Bailiff Comments

Week Commencing: Sat 21/09/2019

With the anticipation of the Korda trip looming and the whatsapp group in full flow with questions, banter and some images that will haunt me forever (Bill) the boys on the Road Lake couldn’t wait to get started! The weather has really not been kind to us this summer but this was due to change with a drop of pressure, mega SW winds and some rain, everything was pointing towards a good week, all of us were hoping the fish were on the same wavelength.

Mike “Alriiiight there girl” Isted who many of you will know as the voice behind Giganticas bookings telephone number came out 8 in the draw and was surprised to see Shingles still free! Deciding to concentrate 2 rods on the 18 wrap spot to the dot island and 1 rod at 10 wraps down his left margin. Mike baited with just maize to start with, but with the bites being pretty slow at the beginning of the week he started to introduce some boilie and pellet to try and entice a bite. It happened in the early hours of Wednesday morning when he landed 2 low 20 commons from his short spot, these were landed on Spinner rigs with Spicy Squid goo infused Link corkball pop ups. Fast forward 24 hours to the early hours of Thursday morning and things started to look up, after waking up to a flurry of messages in the whatsapp group we soon came to realise that Mike had landed the fish that everybody wants in their net! The absolutely magnificent “Fully loaded” at a steady weight of 46lb, this was backed up by another 2 low 20’s with all three fish being landed off the 18 spot this time. Mike tweaked his rigs a little bit and decided to fish combi rigs with 3 bits of slow sinking corn for the hook bait, this seemed to work as it snared arguably the best looking fish in the pond!! Mike finished his week with 2 more fish during the day on Friday, a 25 and a 28lb 8oz common.

Oscar “Rusty” Thornton dropped into the Beach and fancied his chances after seeing some activity on the walk around. Starting off fishing all 3 rods at 23 wraps towards the centre of the bund, solid bags with drop off inlines with a double plastic corn hookbait was the method of choice and it didn’t take long for him to bag his first one by Sunday morning! “Gelato” at 38.12 was the prize. The next action wasn’t until the early hours of Monday morning when after a mega battle he landed “Snooki” at 45lb 8! Oscar had screenshotted 5 fish off of the gallery that he really wouldn’t mind catching this week and Snooki was one of them, so he was absolutely over the moon with that result. The action continued steadily through Monday with another 4 fish landed…3 x 20s and a 31lb 8oz all falling to the same tactics. That night Rusty landed another 2 cracking mirrors at 36lb and 40.08 which ended up being the last of the action! Going into Tuesday night with very little confidence as it had seemed the fish had moved away from the area, his feeling was right as he awoke to motionless rods on the Wednesday morning and a move was on the cards….Oscar baited from the bund with mostly maize mixed though with a small amount of crumbed boilie and house pellet, baiting after every fish he used 30kg of maize and 10kg of pellet up until the Wednesday when the fish moved off him.

Tom Wager up next and he also fancied that end of the lake after seeing some activity off of the bund and decided on Decoy for the week. Starting off on fishing all 3 rods down to the bund on Saturday hailed no fish but he stayed up most of the night logging and seeing where the majority of the fish were showing in his area, ready to bait it the next day. Leaving 2 rods down to the bund but bringing one across to the spot where he saw activity the night before which was 16 wraps to the tall tree left of the Beach, he baited with 2kg of Bait Asylum Marine Dumbells, Gigantica pellet and maized soaked in salmon oil.  2 fish came on the Sunday in the shape of a 20lb 8oz common which came from his right hand rod over a bed of just maize and a mega 50lb 1oz mirror named 2 scale which broke Wagers P.B for a second time in its life as he caught it in 2016 at 33lb!!! 2 scale came from the new spot. Monday came around and after topping both spots up with 15 spombs each he landed a cool 45.08 mirror called Eddy off the 16 wrap spot again, rebaiting straight after the bite with another 15 spombs. Similar to Oscar the bites and fish activity went quiet on Tuesday resulting in a blank day and night for Tom, after seeing little to no activity down the bund he brought all 3 rods round to the 16 wrap spot and kept the bait going in little and often to try and draw the fish that were still in the area down for a feed which worked as Wednesday he picked up a bite out of the blue on a solid bag which he cast just off of the baited spot, unfortunately it dropped off and that was to be the last of the action for Tom this week.

Corin “no shoes” Ridgewell was buzzing when he managed to draw Tea Party and didn’t hesitate in getting a quick bite from a cracking 38lb mirror within a couple of hours of casting out. Fishing 3kg of maize of 2 spots at 16 wraps, 1 towards the church and 1 towards Turtles the bite came on the left-hand rod on a ready tied blowback rig with 3 bits of ISO goo infused slow sinking corn. Corin topped the spot up with another kilo of maize but that was it for Saturday, he baited the same on Sunday and had a bite again on the left-hand rod but unfortunately it dropped off. Monday came and the fish were showing further out so he took his 16 wrap rod to Turtles to 20 wraps and baited up with 3kg of maize, boilie and pellet. This resulted in a bite on Tuesday at 2.15 pm in a 29lb 4oz mirror which was another wicked carp. Wednesday came and another bite came for Corrin with the “Blowt Fish” at 32lb 8, with its whittled fins and cool shape its not your typical French carp by any stretch of the imagination! Thursday and the fish were out long in numbers so he decided to put both rods on the 20 wrap spot and up the bait to 5kg which resulted in another couple of bites for the week, one of the 2019 stockies at 15lb and a 31lb 8oz common.  Topping up after each bite kept them coming consistently. Corin started the week with blowbacks and slow sinking IB maize then moved over to Spinners on the deck with size 2 wide gapes and 18mm wafters topped with Isotonic corn.

Jonny Man came out 3^rd in the draw and chose to fish Bacheliers due to the weather conditions we were forecast over the coming week hoping that at some point they might “stack up” in there. Unfortunately, the weatherman wasn’t 100 percent correct and the fish didn’t visit Jon in any great numbers, but he still got amongst a few. Choosing to fish the 22-wrap spot as a starting point Jon baited lightly over a large area with 2kg of maize per day with a couple of handfuls of house pellets thrown in for good measure. Fishing solid bags with ISO infused slow sinking corn he waited a couple of nights for his first bite which came in the shape of a small common, followed by a pretty little mirror the following night. Always on the lookout for fish activity the fish Jon were seeing seemed to be showing further than where he had been fishing so tried the same tactics but further into the corner which resulted with a very plump 44lb mirror that we cannot find on the gallery, it’s crazy after the years of relentless record keeping that these surprises are still popping up! On the last night Joe who had been fishing in the Poo moved into Turtles for a night and Jon couldn’t resist the lure of having a larger expanse of water to play with, the same tactics but a different swim resulted in another 30lb mirror to cap the week off nicely.

Richard Brown came out 10 out of a possible 11 in the draw and still ended up in his 2^ndchoice of swim with was Eastwoods! Deciding to use a good mix of bits and pieces in his bait mix as a fair bit of boilie had been used the previous few weeks with bites being few and far between, his mix consisted of crushed down Mainline Link and Essential Cell mixed with pellet, maize and liquid attractors. Richards theory was lots of attraction without overdoing it with solid food items! Rich fished all 3 rods at 10 wraps towards Turtles which enabled him to walk down the bank and ball out 6kg at a time to keep disturbance to a minimum, then going on to spray 10mm boilies from the swim over the top. Rich picked up a quick bite on Saturday evening which resulted in a hook pull, he didn’t lick his wounds for too long before his next bite on Sunday afternoon which turned out to be a wicked 36lb grassy.  Sunday evening came and so did a lovely 27lb 4oz mirror, it went quiet for 48 hours after that until Wednesday when he landed a 23.12 common and a 22lb mirror. Later that evening going on to land a brute of a common at 35lb that gave him a mega scrap! Thursday morning the best was yet to come when he slipped the net under “The Model” at 44lb 4oz, a really old scaley fish that looks like it got a few stories to tell! Rich caught fish on slip D rigs and solid bag rigs consisting of 15mm link bottom baits with a trimmed down 12mm essential cell pop up, then dipped in Link glug before the cast.

Martin “Coxy” Cox came out ball 1 in the draw for the 2^nd year running and didn’t hesitate in dropping straight back into Turtles Corner, fishing all 3 rods at 18 wraps to the dot island Martin baited with 5kg of boile per day with 1kg of essential cell to every 4kg of link in 15s and 18s. Baiting up with the catapult from Turtles margin he went on to land 3 fish for the week, a 35lb5oz mirror called Lumpy, a 34lb 8oz mirror called The Whistler and a 24lb common. Martin incorporated Link bottom baits with a corn topper on an IQD rig for his bites. The fish showing in the swim were out of Martins comfortbale fishing zone and in his own words, he wished he could fish a little longer as he felt it would have produced more bites, he stuck to staying in his comfort zone and had a few. 

40 fish landed from 45 bites completed a decent weeks fishing on the Road this week with everybody enjoying themselves and fishing really well.

With my first Korda social completed all I can say is what a cracking bunch of lads to share my time with this week, from the seriousness of the angling to the banter filled cheese and wine night that I don’t remember much of after the gaffer hit me with the death cup in the Beerpong 3 times on the bounce!! Loved every minute of it and already looking forward to next year!

Until then,

Tight lines,

Steve