Mademoiselles and Bells

The Notre Dame, Paris

It’s official!

A circular from the French Prime Minister’s office on 21st February has decreed that the term Mademoiselle (Miss) is to be phased out of official documentation. France has never had an equivalent of Ms so it’s always been a choice between Madame or Mademoiselle. (Men have only ever had the choice of Monsieur.)

However, feminist groups such as Osez le feminisme and Chiennes de garde are a little suspicious. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to realise that this has happened all of a sudden just before la Presidentielle(presidential elections). Is it just vote grabbing, or is it kosher? We’ll have to wait and see if it is properly implemented. The women’s groups also hope that everyone will follow the government’s lead and stop using Miss.

The circular also says that the demand for maiden names on official forms should be eliminated too. Darn skippy it should. What you used to be called before you got married has no relevance to anything, and certainly not to setting up a business or paying your cotisations or opening an electricity account. It’s your current name that matters, regardless of if you’ve kept your own surname or taken your partner’s. I for one finding it infuriating to get letters from French administration addressed to me as Stephanie Oakley. That’s not me. I stopped being her 25 years ago when I became Stephanie Dagg. I was perfectly happy to take on Chris’s surname and such was my choice. So it’s irritating when some foreign bureaucrat overrides it!

I dare say it will take a while for this change to come through fully, but it’s all for the good.

And now the bells. As part of the celebrations for its 850th birthday next year, Notre Dame in Paris, which Caiti and I visited the other week, is getting new bells. Its original ones were melted down in 1791 and 1792 to make canons during the French revolutionary wars. More than sixty years later, in 1856 the cathedral got some new bells, but they didn’t make the same sound as their predecessors. So they’re going. Nine new ones have been commissioned. They’ll be made from tin and copper and recapture the authentic sound of Notre Dame’s carillon. Go to the website www.notredamedeparis.fr and you can download an MP3 file to give you an idea what the bells will sound like. Rather nice, I think.

Steph Dagg, Fishing Holidays at Notaires

Carp Fishing in France – What Ferry Should You Choose?

Before you opt for one particular cross-channel route you need to consider 4 important aspects.  The prices vary greatly and by taking a few minutes to consider these 4 aspects you can ensure you make the right decision and neither waste your money or time!

1. Costs  Vs. Drive Time
2. Comfort
3. Frequency of sailings
4. Reliability

• Costs

First look at a map to check the distances from your home to the UK port and then from the French port to your destination.  In other words take a good look where you are coming from and where you are going to.

Then look at the price differences on the different crossings and weigh this up against the extra fuel and any motorway toll charges you may incur by choosing a particular port.  You can do this by using your customer area on our website (we use Google Maps) or many other public websites such as the AA or Viamichelin.

If you live a fair distance from the UK ports then consider first and foremost the Portsmouth, Poole and Plymouth sailings.  These are expensive in comparison to the short sea crossings, but with overnight ferries and fast craft options they can help break up a long journey.  It lets you get some sleep and eats up the miles with little effort.

If you live in Yorkshire, or on the East coast above the Wash, then take a look at the Hull – Zeebrugger sailings.  This can cut 3 to 4 hours off the drive down to Dover and means you get off to an early start on the other side.  However, I would only recommend this crossing for travel to lakes on the Eastern or central part of France, for example Roseau, Beaurepaire, Boux, Alder, Notaires etc.

If you are travelling to the South of France (on the western side) then another option is thePortsmouth/Plymouth to Bilboa/Santander ferries run by Brittany ferries.  These ports in Northern Spain can really reduce the overall drive time; the down side is that they are very expensive but the upside is they are really like a mini-cruise with swimming pool, cinema and entertainment on board, so you can view it as an extension to your holiday.  The ship also passes through the Bay of Biscay and this gives you a great opportunity for dolphin or whale watching.

If it’s speed you’re after then the tunnel is the one – just 35 mins to get across to France.  For those who hate the thought of ferries, Eurotunnel offers a very fast crossing which can give you a head start versus the ferries, which for a similar crossing are around an hour longer.  You can walk around inside the train, but there is no food or drinks onboard , so for comfort it wouldn’t come top.  However, the terminals either side do offer plenty of cafes and shops.

• Comfort

Overnight ferries offer several comfort options from reclining seats to 2 and 4 berth cabins through to luxury cabins which have their own shower and toilet facilities.

The reclining seats are sited in what is known as a “quiet room”.  However, my own experience in these areas is not good because they’re only as ‘quiet ‘as the person who is snoring next to you, or the baby crying or kids giggling or arguing!  These seats are normally compulsory to book on overnight crossings if you don’t have a cabin but as an alternative to using them you can always just find a bench seat somewhere and settle down, just as long as you’re not blocking a fire exit etc.

All ferries offer coffee shops and a choice of restaurants on board.  Prices have come down in recent times and the food is probably of a higher standard than most would expect.   Duty free still exists and the shops on board also offer a last minute chance to buy the emergency stuff the French say you have to have when travelling in France, such as warning triangles, reflective jackets etc.

One other thing to mention here is the ferry size.  Over the past few years the tendency has been to build bigger, super ferries.  This has had the effect of reducing the overall number of sailings, but they offer many more facilities and because of their size they roll less in rough seas – a real positive if you are prone to sea-sickness.

• Frequency of sailings

On all the routes the frequency of sailings vary throughout the year, but the Dover – Calais route always offer the most  with crossings every hour or so.  Eurotunnel can have up to three crossings an hour which makes them the most frequent.

If you miss a ferry or arrive earlier than your planned time, they do try to be flexible and will make every effort, subject to availability, to get you on the next available crossing.

The longer haul ferries fall down a bit here, as they run only 3 or 4 times in the day and at peak times have little spare capacity.  So catching your allotted ferry on these routes is much more important!  If you miss a Brittany ferry it may be possible to switch your crossing to another port, as they operate from several northern ports (Caen, Cherbourg, St Malo and Roscoff).

• Reliability

In 10 years of booking ferries I can tell you that most offer an extremely reliable service.  They also have reciprocal arrangements with each other so that if a ferry company has an issue (strikes, bad weather or breakdown) you are issued with a voucher and another company would take you over.  This happened to me once when French unions blockaded the port.  Within 20 minutes I was heading along to Eurotunnel with my voucher and was over in no time.  It works the other way too, so if Eurotunnel have an issue then you get the option to cross via a ferry in the same way.

The weather factor can creep in at any time of year but it’s more common in winter so doesn’t affect most carp anglers.  The Fast Craft ferries (Portsmouth – Caen) are especially vulnerable to weather conditions as they are smaller ships and sometimes can be withdrawn.  In these cases they would put you on the nearest alternative.

If you book a crossing after September they can occasionally be prone to cancellation, as they won’t sail if it’s not cost effective.  However, to be fair they do give a good amount of notice and don’t just tell you when you arrive.

So to sum it up… take a few minutes to choose the right crossing and you can save money, time and stress.

Bridget Dawson

Carp Fishing in France

Draining Down a Carp Lake – Things You Must Know

Before you can either net a carp lake in France lake, or dig out the silt, you have to have a total or part drain down of water… so you need to know how to pull the plug!  It’s a fairly easy process here at Bletiere – with a bit of snooping around you should find it OK.

Our drain point

Just as importantly try and ask around the locals (or previous owner) if anyone knows how long the lake takes to refill.  This is really important if you’ve ordered more carp following the netting – it’s no good ordering fish only to find out that the lake takes weeks to refill.  This can be the case if it’s not spring fed… then you’ll be hoping for rain, & lots of it!

These pictures show our overflow pipe and where the water flows into the stream below the lake.

The outflow point

There are a lot of rules for doing a drain down and these have been covered in previous blogs , but you must seek permission with the appropriate authorities before doing one.  I have already been told that to do another drain down I would need to build a proper brick wall at the drain point and install a mesh gate to stop any fish getting out of the lake and into the stream, so always check before proceeding.

Fishing holidays in France at Bletiere

2011 Catch Analysis for Notaire’s Carp Lake in France

It can be difficult to deduce the trends from the catch reports at a family venue like Notaire’s since the angler usually isn’t fishing as flat out when compared to a Drive and Survive venue. Whilst there were a couple of difficult weeks, both of which occurred after massive temperature swings (seeing as much as 10 degrees increase per day),we are very pleased to report that yet again no one blanked at Notaire’s.  (Chris reaches down to tap the wooden table!)

The chart of the best fish reported shows that, apart from a couple of outliers from the very hot days, most anglers landed a best fish between 35 and 40lb.

Equally this wasn’t at the expense of the total catch (remember, very few family anglers can fish 24/7.) Dave Mutton landed the best result with a catch of 33 carp, closely followed by the Hayden party with 85 carp between 3 anglers.

It’s not so easy to chart the distribution of the fish as the catch returns sometimes came as numbers of fish and sometimes as total weights of fish caught. However, the table above shows that the major cohort lies in the 20-30lb range and that there is a significant number of fish in the 30-40lb range. Our winter feeding programme should see plenty more of this latter group of fish moving into the 40lb+ bracket.

In conclusion, we hope to see you at Notaire’s where you can enjoy arm-aching fights with the younger fish, have the chance to better your PB with carp in the 40lb range, and spend quality time with your family.

At Notaire’s you can have your cake and eat it!

Fishing Holidays in France at Notaires.

Carp Fishing – Tips For Fishing From Staging

Paul Cooper gives you tips on how to fish effectively from staging;

Do You Feed Your Carp In The Winter?

Great fin colour on this Bletiere common – a result of the food it eats?

“Do you feed your carp in winter?”

I often get asked this by guests taking their fishing holidays here at Bletiere – with what and when do I feed the carp, especially in the winter, and how do I know how much to put in?

Luckily I had a lot of experience in the uk before we moved because I kept koi.  Now I don’t claim to be a koi expert, but when you spend up to £300 for a koi that’s only 6 inches long you soon learn to read books and seek out advice and  join clubs where you can learn so much from other enthusiasts.

The hobby of koi keeping is a great way to be able to watch and observe how fish react and behave.  I have to be honest and say it was a great way to see if fish liked the bait you planned to use up the local lake.  Being able to watch fish all year round it gave you a great opportunity to observe the feeding habits of fish and also the way they fed.  It also taught you when to feed and gave you a great insight into how much food to put in.

The big advantage to a large garden pond is that you can see what’s not eaten but also get back out any food that’s left.  In a murky lake you don’t have those luxuries and overfeeding can soon lead to all sorts of problems, not just in garden ponds but in lakes as well.  With my koi hobby I was in the position that I could afford to buy the best food and the best treatments for my fish, but in a lake and running a business you have to be more money focused and remember its your living.

So we moved to France and I suddenly had a very big garden pond and a lot of very hungry big carp that needed feeding all year round!  This is where for me my 20 years koi keeping experience came good.  I also had a lot of friends who were in the fish business to call on for help and advice.  While we waited for our fish to be delivered I went about sourcing a supply of carp pellets to use as feed and to obviously supplement the natural food in the lake that was never going to be enough to sustain the growth we wanted for our fish.  After a lot of internet surfing and seeking advice from whoever I could find I decided on a company that specialized in animal feeds and fish food for fish farmers.  The one I chose had the balance of the food in the ingredients I wanted and they were a competitive price – the only down side was you had to order a ton at a time…& that hits the bank balance!

The Ingredients in Our Carp Pellets

There is a lot of talk about fish foods especially in the koi hobby area and you would regularly see a super new high growth food with loads of secret ingredients in them.  To be honest over the years I often made the mistake of buying them & I learnt that most of them were a waste of money.  Frankly they were no better than some of the cheaper foods. 
You can see from the photo above of our pellet sack label that the balance of the food in these pellets is good (trust me, it is) and it has all you need in a pellet to ensure your fish get a boost with their diet.  You can then supplement the pellets with other foods – more of this later.

When we lived in Bournemouth I was lucky enough to meet and become good friends with a guy who ran a koi shop.  He only sold top quality fish and foods, and it was from him that I learnt some of the ways to save money and still give your fish the best. The one thing he would always  lecture his customers about was the amount of protein a fish can absorb in the time it’s in its body before its passed out, and he always said anything over 34% protein was a waste of your money as the fish does not have time to take more before nature takes it course.

Just as an aside, and me rambling a bit, if you keep koi in the UK don’t buy the expensive koi foods – try “Go Cat” dry cat food in the fish flavors.  If you don’t believe me look at the ingredients on the box and then compare to the box of koi food you use that probably cost 2 or 3 times more!  I used it all the time for my koi and they loved it and it never did them any harm.  The carp in our lake love them as well.  It contains most essential ingredients pond fish need to grow and be content.

Back to France now and the feeding of our carp.  I’ve told you about the pellets I use, not cheap that’s for sure, but it was a way that I was certain the fish were getting some help with their feeding.   But then I had a lucky break.
I was lucky enough to one day to find a fish farm near to us.  He’s the guy I buy all my carp from.  His name is Sebastian & he owns Blue Lake ( I introduced him to Angling Lines & Blue Lake is open to anglers for the first time this year).  It’s from Sebastian that I learnt something that saves me a lot of money in food… and makes for better looking fish.


On one of our  fish buying trip’s I happened to ask Sebastian what pellets he fed to his fish, as I thought they might be cheaper than the ones I use.  He looked at me surprised and said with all his lakes he could not afford to feed pellets and he only fed “mais casse”, which is crushed up French maize.

Sebastian then showed me his stock… he had a barn full of it!  He went onto explain how he feeds –  simply row a boat out into the lake and tip 25kgs sacks of the uncooked maize into the lake.

This maize is really crushed small, so please don’t think it’s like the whole uncooked maize that he’s tipping into the lake.  It’s definitely not and that would be extremely dangerous for the carp (and your health if you got caught!)
I actually saw Sebastian feeding the fish at Blue Lake once and he just tipped in 150kgs of the stuff, left it for a few days and then checked if it had been eaten – which it had.

This seemed too good a way to save money on feeding to ignore, so I checked with a few friends in the UK.  One of them had a friend who was a lecture at a famous college that teaches fish management and also carries out studies on fish feeding and production to help poorer countries.  He confirmed to me that maize was a great source of food for carp, as was wheat, as they both helped develop the muscles in fish and don’t  just bloat the fish out, producing those fat, ugly (my view only) carp you see that are fed kilos of boilies.  As an added advantage it also produces amazing colours in the carp as well – take a look at the photo at the start of this post to see what I mean.

So armed with all this information I now feed my fish a mixture of both.  I do boil my seed  as the wheat has to be softened.  It  helps with growth, makes the fish grow leaner with more muscle and, especially in the commons, gives rise to great colour in the fins.

I feed the fish daily even when it’s cold. I have to be honest and say that the amount of food I put in is nowhere near enough to feed all our carp as the college told me that you should feed 10% of the biomass of the fish a day, or in other words 10% of the weight of fish.  As you can imagine that would be a lot of food and costs.

I believe I have got the feeding just about correct as we are achieving some great weight gains and some stunning looking carp, especially the commons (my favorites).

The pellets are a slow dissolving pellets so that gives the carp a chance to find them. I sell them to our guest as feed as it makes sense to bait up with something the fish know as a food source.  We get a lot of fish caught on them as they stay on the hair for a long time.  I sell them at a good price as I would rather know what’s going in the lake than a lot of cheap pellets that do not do the fish or water quality much good.

I hope this has been of interest and will answer one of the questions that I get asked often.  Tight lines and look forward to seeing some of you soon,

John, La Bletiere

Do You Feed Your Carp In The Winter?

Great fin colour on this Bletiere common – a result of the food it eats?

“Do you feed your carp in winter?”

I often get asked this by guests taking their fishing holidays here at Bletiere – with what and when do I feed the carp, especially in the winter, and how do I know how much to put in?

Luckily I had a lot of experience in the uk before we moved because I kept koi.  Now I don’t claim to be a koi expert, but when you spend up to £300 for a koi that’s only 6 inches long you soon learn to read books and seek out advice and  join clubs where you can learn so much from other enthusiasts.

The hobby of koi keeping is a great way to be able to watch and observe how fish react and behave.  I have to be honest and say it was a great way to see if fish liked the bait you planned to use up the local lake.  Being able to watch fish all year round it gave you a great opportunity to observe the feeding habits of fish and also the way they fed.  It also taught you when to feed and gave you a great insight into how much food to put in.

The big advantage to a large garden pond is that you can see what’s not eaten but also get back out any food that’s left.  In a murky lake you don’t have those luxuries and overfeeding can soon lead to all sorts of problems, not just in garden ponds but in lakes as well.  With my koi hobby I was in the position that I could afford to buy the best food and the best treatments for my fish, but in a lake and running a business you have to be more money focused and remember its your living.

So we moved to France and I suddenly had a very big garden pond and a lot of very hungry big carp that needed feeding all year round!  This is where for me my 20 years koi keeping experience came good.  I also had a lot of friends who were in the fish business to call on for help and advice.  While we waited for our fish to be delivered I went about sourcing a supply of carp pellets to use as feed and to obviously supplement the natural food in the lake that was never going to be enough to sustain the growth we wanted for our fish.  After a lot of internet surfing and seeking advice from whoever I could find I decided on a company that specialized in animal feeds and fish food for fish farmers.  The one I chose had the balance of the food in the ingredients I wanted and they were a competitive price – the only down side was you had to order a ton at a time…& that hits the bank balance!

The Ingredients in Our Carp Pellets

There is a lot of talk about fish foods especially in the koi hobby area and you would regularly see a super new high growth food with loads of secret ingredients in them.  To be honest over the years I often made the mistake of buying them & I learnt that most of them were a waste of money.  Frankly they were no better than some of the cheaper foods.

You can see from the photo above of our pellet sack label that the balance of the food in these pellets is good (trust me, it is) and it has all you need in a pellet to ensure your fish get a boost with their diet.  You can then supplement the pellets with other foods – more of this later.

When we lived in Bournemouth I was lucky enough to meet and become good friends with a guy who ran a koi shop.  He only sold top quality fish and foods, and it was from him that I learnt some of the ways to save money and still give your fish the best. The one thing he would always  lecture his customers about was the amount of protein a fish can absorb in the time it’s in its body before its passed out, and he always said anything over 34% protein was a waste of your money as the fish does not have time to take more before nature takes it course.

Just as an aside, and me rambling a bit, if you keep koi in the UK don’t buy the expensive koi foods – try “Go Cat” dry cat food in the fish flavors.  If you don’t believe me look at the ingredients on the box and then compare to the box of koi food you use that probably cost 2 or 3 times more!  I used it all the time for my koi and they loved it and it never did them any harm.  The carp in our lake love them as well.  It contains most essential ingredients pond fish need to grow and be content.

Back to France now and the feeding of our carp.  I’ve told you about the pellets I use, not cheap that’s for sure, but it was a way that I was certain the fish were getting some help with their feeding.   But then I had a lucky break.

I was lucky enough to one day to find a fish farm near to us.  He’s the guy I buy all my carp from.  His name is Sebastian & he owns Blue Lake ( I introduced him to Angling Lines & Blue Lake is open to anglers for the first time this year).  It’s from Sebastian that I learnt something that saves me a lot of money in food… and makes for better looking fish.

On one of our  fish buying trip’s I happened to ask Sebastian what pellets he fed to his fish, as I thought they might be cheaper than the ones I use.  He looked at me surprised and said with all his lakes he could not afford to feed pellets and he only fed “mais casse”, which is crushed up French maize.

Sebastian then showed me his stock… he had a barn full of it!  He went onto explain how he feeds –  simply row a boat out into the lake and tip 25kgs sacks of the uncooked maize into the lake.

This maize is really crushed small, so please don’t think it’s like the whole uncooked maize that he’s tipping into the lake.  It’s definitely not and that would be extremely dangerous for the carp (and your health if you got caught!)

I actually saw Sebastian feeding the fish at Blue Lake once and he just tipped in 150kgs of the stuff, left it for a few days and then checked if it had been eaten – which it had.

This seemed too good a way to save money on feeding to ignore, so I checked with a few friends in the UK.  One of them had a friend who was a lecture at a famous college that teaches fish management and also carries out studies on fish feeding and production to help poorer countries.  He confirmed to me that maize was a great source of food for carp, as was wheat, as they both helped develop the muscles in fish and don’t  just bloat the fish out, producing those fat, ugly (my view only) carp you see that are fed kilos of boilies.  As an added advantage it also produces amazing colours in the carp as well – take a look at the photo at the start of this post to see what I mean.

So armed with all this information I now feed my fish a mixture of both.  I do boil my seed  as the wheat has to be softened.  It  helps with growth, makes the fish grow leaner with more muscle and, especially in the commons, gives rise to great colour in the fins.

I feed the fish daily even when it’s cold. I have to be honest and say that the amount of food I put in is nowhere near enough to feed all our carp as the college told me that you should feed 10% of the biomass of the fish a day, or in other words 10% of the weight of fish.  As you can imagine that would be a lot of food and costs.

I believe I have got the feeding just about correct as we are achieving some great weight gains and some stunning looking carp, especially the commons (my favorites).

The pellets are a slow dissolving pellets so that gives the carp a chance to find them. I sell them to our guest as feed as it makes sense to bait up with something the fish know as a food source.  We get a lot of fish caught on them as they stay on the hair for a long time.  I sell them at a good price as I would rather know what’s going in the lake than a lot of cheap pellets that do not do the fish or water quality much good.

I hope this has been of interest and will answer one of the questions that I get asked often.  Tight lines and look forward to seeing some of you soon,

John, La Bletiere