Father and son Terry and Jack Rose, from Marsh Gibbon, near Bicester, recently ret- urned from a five-day trip to French venue St Leanards Carp Lakes in Normandy, where they enjoyed some superb fishing.

Both banked common carp weighing 30.8.0 and 31.8.0 early on and the fish continued to feed quite well with further carp up to 32lb coming.

On the Sunday evening, Jack was answering a call of nature when he had a run on one of his rods. Dad, Terry, picked it up and promptly fell into the lake, breaking one of Jack's rods in the process.

They replaced the broken rod with one borrowed from the lake's owner - a Nash Stalker rod with a 2lb test curve and only 9ft long.

As so often happens in fishing, the unexpected occured when Jack hooked into what was obviously a good fish on the borrowed rod.

After a good scrap that lasted 15 minutes, the mirror carp was netted at the second attempt and weighed 50.2.0, a new venue record and Jack's second '50'.

The carp kept coming and on the last day, Terry had a good common weighing 38.8.0.

Successful bait was Richworth KG 1 boilies and they baited up using a bait boat and liquidised hemp.

Jack is no stranger to the Oxford Mail, having featured in these pages before.

He learned his trade at Nell's Bridge, where he banked several large carp.

These days, he spends much of his time at the Linear Fisheries complex and he has also been fishing the Ebro in Spain.

Anyone interested in visiting St Leanards Carp Lake can call up their website www.carpnormandy.com The two anglers are already making plans for their next visit.

CHAD Lake, near Stow-on-the-Wold, is producing plenty of perch for the angler who is not interested in catching the large carp.

Jim Slimmons, from Moreton-in-Marsh, netted a personal best weighing 3lb which took double red maggot on a size 20 hook attached to 3lb fluorocarbon line.

Jim had to wade through a lot of small fish before he had the big one.

I fished Chad last year for the perch and I found lobworm to be the best bait, but I only went the once, so maybe maggot is worth a try.

BIRMINGHAM carper Zak Szakaly was fishing the road bank on Linear's St John's Lake at Stanton Harcourt when he had a take on a boilie from a 61.8.0 catfish.

There are 'cats' in several of the Linear lakes and although I am not sure if they there are in numbers, it shows you do need to be prepared for the unexpected.

IF you have any news, views or photos, or you just want to have a chat, you can contact me on 01865 725606 or email andrew@webber01865. fsnet.co.uk