I have been fishing for over 30 years and started my Carp fishing in the Darenth Valley in Kent, yes I am a Dartford lad. I have lived in Europe on and off for over twenty years, being Holland, Belgium, and France and have enjoyed fishing in most of the euro zone. I wanted to create a fishery with character not just a hole in the ground, so people can relax unwind and catch some big lumps and would want to return many times.
My wife and I in March 2008 purchased a 9 acre lake set in 18 acres of land in the Yonne Valley ,after looking for over one year. My name is Adrian Atkinson, I am 63 years of age and my wife name is Jenny. I am a Computer consultant by trade and have my own limited company in the UK for the last nine years.
The Les Rivets Lake has lots of character with good depths, tree cover and had never been fished commercially before 2009. We re-opening on the 2nd April 2016 now the dam repairs have been completed, it been a long journey to get this sorted out but I sure you will find the fishery even better than last time.
On the dam we have removed all the trees, bushes and their roots. We have replaced completely the old Drain pipe with a new concrete 600mm pipe and made a proper channel for the water to run away. The front of the dam has been re-sloped and geotextile added with new rip-rap. The back of the dam as also been re-sloped and a geotextile mat installed to stop trees and bushes from growing and stop erosion. The last think we have done is build a new drain on the house side to improve water level control. The dam has now all the legal documentation approved.
The additional Mirrors arrived on the 13th Jan 2017 which as taken the stock over 290.
There are over 60 * 30lb+ commons and Mirrors in the lake. The biggest fish stocked in the lake in April 2016 was 36lbs for the common and 38lb for the mirror. April 2019 we have had commons out to 40.5lb , also a mirror about the same size but not the one which was catch at 39lb last year. A lot of fish were caught on 2019 between 32-39lb mark which has good signs now for 2020. The lake is been feed this year from September to December then again from February to April with pellet and boilies.
The biggest Mirror in 2019 was 42 lbs which was caught in December , in 2020 May - July a 44 lb , 42 lb and 43 lb Common was caught.
All fish added are French Royals purchased from Bigot Fishery's, These Carp are French Royals and have been chosen for their tone and colouring, and using this strain we can expect fish under 40lbs to increase in weight by over 5lb's a year.The larger fish will have a smaller growth rate but we are hopefully that there will be a 50 or even high 50lb fish in the fishery within the first 3 years.
It has been decided that we have stocked one Catfish at Les Rivets its 32lbs at the moment and will remove this once the Pike have grown to keep the Fry under control.
In December 2018 the lake was drained down and the fish moved to the stock pond. All small fish were removed from the lake and the hired a 15ton digger to remove all the snags in the lake.
