Many of you will have read the live reports I made from the waterside at Domaine Des Iles last week. A week that was brilliant if you like hot, calm weather and sitting in the sunshine all day supping wine and lager with the occasional tot of whisky. 
But if you just wanted to catch fish then it wasn’t so good, for the carp in DDI, like carp everywhere really, feed best when the weather is dull and windy. The only day we had like that was on Thursday, the last day of the holiday and arriving too late for most of us.
There were 15 of us on the lake, spread all around it, with two on the back lake happy enough to get more runs but with far less chance of hooking into carp of over 40lb.
Ed and I had a chalet up one arm of the lake, an incredibly comfortable situation but not really renowned as a good swim.
But boy, did we enjoy sitting there on the patio and the grassed banks sipping our refreshments, watching the wildlife, of which there is plenty, and hoping for a run. It was heaven and could only have been bettered if we’d had more fish.
As you know from the live reports we were dogged with dropped fish and missed runs, as were many of the others around the lake. We all had our theories as to why this was happening, ranging from putting it down to the recently stocked catfish, to my own pet theory that it was simply because they weren’t feeding well and hookholds (when we got one) were only skin-deep. We’ll never know, but it never does any harm to examine the evidence and see if there is anything you can do about it in future when faced with a similar situation.
Mainline Activ 8 boilies were taken by most, being as they’ve done well on the lake before. 
We took some too, but the our best bait by far was a Caviar and Black Pepper boilie we bought from the Mr Wriggles company. I would say that 95% of the runs we had, successful or otherwise, came to this boilie.
Highlight of the week for us was Ed getting his personal best carp at 30lb 2oz. We had a celebration drink or two I can tell you, and we were glad that the wine in France is cheap. I’ve had my fair share of big carp from the lake in previous years so it was fitting that Ed should take the best fish this year.
Best fish of the week was a 45lb 8oz mirror caught by Bob. What makes this carp even better is that it was netted at 7am on the last morning, when we have to be off the water before 10am – and, Bob’s previous personal best carp weighed just 7lb! 
Alex did well too, with a PB mirror at 40lb 4oz and a PB common at 33lb 8oz, plus three other 20’s. Pictures of these fish can be seen when I receive them. 
One other 30 was caught by Mattie, and the rest of us either blanked or caught fish to 20-odd pounds.
It’s a lovely place to fish though. It gives you a genuine chance of a carp weighing over 50lb, it doesn’t cost the earth, and it’s only two hours from Calais. 
Take a look at the DDI web site for more details: Domaine Des Iles
