Bailiff Comments

Week Commencing: Sat 09/09/2017

Common as Muck!

What a difference a week makes. The weather has taken very autumnal turn; the week was one of rain, high winds and low pressure, with the odd quieter spell thrown in for good measure. In complete contrast to last week, mainly southerly winds gusting up to 80 Kmph gave the anglers set up in the teeth of it a good battering. Having become accustomed to the drop in temperature, the fish were no longer sheltering off the back of the wind, and the majority appeared to have moved onto the end of it. A good concentration of fish were evident in the Turtles, Shingles, Tea Party 1 area, and with 12 anglers booked on for the week, it would be interesting to see how things panned out.

Uwe Tillman was on his third trip to the Road Lake, and had no hesitation at the draw, selecting Shingles to spend the week. Initially he spread the rods out, putting one straight out at 10 wraps, one towards the small island at 14 wraps and the other down the left hand margin. As recommended by the bailiff, he went straight in with a short section of Korda Dark Matter tubing, running leads and Korda Ready-Tied IQ D-Rigs in Size 4. Bait for the week was from the German Nature Baits stable, and he used a matching wafter as hookbait, also from the Nature Baits range. He baited up regularly with the throwing stick to keep the area fresh and used 20kg throughout the session. Uwe had an excellent week, and he received action every day, landing some cracking fish. The best of which, was a new PB in the shape of the huge Common known as “Moomin”, which weighed in at 52lb 8oz. He also landed a further five fish, two of which were Common’s. Excellent angling.

Sven Tillman decided to go into the swim next to his brother and opted for Double Boards. He was accompanied for the week by his girlfriend Lisa and due to having an additional guest, Sven had brought a new, larger bivvy with a sewn in groundsheet. After enduring some stormy weather on Saturday night, it became apparent that the new bivvy was about as waterproof as a PVA bag. Some modifications were called for, and in no time at all, he turned their accommodation into something more akin to refugee camp, with a huge tarpaulin over the top!! Once settled, he started to concentrate on the fishing, and on Sunday morning he had a fast take from 12 wrap spot out in front and proceeded to do battle with a big Mirror known as Pin Scale, which tipped the scales round to 46lb, and provided him with a new PB. He was using Nature Baits boilies, which he applied with the throwing stick on a little and often basis, and his rigs were identical to his brothers.

Mark Norman drew well and opted to go into the consistent Turtle’s Corner swim. It has been noticeable over recent weeks that the average stamp of fish coming out of Turtle’s has been of a slightly smaller size, mainly doubles and twenties; how would it fare this week? Following the advice of the bailiff, he set up with running rigs incorporating 20lb Korda N-Trap Soft which he made into D-Rigs with Size 4 Korda Krank B hooks, which he baited with a Mainline Essential Cell Wafter, or a Spinner Rig for a Pop-Up presentation. He baited up with either the Spomb or throwing stick, depending on how strong the wind was, as he wanted to keep the bait fairly tight to speed up the amount of time it took the fish to home in on the bait. Mainline Cell and Essential Cell mixed were the bait choice of the week, and considering the amount of bait that was being passed by the fish into the recovery slings, they found the Mainline bait to be very agreeable. Recently, with bites coming in open water during the day, and bites at night coming off the treeline, Mark sensibly baited two areas and fished the open water with all three rods during the day, then switched a rod across to the treeline at night. He baited with 10-15 Spombs, four times a day, and then topped up with either five Spombs or sixty baits with the throwing stick after every fish; using 20kg of bait during the week. Mark got off to a good start with one of the best looking Common’s in the lake, which goes by the name of “The Wedge”, weighing in at 42lb; what a brilliant way to start! Things progressed nicely on from there, with the highlight of the week being on Wednesday afternoon, when he had one fish already in the sling, then received a double take…safe to say it was total carnage, but all the fish were landed successfully. Mark finished his week with 28 fish, including 4 x forty’s, 5 x thirty’s and 19 x twenty’s; of which amazingly, 19 were Common’s! Not just a small fish swim afterall!!

Graham Smith also came out early in the draw and went into Tea Party 1 for the week. After watching where the fish were showing in front of him, he started off with two rods at 16 wraps towards Turtle’s Corner and one down the left hand margin at 6 wraps. Considering the number of fish which were in the area, Graham experienced a bit of a slow start and decided to move a rod further round to the right, which had the desired effect, and got him a couple of bites. He changed his approach and position frequently during the week, and kept a trickle of bites coming. He used Baitworks Royal Marine boilies plus some Baitworks Mis-shapes glazed with Atlantic Heat Hot Oil, which he put out with either the throwing stick or Spomb. His terminal tackle consisted of running rigs, IQ D-Rigs and Baitworks Hardened Hookers, with a white Scent From Hell Pop-up drilled into the top. During the week Graham went on to land 1 x forty and 4 x thirty’s amongst his 16 fish haul. Amazingly, eleven of which were Common’s!

John Brown fished in The Poo for the week, which has consistently thrown up at least one forty pound plus, fish every week it has been fished. Fishing one rod out front at 10 wraps and two to the right, one at 8 wraps and one at 10, he used a mix of Hybrid, Essential Cell and CC Moore Live system, plus the Gigantica pellet. During the week he used 20kg of boilie and 10kg of pellet, and kept the bait going in consistently. These big fish can soon clear out a lightly baited spot. In what was rather a strange week for John, he experienced a very specific bite time, with all his fish coming between 3-4pm in the afternoon. He had a great result on Tuesday, when his Gigantica Banoffee Wafter was picked up by a stunning 40lb Common. Finishing the week with four fish, John fished well in what proved to be tricky conditions.

Ian St John, despite coming last in the draw still had the option of going into Billy’s, and started off fishing with two rods straight out in front to the gap in the treeline at 20 wraps, and one at 17 towards the right hand margin. He was using a mix of Mainline Cell and Essential Cell and baited up with 2.5kg per day with the throwing stick in open water, and by hand in the margin spot, using 12kg of bait for the week. Essential Cell Wafters on IQ D-Rigs with running leads were the winning combination for Ian, who landed 3 fish during the week; two off the margins one out of open water.

Pete Butler moved into Bachelier’s on Monday after Andy the bailiff caught a couple, and with other anglers struggling vacated the swim, to give someone else the chance to catch. Pete wasted no time and using Baitworks Royal Marine managed to land eight fish during the remainder of the week. He was catching in open water at 16 wraps using Combi-Rigs and matching Wafter’s.

In total the catch sheet shows that there were 71 fish landed during the week, of which an unusually high proportion were Common’s. However, there were a few fish which some people never recorded. We ask all the anglers visiting Gigantica to put down their capture’s onto the Catch Sheet and photograph the fish on both sides. Irrespective of whether you don’t want a picture of a low thirty, we do; and we want to track the progress of our fish. The information we provide visiting anglers must be accurate and whilst we spend a lot of time on the lakes, we cannot see everything that occurs. We are reliant on the anglers for filling the gaps. Please help us to help you is the message. 

Until next time, Tight Lines

Andy

Team Gigantica