Dreamlakes review

Dreamlakes 2007

My Dreamlakes Review.

Week commencing: 27th april 07 – 5th may 07 Lake 1

Well I spent a while looking forward to my fishing in france holiday as I haven’t had one for a few years and opted for dreamlakes on recommendation from a work colleague.

After posting here with all my excitement prior to my holiday trying to get all the information and tips I could as an armory for my venture I figured it would be best to leave a little review of the time I had at dreamlakes.

After studying metcheck for 2 weeks prior to my trip the actual weather on my trip could not have been any different from what they had projected.

I was looking forward to cloudy overcast daily rainy(ish) weather and fairly normal uk conditions but when on arrival it was bloody hot with no rain or wind and I would say a little too hot for fishing at the spawny time of year,

They are definitely on there way to spawning as they are following each other around like a lovesick teenagers and wont be long before they are actually “Doing it!”

Anyway we were picked up by the coach with the trailer attached to the back at 7:30 ish @ chelmsford and ferried down to thurrock to pick up the next lot of anglers.

The coach is like any other coach with no legroom a loo and tea/coffee making facilities at no charge so if you need a drink on the way down its no bother,
All you have to do is get up and make it and hope you don’t spill scolding hot water on people on the way back to your seat with your maxpax in your hand.

They do stress please wear your seatbelt or face a fine if your caught which is bloody uncomfortable to say the least.

After picking up the chaps from thurrock and watching them load a mountain full of fishing gear we swiftly moved on to dover.

As for the the gear on the truck, we were sent the labels with our confirmation and informed we could take
1. One bivvy
2. One bedchair
3. One sleeping bag
4. One large rucksack - to include tackle etc.
5. One rod bag - tubes to protect your rods are a good idea
6. One holdall for clothing etc.
7. One small item of bait - say, 10-15kg

The reality seemed to be it doesn’t make any difference you can take what you like and no one looks or is counting as the guys at the same pickup point as us had an absolute mountain of bags buckets and carryalls.

Once we reached the final pick up point @ relyon dover all the anglers that were waiting also loaded their mountains of gear onto the coach and the trailer and we moved onto the ferry for a 90 minute journey over to callais which was barely enough time to get a few pints down my neck.

After the crossing we all re boarded the coach and started making our way on the 5 hour journey to the lake (which is a bloody long time) but managed to sleep most of it on the bus as I had be new trakker pillow so I could grab a nap,

I would recommend that to everyone, make sure you take a pillow on the coach as you wont be sorry, we managed to get a quick stop at a petrol station while the coach drivers credit card was refused for fuel about 3 hours into france and was promptly tooted at by the driver as he wanted to get back on the road to get us to the lake cos he was a nice chap like that.

Even though we were told we would be having a break half way but that really never came to fruition apart from the quick escape for a fag and grab a sarnie at the station.

6: 30 (france time +1) Saturday morning we arrived at the lake to see everyone running off all lakes with barra loads of gear ready for the changeover and got off the coach and went for a cup of tea/ coffee that was waiting for us in the lodge.

All the new arrivals gear is unloaded into the lake compound area inside the gates and all the leavers gear is on the outside of the compound so there is no confusion, it seemed to run very smooth with everyone knowing what gear was going where

New gear going to lake 1 has yellow tickets lake 2 had red tickets lake 3 blue etc etc.

Once all the new gear was unloaded and everyone was ready to pick their swims then the baliff (matt) read the rules out to us and stuck post it notes with our swims on the picture of the lake that is on the fence of the lake.

All swims are selected by the computer and sent out with your holiday confirmation of which my friend and I happened to be 12th and 13th to pick out of 15 anglers (1 dropped out at the last minute) normally 16.

We had already been informed by last weeks anglers that the lake had switched off around Wednesday and nothing had been caught since which wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear after forking out a monkey for me holiday and a 12 hour journey.

We all picked our swims and moseyed off with our mountains of gear to set up for the weeks exciting fishing in france and had to return to the lodge for 10 am for bacon rolls and tea all round at which point all of last weeks anglers bacon rolls and tea/coffee were ready for them to go and eat before they left for their journey home.



The complex itself is nice and clean with a nice lodge that house a fair old bunch of hairy ass anglers for breakfast and dinner each day with plenty of supplies that are required by the anglers through the week like beer , beer , beer , beer , cold drinks , beer , tackle & snacks.

The showers and toilets were kept in excellent condition all week by the bailiffs apart from the shower I got every time was minus a shower head but some of the lakes I have fished over the years hasn’t even got a toilet so I tend to cope

One downside is you HAVE to buy your stella by the case which as I am not a big drinker when im fishing seemed to be a bit of a waste. 20 euros for 24 little cans of stella and no other beer available,

Buying a case of stella with no where to keep it cold wasn’t very good even though we sussed out if you bought a bag of maize it was taken from the deep freeze and a good way of chilling your beers for the day.

At les quis you helped yourself to a cold bottle of beer and chalked it up on the board and paid at the end of the week with a cheque on the way home which was a laugh as everyones bar bill was called out on the way home in the bus which was fun.

The paperwork says there is bottled water on sale cheap on site and ill go with that it is certainly cheep.
3.60 euros for 6 litres of bottled water but there is a tap around the back of the lodge if you feel you need to fill a water canister for boiling water for tea and coffee.

The lakes are all well kept and no litter or rodent problems and a bloody good chuck to get to the middle of lake 1,
I don’t really have to chuck like that on my local lakes so im not really sure on how far I was actually getting so im off over the field with me rods reels and a tape measure to see what I can actually do.

The fishing for my week was devastating the whole lake did not fish very well with a maximum of 20 fish coming out all week to 15 anglers including catfish with 2 fortys and a 52 making an appearance.

I had one fish @ 39lb 20 minutes before packing up @ 4 am Saturday morning by which point I had lost interest to say the least,

My friend had 5 small cats and a carp at 17lb which did look bigger than that

The bailiffs at dreamlakes had asked us on arrival to remove any catfish from the lake by means of keepnets for the smaller cats and bigger cats go in the bigger floating cat net at the end of the lake and they would be taken to another lake and eventually netted by someone and swapped for carp.

What I did see which I wasn’t very happy with was a cat that had been caught in the night by steve a few swims down @ 62lb and put in the cat net which was collected by the bailiffs the next day by means of dragging the net up the bank and then gaffing the cat in the mouth and dragging it up the bank thrown into a van and taken to the tree lake,

After all the time and attention that was given to the fish by the anglers that caught it with unhooking mats and making sure it was caught and contained for the bailiffs it was mentioned by the captor “I will not be doing that again if that’s how they treat them” which I wholeheartedly agree with.

Maybe the cats are a pest but surely they deserve better than that.

Everyday @ 10 am and 5 pm breakfast and dinner are served at the lodge and I have never seen so many grown men move so fast.
When the cloths come of the baymarie you can watch 40+ big greedy carpys make a dash for the cue to be fed,
it really is the a fine example of the german sunbed syndrome on your annual package holiday to ibeefa! Man they are fast.

I found it far better to wander down @ 10:15 & 5:15 when they were all scoffing and get my dinner with no cueing and sit down for my daily scoff.
Breakfast consists of 2 sausage / 2 bacon / egg / beans/ tomato’s with French bread every day bar Saturday,

Dinner consists of steak chips / pie chips / pie veg / Sunday roast with a desert every day to follow, all of which was of a good standard for so may anglers in such a small kitchen.

As mentioned earlier there are a few bailiffs on site which no one really saw all week apart from dinner time or cat collection so the rules that are read out do not really matter as I did see people fishing with more than 3 rods and baits that were not allowed.

It would have been nice to see someone take an interest that the lakes were not really fishing or just to look and make sure you are at least fishing in the right places.

just a walk around the lake once in the week would have made a small difference to the newcomers and hopefully make them want to return next year.

We were all picked up very promptly a week later with the new anglers following the procedure detailed above and we all had our bacon rolls and left.


Conclusion…………………………………………………..

People were saying all week long that if you hit the lake at the right time then you wont have time to scratch yer bum with double runs and fish climbing up the line.

I fail to see this as it is a very pressured water and gossip of fish kills a few years back that have made a large dent in the fish stocks on lake 1, how much truth in this is another story.

According to the other anglers they also mentioned lakes 2 and 3 wasn’t fantastic and there is currently an algie problem in lake 2 which I heard there was a consultant looking at while we were there.

Would I go again?

Maybe another time of year yes I would like to give it another shot, I know the fish are in there cos I could see the buggers floating around at the surface not really doing much

And if my sums are correct dreamlakes are on a bloody good screw from the outside looking in so it wouldn’t hurt to put a few fish back in if they have had problems,

In general if the fishing was as good as I expected then yes I would be back like a shot as other than that I have no real complaints.

Once you have the advantage of an early slot in the draw and the knowledge of the lake then you have a good chance of catching some of the fish.

My advice from what I saw is to get on the arms of the lake and fish tight to the spit, walk round and drop your baits in to pick up fish and you should do ok.

i hope this helps all the people that want to book up in the future get a good iea of what to expect without boring you too much 13

ps all mosquito coils and reppelent is a waste of time, try and think of something different co they dont work

the more i sprayed repellent the more they ate me for dinner!!

Here is one by may lad from a few years back

http://www.dreamlake.co.uk/tails/tail6.htm

Nice review Ron ! When are we going to get to hear the details of you latest trip?

Big Ron wrote:We had already been informed by last weeks anglers that the lake had switched off around Wednesday and nothing had been caught since which wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear after forking out a monkey for me holiday and a 12 hour journey.


What I did see which I wasn’t very happy with was a cat that had been caught in the night by steve a few swims down @ 62lb and put in the cat net which was collected by the bailiffs the next day by means of dragging the net up the bank and then gaffing the cat in the mouth and dragging it up the bank thrown into a van and taken to the tree lake,

The catfish where being dragged off and killed....

This review just reminds me never to go to this pressured shithole thats all money and ship the next truck of anglers in....
there's loads of other more angler friendly places in france...
Let all the idiots go to these dream lakes....

DONT GO TO DREAMLAKES IF YOUVE GOT SENCE......

And Ron im shocked at the fact youve been there and you would go back....