Bailiff Comments

Week Commencing: Sat 16/03/2024

Stevenage Bait & Tackle Exclusive week!

This week it was back to full capacity for the road lake, welcoming 12 happy faces ready to take on the week.

Group organiser Steve Middleton started of the week fishing in the Beach. There was a lot of work carried out in the off season in this swim removing snags and over hanging trees so it was going to be interesting how the week played out. Steve wasted no time at all getting stuck straight into feeding the swim with House Particles and tinned Sweetcorn and then shortly after he was rewarded with a double take! Now being able to push out slightly further in the swim to 23.5 wraps to the Tits it has defiantly made a difference. Steve tallied up 12 bites from the Beach by time Wednesday morning came round before he headed over to the main lake for the final 3 nights. A fish known as ‘Breakfast O’clock ‘ was the one that stood out going 49lb and its been 18 months since its last capture! Steve kept things simple on the mechanics end using 4.5” Boom with a size 4 Kurve with a yellow Pineapple wafter.

Next up we have the bin dipper him self Matt Akker’s. Matt was in the Decoy for the week ahead, starting off with 2 rods down the right hand side of the swim aiming for the Christmas trees on the bund at 17.5 wraps. It was a slow start to the week for Matt but once he tweaked a few things with his baiting approach feeding them little and often he really got the swim working well, the bites started coming in quick success and one morning he landed 3 fish in 30 minutes and all being 40lbers! The same as Steve feeding our house maize and 4mm pellet with plenty of cream Smart liquid he couldn’t put enough bait in to hold them there. On Thursday morning the fish did move of an they headed for the back of the dot island but neither the less Matts week was made with a flurry of 40lbers and the biggest being ‘ The Tish ‘ at 48lb 8oz. Matt ended the week on 15 fish and what a way to open his Gigantica account! All fish falling to a Spinner rig with a 7” Boom and a size 5 Spinner Hook and Northern Special 12mm yellow pop-up.

Luke Harman jumped at the opportunity to move into the Beach mid-week, after spending the first few days down in Bachiliers once the beach came free Luke followed on from what Steve had started fishing 23.5 wraps to the bund with all 3 rods, it was the evening when he was away into his first Gigantica carp! Luke started off with simple Solid Bags with 2 grains of IB SSM. Luke was using House Particle and spombing little and often witch is a good tip this time of year and really work the swim instead of just dumping loads of bait in all at once. Luke manged 8 bites out the beach with a couple of cracking commons called ‘ Leslie ‘ at 44lb and ‘ Old Town Road ‘ at 41lb 8oz.

Well then, Tea party 2 has started the season in great form and Terry McCauley was lucky enough to have a week in here! After a slow start to the week Tuesday soon came round and it was all action…. Terry ended the week on 14 fish and breaking his PB twice. Baiting consistently with 10 spombs after each bite certainly was the key to keeping them there, ‘ Hansen ‘ at 66lb 12oz was the highlight of the week for terry and he was buzzing!! Using 70% Maize in his mix and 20% Krill boilies and just a light dashing of our house 4mm pellet fishing over the top with a Spinner rig with a Snowman presentation with a yellow topper acting like a wafter with the hook sat flat, great angling Terry.

Ben Atkinson was in Turtles Corner for the week ahead, Ben started of the week fishing the normal spots for Turtles 21 wraps to the Dot island and after a few days seeing the fish showing really tight to the trees in the margin he moved his left hand rod across and they the bites started coming fast! Ben finished the week on a mega 27 fish hit!! A new PB to boot about called ‘ Fraser ‘ at 45lb 8oz, Mainline Cell and Essential Cell in 15mm was the main bulk of the spod mix and not forgetting Ben got 5kg of Maize every evening after dinner. Baiting up from the margin with a catapult keeping the noise to a minimal was a great idea and certainly kept the fish in there. 20lb IQ-2 with a 7” hook link to a size 4 Klor using Bait works Pineapple Hell Dumbell wafters glugged in Isotonic Goo.

Overall a really good week over on the road and to have 76 fish landed and over 100 bites and especially for mid-March its certainly looking good for next week, for now it was a pleasure this week and let’s see what the new weeks going to bring.

All the best Joe,

Team Gigantica.