About Us

Hi there - we're Martin and Shirley Barker, the owners of Oakview carp fishing lake in the quiet Mayenne region in West France.

We moved to France on a cold December morning way back in 2005 to start our new life as carp fishing lake owners. It was, as most of you will be able to guess, a major cultural and lifestyle change. How different it would turn out to be from our previous lives back in the UK where we were used to slogging our way round the infamous M25, now known as the largest car-park in England.

What brought us to France? We guess that it was a general dissatisfaction with the non-stop pace in the UK and of course the traffic! We needed to re-invent and challenge ourselves.

It was a rather casual discussion over a glass of wine that led us on the path to becoming lake owners, where off-the-wall ideas often develop. Less than a year later we found ourselves on the boat to France, striking out and eagerly looking forward to our new life.

Oakview Lake was born in 2008 and we opened for business in 2009. After 6 successful seasons with a UK booking agent, we created our own website for Oakview Lake. We called the website Angling France and here we are today, still living the dream and loving every minute of it.

We've also discovered that more than anything else, we are 'people' people. Meeting new (and of course repeat) guests here every Saturday during the fishing season has become a great pleasure for us. We hope that when you come to Oakview Lake for your carp fishing holiday, you will find it's a pleasure for you as well.