On a cold December morning the chap turned up to bring me the next lot of fish. These were to be mostly the young double figure carp stocked to ensure the long term future of the fishery. It's all very well having big fish but most thirties are knocking on a bit and if the waters are to progress young blood is needed. I therefore added about 50 doubles from 14-18 pounds to each lake. Also in the lot were a number of larger fish from 20-32 pounds. A couple of very nice fish a 32 pound mirror and a 26 pound common. I also received the rest of the catfish. The smallest around the 12 pound mark the majority around 16 pounds with half a dozen fish between 20 and 35 pounds.

I had previously asked all my suppliers to keep an eye out for any commons as I was interested. I do love common carp. This turned out to be a good move as the double figure fish contained a number of common carp.

The day following the last delivery, I got a cracking load of fish. Often the weights and numbers quoted by the fish farmers are exaggerated, but this time he was spot on and I was extremely pleased.

He arrived with twenty eight fish in all weighing from 25lb to 33lb, but what really made this group of fish special was that more than half or them were commons and included the bigger fish.
Four of the commons were over 30lb. A stunning group of fish.

I therefore left for the Christmas holiday in the UK extremely happy with the fish I had already stocked. I had also been promised a few larger specimens in the New Year.

Anyone who has every tried to legally obtain large fish even in France, will tell you that it is extremely hard or you have to pay ridiculous prices. I definitely didn't want stolen or dodgy fish as this not only gives the fishery a bad reputation, and can be disasterous for the fishery, but as a carp angler I believe ethically wrong. Also I'm not well off enough to be able to buy in 50 pound plus fish to create an instant monster water. All the biggest fish in my waters are in fact, of the original stocking from 1991. All the fish I have purchased come from bone fide fish farmers who have licences to move and sell fish for stocking.

During the first week of January I got a call from one of my sources and agreed to take three large carp. The largest of which was a fraction under forty pounds at 39lb 12oz. The other fish in the lot included mirrors of 35lb 2oz and 33lb respectively. I was well pleased with these specimens as I'm sure the lucky captor will be one day. As you can see from the photos they were virtual leathers, each only with the very occasional scale along the dorsal fin or at the wrist of the tail.

Things remained fairly quiet for the remainder of the month, with promises of fish falling by the way side. It's only when you get into the game of looking for groups of good fish to stock you realise that it is far from easy. One of the major hassles faced is the fish farmers promising you fish they don't actually have on the basis of what was introduced into their stock lakes for rearing. Even if modern strains of carp are fast growing creatures, putting on anything upto 5-6 pounds a year, this isn't always the case. A personnal best 31lb common - I caught in a nearby pit, stocked into the Tortue, with the owner's permission.

I had a couple of lots of fish around the 20 pound mark on order that never materialised for the simple reason that when the lakes were fished out, the weights were well below what had been hoped for, a very frustrating state of affairs. The other problem was that the fish had disappeared from the lake altogether. A case in point was a group of 12 fish introduced to a stock lake of 30 odd acres two years ago at around 30 pounds each. They had simple gone. The biggest fish found being a mere 25 pounds. Fish stolen??? - possibly, or they had perhaps, simply died. Who knows.

During the last week of January I was brought a group of thirty fish from 15-26 pounds including several twenties and a number of commons once again. Not huge fish but welcome to help increase the overall bio-mass of the waters.

Then the two days later the waters froze thus curtailing temporarily any possibility of further stocking.