Bailiff Comments

Week Commencing: Sat 19/08/2017

LUKAS LEADS THE WAY ON THE ROAD LAKE AND ENJOYS A BIG MAC

Week Commencing 19 Aug 2017

There were 9 anglers booked on for the week, and the weather was set to be hot, with an occasional shower and thunderstorm possible. Light winds were primarily from a southerly direction, with the air pressure being fairly high, around the 1016 -1020 mark.

Fourteen year old Lukas Marpert from Germany had been hankering to come and fish at Gigantica for the last three years, but due to his age, he had to wait until he was fourteen. His Mum, Rita who accompanied him, had set him targets to achieve at school, and Lucas passed everything with flying colours, so he was duly rewarded with his Road Lake trip when he was old enough. On arrival, Lukas was super keen to get cracking and was an absolute sponge when talking to the bailiff to try and work out the best way to fish his swim for the week; The Decoy. His terminal tackle and rigs, were not really suited for the demands of the Road Lake, so after stepping up his hooks to Korda Size 4 Kurv’s and showing him how to tie up IQ D-Rigs with 20lb IQ2 and running leads, he got his rods out onto the spots. Initially he fished a two pronged approach, with one straight out in front at 17 wraps, and two rods down to the bund at 17 wraps. He was using the Mainline Prototype Sweet Fishmeal, with matching Wafters, and baited up lightly with the throwing stick on a little and often basis. His first bite came from the right hand spot towards the bund and what a carp he landed for his first fish. At 49lb the huge Mirror known as Frankie had him shaking like a leaf. At this point he switched all three rods to fish towards the bund and experienced what can only be described as a bumper week. He caught consistently, picking off the fish which were clearly in the area and in his wildest dreams didn't expect to catch the number and size of fish he did. His right hand rod positioned closest to the bund threw up all his larger specimens. By the end of the week, Lucas had amassed a fourteen fish total, including three forties and a fifty pounder. The massive Mirror known as BigMac paid him a visit on Thursday, setting yet another PB for Lukas when it weighed in at a whopping 53lb 12oz.  It was an emotional week for Rita, and she was in tears on at least three occasions as Lukas held up his fish for the camera! What an amazing week they had, the Road Lake really was a Dream Maker for Lukas.

Father and son duo, Darren and Dylan King started off fishing in the Goo and Poo, but with no fish showing in front and no bites forthcoming, they decided on Monday to make a move to the New Beach and double up in there, fishing two rods each. With lots of fish showing in front of the bund, they sensibly went with a softly softly approach in an attempt not to spook them out of the area. Fishing 3 rods straight out in front at 15 wraps and one rod at 12 wraps towards Decoy. They used a mixture of Mainline Baits (Cell, ISO Sweet and Prototype Fishmeal) and soaked them in lake water for 12-24 hrs before putting out a couple of hundred baits at a time with the throwing stick. The first fish came to Dylan’s rods 24 hours after the move, when he landed a mid twenty Common. With the self-induced pressure to catch lifted, both Darren and Dylan got into the swing of things. Darren was next to call the bailiff to say he had landed a big Common, and he wasn’t wrong. The biggest Common in the lake had picked up his Mainline Sweet Fishmeal Wafter and Moomin tipped the scales round to 51lb 4oz…what a result! As is usual in most sessions, patterns start to emerge, and they went on to land a further six fish, finishing up with eight Carp altogether, with a good average size (1 x 50, 1 x 40 and 4 x 30’s amongst them). All the bites came on the Mainline Prototype Fishmeal Wafters. Hybrid lead clips with Spinner Rigs made with 25lb Korda Boom and Size 4 Korda Krank B hooks. They used 20kg of boilie during the week.

Phil Brown; on his third trip to to Road Lake, went into Tea Party 1 which had produced bites fairly consistently the week before. He started the session off with 5kg of Active Bait Solutions Rock Lobster, which he applied with the Spomb at 16 wraps towards Turtles Corner. With little sign of many fish in the area, and no bites forthcoming, Phil decided on Monday to move one rod across to Turtles tree line at 24 wraps to see if the fish were sneaking along the far margin. This move had the desired effect and a lost a fish on Monday when he picked up a stick and a mid twenty Common made the move worthwhile. A large proportion of the fish appeared to held up in front of New Beach and unfortunately, Phil’s action dried up. Credit to him, he continued to ring the changes with hookbaits, and presentation, to see if he could pick up a bonus fish, but it wasn't to be; that is until Friday afternoon when things went off with a bang. In the space of a couple of hours he landed three fish in quick succession, including a new PB Mirror of 46lb. On the rig front, Phil followed the advice of the bailiff and fished on running leads and IQ D-Rigs with the new Mainline Fishmeal Wafters as hookbaits. Ably assisted by his partner Sandra for the week, there was always a cheery welcome in the swim when you paid a visit, a lovely couple who ended up having a great week. Can’t wait for your return trip guys.

Brad Orchard had set up for the week in Billy’s and instead of targeting the treeline he decided to put all three rods straight out in front at 20 wraps and started off with 2-3kg of the Mainline Prototype Sweet Fishmeal. Getting off the mark quickly taking a PB 39lb Common on Sunday, and another four fish by Monday evening on a homemade Tigernut, Almond and Honey Wafter, gave him optimism for a bumper week. It didn't quite go to plan, and he experienced a frustrating few day towards the end of the week when the fish didn't appear to be on him. Brad was using running leads and an IQ D-Rig with a Size 4 Korda Kurv Shank Hook. During the week he took a further 4 fish, and was topping up the bait after every bite, to try and get the fish straight back in. He used 20kg of boilie during the week and landed 9 fish in total.

Martin “Tolly” “Donald Trump” Tollerfield went into Dunkerque and wasted no time in picking up a fish or two. He targeted the currently productive 16 wrap spot towards Tea Party 2 with two rods and also placed one rod down to his left hand margin at 6 wraps. He baited up regularly with the Spomb using the Mainline Prototype Sweet Fishmeal and the fished matching wafters over the top on 3oz running leads, 25lb supple braided hooklinks fished blowback style, on Size 6 Korda Wide Gape hooks. After a quick start he also had a quiet spell midweek, but Tolly still ended up with a very creditable nine fish haul for the week, with a 35lb Mirror being the best. He also, lost a couple of fish during the week to hookpulls, which may have been partly due to fishing with smaller hooks. We recommend the use of at least a Size 4, which will give you a better chance of landing more of the fish you hook.

Jules Moss set up in Birches, which had been quite prolific the previous week as Tea Party 2 has been closed to allow the fish to move through the narrow channel. He was fishing at 18 wraps straight out in front, and like Brad baited up with the Mainline Prototype Sweet Fishmeal, with Dark Matter Leaders with running lead clips and IQ D-Rigs with matching wafters. He caught a nice Common early on Sunday, and then had another bite landing a nice Mirror. Unfortunately, that was the last of his action for the week, but he was always optimistic of the next bite. Definitely some unfinished business to take care of.

Holger Homann went into Brambles for the week and after assessing how far out he could fish effectively, he settled on a 15 wrap mark, and placed all three rods together, baiting up by throwing stick with the Mainline Prototype Sweet Fishmeal. Like Lukas, Holger wasn't really equipped with strong enough terminal tackle for the Road Lake, so with some assistance from the bailiff, he switched over to IQ D-Rigs made with IQ2 in 20lb and 3.5oz running leads. He landed a nice 37lb Mirror on Saturday night before he suffered a bit of a disaster on his part. Deciding on Monday that he would go for a shower and leave his partner Rita in charge of the rods, the inevitable happened and he had a screaming take which Rita had to take charge of. Luckily the bailiff was nearby, and ran down to help Rita land a belting Mirror. Back in Germany, Rita had previously landed a small carp of around 1lb, and it looked like the leviathan she had in the net would comfortably eclipse that. When we put the instantly recognisable fish on the scales they went round to 49lb, and The Hammer had slipped up yet again! Taking the pictures in the water, Holger had yet to materialise, and when he did, we were just doing the returning shots. It would be fair to say that he was devastated on missing out on the capture, and never recovered from it all week. If you are going to leave your rods in the care of someone else while you nip to the shower, you must be prepared that something like this can occur. A painful lesson learnt for Holger. He did manage to land a further six fish, taking his tally to seven for the week, and used 15kg of boilie during the process.

All in all, it was a really enjoyable week, but there were certainly some different tactics which could have been employed to increase the catch rate. On the Road Lake, if you have fish showing in your swim, they are ultimately catchable; you just need to be flexible on the approach you adopt. The week was fairly hot, and despite the bailiff recommendation of getting on the zig rigs, nobody really gave the method a proper go. Fishing one rod out of three on a zig will not give you a true representation of what can be achieved. We want all our visiting guests to catch the fish of their dreams; the advice we offer is based on what we see happening every week. You can really get your week off to a good start by following the advice of the bailiffs, instead of waiting a couple of days and then switching…..or not.

Altogether there were 56 fish landed, including three of the A-Team (The Hammer, Moomin and BigMac). The fishing looks like it is going to be excellent for the rest of the season. We are already full for the remainder of 2017, but there are spaces available in 2018. Don’t delay, and get your trip booked. It won’t be long before the lake produces its first 60 pounder! It could be YOU.

Tight lines until next time.

Andy

Team Gigantica