Etang de la Goutte Poinsotte
Let me give you some details about this 6,5 hectare, German-owned private lake:
It´s situated within the French, German and Swiss triangle. The exact location is the small village of Saint Sauveur which is close to Lure and the nearest big city is Belfort.
I´m sure, there are not many private lakes which have an atmosphere like Pionsotte, which is in the middle of a natural preserved area and is surrounded by a fence. This little lake has a very long history. It was here that 500 years ago some monks bred their carps for Lent and for their meals. Now, the monks have already been gone for many years, but the main inhabitants are still the carps. The lake has the form of a very large pear with a depth of between 1 and 9 feet. The shallow part might bring you a few problems because the water is very susceptible to weather changes. The lake’s floor consists entirely of clay soil and there are also some springs, which maintain the water’s temperature cool, even during the summertime. Underwater there are no existing obstacles, such as trees or stones, except for in the middle of the lake where there are some large areas with water lilies. The lake also has a small island where 2 persons could easily fish.
A very big plus point for Poinsotte is that, unlike La Horre, Rainbow Lake, you don´t have to book a special place and you can fish on 3 sides of the lake – the fourth side is too close to a small road and fenced off, so nobody can sit there.
When you drive through the forest to the lake, you will first pass by the long closed side of Poinsotte before you enter the big entrance door. On your right side is the Owner’s private house and on the left side you´ll find the first caravan and the big lodge. In this lodge there is a small tackle shop, a bar with dining room, shower and of course a lavatory. On my last visit there was even a billiard pool. You can even order your breakfast or dinner from the owner, or whatever else you may need from the town, or you can go shopping to the small village yourself. Another option is to bring all your own food and drink and cook for yourself – only open fires are not allowed at the lake! On the other side of the lodge there are a few more caravans. If you don’t want to bring your bivvy, you could also rent one of these caravans and sleep there and you could fish in front of them. However, if any of these caravans are occupied, you cannot fish in front of them or put your bivvy there, otherwise it would cause problems. So if you´ve decided to fish on this side of the lake, you should leave your car behind you, for the other places, you should bring a trolley or you would have to make a few trips – in any case, it’s not far. There will be only a limited number of anglers fishing each week. It´s also possible to fish for only a few days and you can arrive any day.
Now, I should tell you something about the fish that you might catch: Firstly there are all different kind of carps – common, mirror, liner and fully-scaled. Last year more than 25 fish over 20 kg were caught and one with more than 25 kg. There are also some big tench, pike and zander in the lake. Pre-baiting is also allowed, but if you want to use particles, they need to be boiled before you feed them. A big unhooking mat is also a must, the same as barbless hooks. Boats and bait-boats are also not allowed and they really are not necessary because you can cast everywhere with a cobra or bait rocket.
During the hot summer months the keeping of the fish in carp sacks is normally not allowed – the fish should always be put back as soon as possible, after the photo-shooting.
So, if you are interested in taking a trip to Poinsotte, you can contact the owner via email at his website www.poinsotte.com , on his cell phone +49 – 172 – 7485 783, or at the lake after April 1st, 2005 on tel: +33 – 384 93 64 62.
The season this year will begin on April 1st and last until mid or end of October – it always depends of the weather!!
The prices for this year are like last year – you´ve to look at the website!
Here is a short story about my experience at the Etang Poinsotte: When I went there for my first time, for a 4-day trip, it was in August and it was really hot. I was sweating like hell when I put-up my camp under the full heat of the sun with 35 ° degrees in the shade. The water was already 20 ° degrees and shouldn´t be too much for the biggies. I was very lucky, that there were only four anglers at the lake and two of them fished from the island. I placed two of my rods in front of the water-lilies and the last one directly in front of my camp, maybe three meters away from the bank. My baits were two different boilies from becker fishing tackle and maize. After a view hours, my carp sounder gave his first blast and I landed a big tench. Over the next hours until the evening there was no more action at all until I started to prepare something to eat. The first full run in France – what a feeling!!!!!!!! It came out as a very nice mirror with 13,5 kg and 85 cm long. After dinner came the next beep, but that wasn´t from a carp at all and a small bream had lost her fight against the 20 mm boilie. The first night at Poinsotte was very quiet, without any disturbance from my electronic bite alarms. The next morning came and I changed my baits. Around lunchtime I got the next signal that somebody was interested in my French-Mussel Boilies and a short time later I made some photos of a 12 kg mirror. A few hours later it was action time again in the form of a drop-off bite and this carp knew what he wanted to do. First he came full power towards me and then he swam in a curve and all the way back to the water-lilies. It was not a big problem to get him back out from there and I already thought that this fish would break the 15 kg mark, but the scale stopped at exactly 14,5 kg – but this carp was 1 m long, which was a new PB, not in weight but in length!!!!!!!! The best fish came the following night with 15,75 kg and 96 cm length – what a beautiful scaled carp!!!!! The following day came with still a lot of sun, so at 8 am it was 23 ° degrees and I was already in my bivvy. This heat doesn´t do anything to the feeding of the carps, so I was still catching the whole day some between 7 – 14 kg, even boilies or tigers. I thought, that this catching would continue throughout my whole last night, but the fish must have know that I had a long way home and let me slept very well until the morning when I was able to catch another liner with 13,5 kg – that was my farewell present from this beautiful lake !
Tight lines and best regards,
Hubert
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