Aydat was made the same way as Chambon — a lava flow from the Puy de la Vache about eight thousand years ago dammed the Veyre river and created the biggest natural lake in the Auvergne — and the two lakes share a certain family resemblance. Aydat is shallower and warmer than the crater lakes and has a more mixed fish population: trout, perch, pike, roach, and the kind of general coarse community that you would expect from a lowland volcanic lake in central France. Fly fishers come for the trout in the inflow area and for the pike in the shallow weedy bays at the northern end. The water gets warm in midsummer and the trout fishing falls off; fish it in the spring and autumn shoulders for the best of what it has to give.
- Lake
- Volcanic