A week at Freedom Lakes

The first week of May 2009, I was lucky enough to find the time to spend a week at Freedom Lakes. I really can't see the point of travelling a long way to fish, now that I live in France (been there done that got the t-shirt !) so I tend to look for interesting venues that are close to home, and Freedom fitted the bill, being about 50 minutes drive . I first visited the complex of Lakes back in April when picking up a delivery of Premier Baits boilies, which are also sold at Freedom.

We had booked onto the top lake which is a 27 acre water called Lac Louane.

Sophie and I arrived at midday on Saturday and we were informed by Mark, the resident bailiff/partner that we would have the privelege of having exclusive use of the island for the week. Having only seen the island from the dam on the previous visit when there were no leaves on the trees and the lake was in pre spring form, I was very keen to get up to the lake and see it in full colour ! I had expected the lake to look good in May and I was not disappointed, we had picked a nice sunny day to arrive and the contrast between the blue sky and vivid greenery of the surrounding forest with the reflections from the lake was stunning.

The island, which is around an acre in size and has lots of trees and huge heather shrubbery is reached via a wooden bridge and is truly a little paradise ! There are 5 swims on the island all of which face out towards different directions.

We elected to fish the swim opposite the other island, this giving plenty of options for nice bait placement. After dragging a mountain of gear across the bridge and into the swim we were happy to sit down and take in the atmosphere of the place. Later on, with bivvy up and rods out on 4 different marks we sat and watched the sun go down on the opposite bank, then retired to the bivvy but as usual on the first night sleep was hard to find.

The night passed without event apart from the frog frenzy on the north bank, which did not help my efforts to sleep ! Next day I had a proper look around the swim, we saw a few fish roll, and decided to fish two rods to the right of the island in shallower water and two to the left in a slightly deeper area.

Both areas were out of range for conventional baiting tactics so I decided to use the Viper Mk 3 boat and to bait lightly and try to build small areas of bait that the fish would visit. I fished 2 rods on Mainline cell 14mm boilies and two on Premier Baits Matrix, which is the bait sold on site and thus the one the fish see most of. Also in the boat each time, a handful of Mainline's crushed hemp groundbait, a handful of partiblend, around 30 crushed boilies, a few pellets and a spoonful of sweetcorn.

At 7:30 PM I had the first take on one of the rods to the left of the island and connected with a fish which proceeded to fight like a demon, twice it got stuck in snags and I had to don my waders and wade round to the next swim to net it - real heart in mouth stuff ! On the scales it went 39-08, a real brute of a fish with a huge tail, massive fins and a set of shoulders. A nice start to the week ! First fish to the Cell !

The rest of the week followed like this :

Monday 28-00, 30-10, 34-02, 26-15, 32-12, 27-02, 39-02 4 to cell/3 to matrix
Tuesday 43-04, 41-12, 37-03 1 to cell/2 to matrix
Wednesday 21-12, 22-12 1 to cell/1 to matrix
Thursday 39-14 cell
Friday 33-00, 37-11, 32-04, 25-11, 31-08, 28-00, 26-11 4 to cell/3 to matrix
Saturday 26-14 cell

By Tuesday it was apparent that most of the fish were in the deeper water and by then all 4 rods were being fished to the left of the island.

We were going to come home on the Friday but on this occasion I had to insist on staying the extra day and so glad that we did, as the Friday was one of the most productive days.

Having expected 6 or 8 fish for the week, I was really pleased with the results, 21 fish landed, 5 fish lost, with 2 nice forties and 10 x 30's including 3 x 39's. The 43-04 was a common, a new PB common for me at the time and an absolute stunner and new complex record common to boot !

Freedom Lakes is one of the most impressive venues in France and that is why we have decided to promote the lakes. Lac Louane is the harder of the two lakes currently open for fishing and is really for the more experienced angler, but Lac Angele at 19 acres is suitable for all anglers and regularly produces large catches of carp with an average weight of 27lbs+ !