Notaires lake in its summer glory…
2010 was our first year with Angling Lines. We have two venues, Alder Lake and Notaire’s House and Lake, on our 75 acre estate in Creuse, in central France.
And it was a great inaugural year. Notaire’s was booked for odd weeks off season, and pretty much solidly from May to September. This was sensational as far as we were concerned.
Andy with a 38lb’er caught in April
We’d operated independently before joining the Angling Lines fold, and getting butts into bivvies round our lakes was tough going, believe me! However, now that we have Angling Line’s professional publicity machine behind us, and their wonderful team taking reservations and handling queries, well, we’ve moved up a shelf in the hypermarkets. (The cheapest hard-discount stuff lives on the bottom one!)
We met some great people last year. I received endless help with looking after our guinea pigs, rabbits, goats, llamas and alpacas from our younger visitors. Natasha, Jack, Rachel, Ruth and Kiera in particular will all be brilliant llama farmers in years to come!
The chickens made loads of new friends. Our cockerel’s favourite was Jill, while Sham, our giant white chicken, sadly now RIP after four years of ruling the roost, followed Eamon everywhere and even shared his sausages!
The cats loved everyone and are still living off the fat they accumulated from being spoilt by our kind guests.
Work on the pool begins…
The swimming pool proved very popular, the water temperature reaching into the high twenties. We hope to keep an even hotter average temperature this year with additional solar heating.
We have been busy adding tourism points of interest on the POI page and so far have documented 39 items for you to visit. Don’t forget to take a look.
Matt with the 41.07 complex record
Fishing wise, many people went home with a new PB and nobody blanked. Notaire’s lake record was broken twice – Andy caught a 38lb’er in March, but Matt beat him in August with a 41.5lb’er. That was a very pleasant surprise for us as we hadn’t expected the fish to have reached that size after three years.
The ladies were not left out of the fishing action and Jill landed a 37lb carp, beating her son Justin. It is good to see that our lakes are healthy, and the oxygenated stream-fed waters produce truly impressive fighting fish. Well done lads and ladies!
This winter we’re doing some de-snagging and willow trimming around Notaire’s lakes, and generally tidying up the banks. The battle with the moles is going our way, thanks to a fiendish device from the hardware store. I don’t have any ill will towards the little creatures and we are happy to co-exist in the other 74 acres, but they have dug so many holes in the dam wall I was afraid of springing a leak!
The finished pool
Whenever the lakes aren’t frozen, we’re feeding the carp so they keep their strength up and are fighting fit come spring. Notaire’s House is getting a new shower. The bookings are rolling in for 2011 so we’re looking forward to another exciting and busy year with Angling Lines. Perhaps we’ll see you?
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