Buying a carp lake in France – a few pointers…

Continuing our series of posts from lake owners detailing their experiences of moving to France & buying a carp lake here’s a post from Andrew, the owner of Molyneux ;

The beautiful Molyneux Lake

Learning French

Maybe a strange topic for venue management but if you’re living in France it’s goes without saying how important it is speak the local language. The good news is that it’s not a particular difficult language to pick up; the number of words that are the same in English and French but with a slightly different pronunciation is remarkable. The CD language sets and having lessons is a good way to start but there is nothing better than regularly speaking French to French people. The secret is to not be afraid to try to speak French. The French, will generally, make an effort to understand you if you make an effort to speak French and it’s surprising how much more helpful they can be if you speak French!

Rules and Bans

It’s a bit like being the England manager; everybody has an opinion and thinks they could do a better job!

The rules and bans aren’t there to make your week difficult or to stop you catching fish, as some people seem to think, but in order to protect the fish stock, which after all is what we venue owners depend upon for a livelihood. The rules have to presume that the angler know very little as not all anglers are highly experienced and even the more experienced ones can make mistakes at times. Sometimes there are rules that’s you might disagree with, not all venues have the same rules but we know our venues and fish better than most and try our best to make the correct choice for fish welfare as we see it and keep rules and bans to as few as possible.

French Law

France is famous for many things, red wine, good food and red tape. The latter is certainly a national favourite! Over a quarter of the French working population is employed by local government and they need to be kept busy, so every thing needs to be signed, taken somewhere for else for a stamp, brought back to be rechecked and finally posted to somebody else by recorded post which means a trip to the post office, another form to be filled in, stamped and then signed. When you ask somebody why even the simplest form takes hours to complete they answer C’est la vie!

French Food

When I asked the French chef that produces the evening meals for the anglers at my venue why French cuisine has the reputation of being so much better than English cuisine I got the simple response

“The English eat to live and the French live to eat”

As I walked away I though of all the disgusting things the French eat, Frogs legs, Snails and Veal’s head to name just a few. The problem is they’re all simply delicious! If you go to France for a holiday I urge you to go to a local bistro and try some of the French classic dishes, you be very surprised as they will be truly delicious and not expensive. Trust me, I’ve put a lot of weigh on since moving to France!

All the best, Andrew Molyneux

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