Billy Berridge

Co-Founder, Owner of Lac Perdu

Hi, I'm Billy. I've been fascinated by all things fish from being as young as I can remember. My first fishing endeavours as a young child were on the River Trent and gravel pits in Nottingham where I spent most of my time with my reels wrapped up in birds nests - much to my fathers dismay!

I have been involved with fisheries work since leaving school, I studied fisheries at Brooksby college and later went on to work on a cyprind fish farm where we produced many types of ornamental and coarse fish, of-course including carp! 

I have been producing baits since 2011, not only for my own fishing trips but also to feed the fish in my own lakes in France which I bought in 2016 and have fully redeveloped from scratch.

I don't fish much these days and I take my pleasure from watching my own stock thrive year on year. One of the key in elements in fish care is nutrition, and that's why all the baits we produce have food source at their core. 

As with rearing any livestock "You only get out what you put in!"

Wayne Cooper

Co-Founder

Hello, I’m Wayne Cooper. I've been carp fishing for 39 years, and i'm still as keen as I ever was for the sport. I caught my first carp when I was 11 from our local club water on trout pellet paste, dyed red. Since that day, bait has always been interesting to me.

I have fond memories of the early 80's, regularly visiting the fishing shop to buy ingredients to make carp sweets. After purchasing a bunch of white powders and a bottle of the best strawberry flavour you can imagine, my friends and I created a rubbery glutinous mess, which somehow we boiled and remarkably caught fish on. It sparked an interest and was a foundation of understanding baits, ingredients and the correct uses to be successful.

Along with a few friends by the mid 90’s, we were using vast quantities of the very common LT94 low temp fishmeal, adding calf milk replacer, semolina, maize flours and soya products like hi-pro combined in a balanced bait application. We even added honey as it is stuffed with vitamins. It was clear from our catches then that the High Nutritional Value formula was the way forward. Of course things have moved on a bit from the early days but the principles remain the same. 

I moved to France 9 years ago, so my carp fishing took on yet another leap into the passion. I had been coming to France since 1997 and I was guiding on lac du Der Chantecoq from 2000 to 2004 seasonally, along with many other Big French waters. I loved every minute lapping up the public water freedom. Of more recent times locally, I have been working alongside the smaller fisheries here in France, building and developing new ventures for clients. This is where I met Billy Berridge.