Bailiff Comments

Week Commencing: Sat 18/05/2024

Broken Record

Here we go for another week here on the Road Lake at Gigantica.  

With warm sunny conditions, for a change, welcoming our guests for the week ahead we all made our way for the walk around before the draw takes place.

Ball number one this week was picked by Leigh Suttonwho made no hesitation on his swim selection and put himself into Turtles Corner.

With numerous fish showing in front of him it was surely only a matter of time before he was to fill his net with one of these carp.  And surely enough it was mid Sunday afternoon when this happened.  A nice one to start with it was to, ‘Broken Tail’ weighing in at 52lb 4oz.  A great start for Leigh who was certainly made up with this one to open his account.  Shortly after this one he informed me that he had landed a bigger one, and he certainly wasn’t lying!  We came around to weigh it for him and this one spun the dial around to 70lb 12oz, I had a quick look inside the sling and quickly identified this fish as ‘Hanson’.  A fantastic start to the week and with a new lake record under his belt to he was more than happy with his result.  An afternoon brace weighing a total of 123lb!

Come Tuesday Leigh had a slight change around with his spots and found the fish was showing a lot closer in than he had been fishing and switched a rod onto this area, this being 8 wraps towards Tea Party 1 as he looked.  In that very evening, he had managed to put the net under a nice 44lb 8oz common, which turned out to be ‘Little Top Lobe’.

Things went very quiet after this in Turtles Corner, until Leigh’s final night of the week he managed a total of five extra fish varying in weight up to 27lb.  A very good week, topped off with that lake record fish.

All bar two of his bites came from 21 wraps up along his left-hand margin and all being caught on combi rigs comprising of a fluorocarbon boom section with a braided short section incorporating a size 4 wide gape hook on a blow back set up with Manilla dumbbell hook baits topped with a yellow northern special.

‘Robbo’, who had a good draw placed himself into Tea Party 2, which the week prior had been on fantastic form, so it was no surprise to see this swim go early in the draw.

He was off to a flyer that first evening, landing the first fish of the week at 26lb and a fish called ‘Lunar’.  A great start and is always nice to have that pressure of the first fish during the first day.

This was followed the very next day with another fish of smaller proportion at 16lb but followed up by a much bigger fish that put the scales to 57lb 8oz.  I would like to tell you which fish this was he had just caught, but with it obviously being camera shy it “done the off” before we even had the chance to get it up for a photo.  You win some and you lose some, this time he certainly lost.

Rob’s fish came from the far tree line at 25 wraps and were caught on various hook baits.

This is sadly where the story ends for Robbo, he kept good spirits for the rest of the week and kept plugging away but it was just not meant to be after that unfortunately.

In the Poo this week we had the pleasure of Edward Gaunt.

For the week Edward fished out in front of his swim at 15 wraps all week and managed to get underway with on the Sunday night with a grass carp weighing 46lb.  This was caught using a combi rig and a homemade halibut boilie.  From the same area Edward went on to land two more fish this week, although of smaller stamp being 19lb and 27lb respectively.

Stephen Wrigh found himself in Billys and worked hard along his right-hand margin to land a couple of fish this week, again being of the smaller stamp of fish but was still nice to get them into the net from what is generally a tough area to catch from.  Both fish were in the 20lb bracket in weight but very welcomed.  One of these fish was taken from the 18 wrap spot towards the leaning tree and the other from right in his right hand margin corner.

Myself, I ended up dropping into Bacheliers for a couple of nights towards the end of the week, with lots of fish turning up in this area it was hard to choose where to fish but after observing them the first night and not managing a bite I made some changes the next night and managed five fish.  All commons with the biggest being 29lb 8oz.  A very sleep deprived night, but I was happy with that after some tactical changes.

They were caught on various tactics, 5” spinner with No-Name Goo’d hook baits, D’ Rig with two grains of slow sinking maize soaked in Passion Fruit Goo and solid bags with small Mulberry dumbbell hook baits.

Bites were coming from close to the margins, the closer the better I had found.  Fish had been showing in open water but just didn’t feel these where fish feeding on the deck and more likely feeding on hatches in the upper layers.

Not many fish visiting the banks this week, lots of very active fish, but as mentioned above it was no surprise that the bulk of the bites were either from along margins or fished close in in front of them.

Personally, I think we just need a prolonged spell of warmer weather now to get spawning out the way.  It seems a lot of the smaller fish are hanging around the edge’s waiting for that special moment to happen now.

Until next time, tight lines

Gareth (Gino)