Bailiff Comments

Week Commencing: Sat 14/06/2025

Prison Camp

 

Another scorchingly hot week out here at the Big G and with a new fresh group of anglers pulling into the car park, who were all first-time visitors, we got ourselves hydrated at the clubhouse and we were ready for the off on the walk around.

 

Let’s kick this week’s catch report off with Ricky Stone, who put himself into a good consistent swim for the week with that being Decoy.

Ricky hit the ground running really from the start, where on the Sunday night he managed to bag himself a couple of fish, both being some of our smaller residents at 18lb and 24lb respectively, but he was happy to be off the mark and the pressure was off.

The night bites kept coming his was throughout his stay where he landed a 28lb fish the following night, but then on the Tuesday managed a day time bite and went on to land a unnamed mirror weighing 20lb.

Then it was back to night duties for Ricky, landing a 22lb 2oz mirror and followed this up the next night with a 21lb’er.

Just after first light on the Thursday he managed to net a nice 29lb common known as ‘Rusty’, this fish had no recorded captures since it was caught back end of 2019.

But as they say you should always keep the best until last, and that truly was the situation here.  Friday morning before breakfast I get a phone call from Ricky informing me he had landed a good-sized fish for me to come and see and picture.  He wasn’t wrong, a new personal best at 53lb 4oz laid waiting in the sling for me and was identified as ‘Eye-Q’.  Photo’s done, he received a traditional soaking from his friends in the swim and then went on to endure the same fate after dinner along with all the other PB’s from around the site.

Ricky kept his tactics the same, fishing solid bags down his right-hand margin where he fed mainly boilie, a little pellet and some corn towards the end of the week.

He started off with size 6 hooks, but after a handful of bumped fish and a switch to a size 4 Wide Gape hook that eradicated the problem.  His rigs were baited with two grains of slow sinking I.B. corn and he found success using our own in house PVA Bag Mix.

Well done on the fish this week Ricky.

 

Gary Edwards was one of the group’s main organisers for this trip and he fished for the week from Turtles Corner, and it was no surprise why after seeing a good number of our fish tucked up under the trees there during the walk around.

Like everyone this week, it took a couple of days to settle into the flow of things here and once he had got his spot rocking, and the casting sorted out, along the treeline he was rocking.

Gary kicked of his list of fish with probably his smallest of the week, don’t want to peek to early, landing a pretty 16lb 8oz mirror on the Monday around lunchtime.  Shortly after this another couple of carp came along to visit him, ‘Nelly’ at 28lb 9oz and ‘The Highway Man’ weighing 29lb.  A nice way to start your week with three fish in one afternoon.

Tuesday came along and delivered a real treat for Gary in the shape of ‘The Model’ which was just shy of a PB so saved him from a bucket soaking, but he was more than happy with his prize.  47lb 14oz this spun the dial on the scales around to.  Lovely fish to have caught, and sometimes the weight is irrelevant when they look that way.

Wednesday brought about three more fish gracing his net.  A little 16lb 14oz common, ‘The Koi Common’ at 18lb 6oz and ‘The Fraud’ coming in at 29lb.

More fish would follow this on the Thursday and Friday where Gary landed ‘Tre’s Belle’ at 35lb 14oz, ‘Worldie’ at 22lb 8oz and finally ‘Ella-Rose’ weighing 28lb 2oz.

A very good session none the less for Gary this week he was more than happy to have caught what he did and who can blame him.

21 Wraps along his left-hand marginal tree line done the bulk of the bites for him, getting the rig and bait as tight as he could and baiting up by walking around keeping the disturbance to a minimum.

18mm Cell hook baits keeping the bites coming his way, where he presented these on coated hook link, with a little stripped back to create a hinge point and presented slip D style on Wide Gape hooks.  Freebees introduced to the spot incorporated of Cell and ISO Fish boilie and a little helping of the house pellet.

Well done Gary on the angling this week.

 

Another angler this week to sneak into the 50lb club was Ross Powell who had plotted up in The Birches, a swim that has been on reasonably good form of late.  Setting his stall out at the 14 wraps spot out to the right of the dot island and the 21-wrap zone to the left of Billy’s, it was his 14-wrap spot that produced his one and only fish of the week, but it’s all about the quality not the quantity for Ross.  And quality it was in the shape of ‘The Grey’, a new PB, and weighing 52lb 14oz on the Wednesday morning.

A 15mm ISO Fish hard hook bait fished inside a PVA bag doing the bite this time and he baited with around 10 Spomb’s of bait a day that consisted of boilie only.

Well done Ross on the fish, it was a pleasure.

 

Jack Kemp set himself for the week in the ever-popular Tea Party 1 swim.

And Jack was off and running on the Monday just after lunch time, when he landed the ever identifiable ‘Mr Miyagi’ which weighed 37lb 14oz and was a new PB at the time for him.  This one was caught at just 6 wraps cast slightly left towards the “lone tree” where he had seen a couple of fish show previously.  A single rig that incorporated of a slip D pattern rig with a 15mm boilie and he then pulled the rig through a PVA bag that consisted of pellet, so it resembled a solid bag but fished on a lead clip set up.  This was cast on its own with no free offerings around it.  Great opportunists fishing, see one show, cast to it and caught one.

That night he went on to land another PB, which pushed this up a few ounces to 38lb 2oz.

After a couple of quitter days, and myself having had to go out on the boat for other matters, I could see the area around the 21-wrap zone fished from Tea Party 1 towards Turtles was bubbling up well and the water looked slightly cloudier.  I came back to shore and informed him that he needed to fish that area as he had been concentrating his efforts short and Infront of him around 16-wraps.  

Having done so more bites came Jack’s way.  

‘Tadeus’ was his first from this area, 28lb 8oz just before dinner on the Thursday and he then followed this one up with another new PB at a similar time on the Friday.  Not quite the 50, but at 48lb and a cracking looking common in the shape of ‘Snowflake’ he was certainly smiling and very happy with his capture.

Jack committed a fair bit of bait to this 21-wrap area on the Thursday to get the bites, and he baited with boilie and house pellet that was soaked in a tiger nut liquid for added pulling power.  Over the week he introduced around 20kg of bait in total and had put in a fresh twenty Spomb’s of bait just before landing his biggest of the week.

Well done this week Jack, as with everyone a real pleasure to have you here.

 

Fishing right next door to Jack was friend of his Alex Gerrard who after having a good draw put himself right where he wanted to be in Tea Party 2.

Alex managed an early fish in the shape of a 21lb common, and after a couple of lost fish he went on to land ‘The Chinky’ at 35lb 4oz and oddly enough the very day before we was talking about fish names in the lake and this one came up in conversation, maybe we should have tried talking Hanson on to the bank instead!

Alex shortly followed this fish up with another that evening in the shape of ‘Lamby’ weighing 33lb 8oz, and after a couple of quick snaps with the camera the fish had other ideas and done the off back into the depths of the Road Lake.

Casting out towards the far margin at 21 wraps produced the bites for Alex this week, baiting with a fishmeal boilie, pellet and covering this with Link Stick Mix liquid and the new Strawberry Goo for extra pulling power.

Hook baits consisted of a match the hatch 18mm boilie presented on D rig kickers on a size 4 hook and a N-Trap coated braided hook link set up on running lead clips.

Pleasure to have met you Alex, hopefully see you again in the future.

 

In Bacheliers we had angler John Edwards, Snr.  John was here with his two lads, Gary who we have already mentioned and John Jnr who will get to next.

With a good number of fish in the area, again mainly hugging the margins, John concentrated his efforts in this part of the swim. Having spent a little bit of time with John perfecting the art of tying solid bags he soon took to it well and managed to nick one on the first night with his new solid bag technique from 16-wraps along the margin, although a smaller one it was nice to hear he had caught one on his refined approach.  This was caught over our house PVA Bag Mix with a single Link Quad hook bait soaked in the Almod Goo.

John managed a couple more from this swim on the last night, a couple of nice 20lb fish.  But also during the week he spent some of the days up in Turtles with his son and managed to land a few on his rod.  It was on the Wednesday that he first ventured this way and landed ‘Jenson’ weighing 25lb 14oz from the marginal area to the left.  He followed this one up with a common of 23lb 8oz.

Coming back into Turtles the next day he caught a slightly better one in the shape of ‘Joe’s Common’ a little down in weight due to spawning at 31lb 2oz.

Well done on the fish you caught and keep practicing tying those neat small bags.  Pleasure to have you John.

 

Following on from John Snr we had John Edwards, Jnr fishing from Double Boards.  The swim had done some bites the week before and being in and around his brother and father it was a no brainer not to fish from here for him.

Sunday afternoon just before coming around to dinner he landed his first, again a smaller resident at around the 15lb mark.

A flurry of fish came his way towards the back end of the week with three fish being caught on the Thursday in the shape of ‘Oakley’ at 24lb 7oz, ‘The BP’ weighing 28lb 7oz (both are lovely looking carp) and lastly ‘Hemmingway’ weighing 18lb 1oz.

This hat-trick of carp was followed up the next day with a 22lb 3oz common the very next day on the Friday.

John fished out in open water in front of him with the bulk of the bites coming from 16 wraps toward Bacheliers as he looked out from his swim.  These were caught on 18mm Cell bottom baits mounted onto slip D rigs and he baited with whole and crushed Cell boilie and corn during the week.  Very well done, can be a tough swim at times but you certainly maximised your opportunities well.  Pleasure to have met you this week.

 

Billy Knight started off the week in Billy’s, which was very apt.

Taking his time in plotting out his swim and staying observant, he found that his best opportunities for bites would be coming from his right-hand tree margin, as it was for everyone who had a tree margin to fish towards.

Billy managed to land a couple of carp Sunday night through to Monday, 24lb 4oz and 27lb 2oz respectively.  These were caught on Cell boilie hook baits fished over a matching bed of boilie.

Having landed another fish in the early hours of Wednesday, which weighed 22lb, he committed some bait to his open water spots but received no action and very late on during the Thursday evening he decided a move was on the cards to the vacant Gooswim.  With it being late and getting dark Billy put out a single solid bag 6 wraps out just off centre to his right from the swim and the following morning was rewarded with ‘Mr Jingles’, another fish not recorded since 2019 and weighed 35lb 2oz.  Worth the effort that one.

This fish was caught on a 15mm Cell boilie hook bait inside a solid bag which comprised of maize and pellet with Banoffee Stick Mix liquid for added “oomph”.

Well done Billy this week, good work.

 

This week we had Ash, who along with a helper after he had had a recent hip operation fished from The Beach.  

Ash managed a brace of fish on the Sunday night into Monday being a 28b mirror and a 24lb common.  Ash had concentrated all his rods to the 14-wrap spot out towards The Decoy and caught both of his fish in solid bags with pellet inside and two grains of slow sinking IB corn for bait and baited around the zone with a boilie only approach.

Well done on the fish, a pleasure as it was with you all to have you with us and I hope that the hip gets better in the near future for you.

 

And lastly in this group we had Darren ‘Daz’ Roberts and decided to fish out from Dunkerque.  With the vacant Cage right next door he had baited this area for possibly fishing a rod in here later in the week, and this is exactly what he done and managed two fish from his right hand corner during the week, both smaller residents again but none the less it was great to see him nick a couple of fish towards the end of the week.

Great having our early morning chats on the breakfast run, and boy can this lad put away some calories at dinner time!

Well done Darren, all the best with all your future tours in the van.

 

And that’s a wrap for the previous week on the Road Lake, with a lake exclusive and everyone catching it was a great week all around with plenty of fish being caught in difficult times right in and around the spawning season and plenty of good times with everyone.

Well done all, let’s see you all back here soon!

 

Tight lines,

Gareth “Gino”.