.

Both fish were lured from the far margins of the lake under tree canopies with semi-fixed rigs.

We have kept 2 bottles of Champagne in the fridge since March, in case either of the records should go, but despite some near misses the bubbly has remained in storage.On this occasion we found ourselves presenting a delighted Phil with both bottles.

The action didn’t stop there, the guys went on to catch further 20’s and 30’s. The highlights being a very chunky 39lb mirror to Phil, and 3 hungry catfish of 32lb 8oz, 32lb and 28lb, 2 of these falling to Ben’s rods

At the end of the week the 4 anglers had got through almost 150kg of bait, which included cooked maize, crushed maize, mixed seeds, hempseed, pellets, sweetcorn, boilies and a small amount of Vitalin.

In our guest book the guys wrote............ " easy to summarise our stay here, excellent! - everything spot on".

A family of hoopoes are currently on the lake spending a lot of time on the banks catching insects. They have an erratic bounding flight action, reminiscent of a giant butterfly. When alarmed on the ground they raise their crests

angling at sweet chestnut lake - carp fishing lake in france