Bailiff Comments

Week Commencing: Sat 29/07/2023

The One That Got Away

With a fresh group of anglers arriving on the Saturday afternoon all keen to get the walk around the Road Lake and with the draw for swims done, they all headed off to get set up and the rods out all with high expectations as to what the week was going to bring.

Well, what the week did bring was a right mixture of weather that was for sure.  With average temperatures and mixed sunshine at the start we then had a few days of biblical amounts of rain and very strong winds midweek followed by even more rain towards the end of the week.

The Road Lake did also continue to fish really tuff this week with again fish activity over the angler’s areas but with very little turning in to any action on the alarms.

Second out of the hat this week was John Bentley and John was quick to leap up and claim himself Decoy as his chosen area to fish.

John is no stranger to this lake having already been a handful of times before and was made up with finally having a good draw and get himself into a swim he really wanted to fish in.

He decided to concentrate 2 rods out at 18 wraps towards the reeds in the corner opposite him and towards Dunkerque.  His other rod was fished down his right-hand margin at 16 wraps, this being as close to the bund as you can get when fishing this swim.

It wasn’t that long before John started getting amongst some fish and was the Sunday afternoon when he had landed a 31lb mirror and then a fish known as ‘After Work’ which weighed 48lb 12oz and was a new PB for him.  These fell to his 18-wrap area and were caught on solid bag tactics with hook baits that matched the pellets he was filling the bags with, which was Sticky Baits Bloodworm Pellets.

Then on the Monday night John had a very memorable event happen to him that I don’t think he will forget for a long time or forever.

I got a phone call in the early hours from John saying he had got another 48lb fish and that it was a nice scaley fish.  So, I had two fish in my head making may way over to him as to what fish it was going to be.

I arrived to a very happy John and after I got all the night shot lights set up and in place and had a couple of practice shots to ensure the camera settings where good I informed John that I was all good and ready to go and to get the fish from the water.

I went to the edge of the swim to see if John wanted some help getting out with the fish to which I was met with John saying “it’s gone!”, “it’s got out of the sling”…………. John had forgotten to zip up one side of the sling and the fish had quietly slipped away off into the dark.  As you can imagine he was totally gutted and I showed him an image of the one I thought it was by his description and he confirmed it was that fish that he had put into the sling, this fish being ‘The Model’.  It really was literally a story of ‘the one that got away’.

This didn’t put John off his stride to much as he went on to catch steadily landing six more fish at various times up to 33lb.

At first light on the Friday morning John again called me saying he had what he believed to be a fish over 50lb in his net.  So, heading off to see him in Decoy I was indeed looking at a fish which I to believed was over 50lb.  Up on the scales it went, and we took a reading of 51lb on the nose.  This fish was later identified as ‘Lovin Life’.

This time it was taken on an IQ D rig baited with a match the hatch boilie with a pop-up plastic sweetcorn topper.

Some good consistent angling from John this week where he fed a real mixture of bait, including boilie, pellet and maize with a good helping of some liquid attractants.

For the second week running we had the pleasure of having Nick Warburton who had travelled from Italy to be with us on the Road Lake and after a less than fortunate draw the week before this time he pulled ball number one from the hat and made no hesitation than to claim The Beach for the week ahead.

Despite the activity Nick had in front of him it took until Tuesday before he managed to start getting into some fish and in that evening, he messaged us to say he had a good’un in the sling.

Arriving in the swim and putting it up on to the scales it spun them around to 53lb and was a very long looking common on the mat and turned out to be called ‘The Long Common’.  This fish was taken on a slightly different spot to what angler’s normally fish at in this swim, it was taken from 18 wraps aimed at the life ring on the right-hand side of the bund as he looked at it.  A solid bag was the downfall of this mega looking common.

Nick went on to catch a handful of other fish but none of them going much above the mid 20lb mark.  But leaving with the two biggest fish from each of the two weeks he had fished he was still made up with that.

Travelling all the way from Dundee we had a group of anglers making their first visit to Gigantica and the Road Lake.  These guys left home on the Wednesday afternoon so fair play for travelling so far.

One of these angler’s was Kev Finlay and after dropping into the inform swim of Brambles he was feeling a little out of his depth on the first day, so I went and spent a bit of time in his swim talking through the rigs he had and showing him a few changes that I could make to help him with these and then also helped him with getting his rods out at the 20 wraps he had chosen to fish at in front of him.

That night he called me at about 3am asking for some assistance with a fish he had caught.  I arrived to find out this was his second fish of the night, the first being a 28lb Common.  His second fish spun those weigh scales around to 45lb 4oz.  After finding this fish on the website in the morning I found it to be a fish known as ‘Hobnob’.

Kev’s set up consisted of a lead clip set up and rigs made from a coated braid tied to size 4 Wide Gape hook and his hook bait was a match the hatch Link boilie and a pop-up grain of corn as a topper.

Sadly, this was the only bit of action for Kev this week, but he kept working the area all week and never gave up.  Great to see.

Kev’s feed for the week was Mainline’s Link boilie, maize and pellet along with a good helping of Cell Smart Liquid on top of it all.

Another member of this party was Paul Armstrongand despite being last in the draw still managed to find himself in one of the main swims, namely Tea Party 1.

Again, like with Kev I spent a little time with Paul helping him with his casting and finer details of baiting up and feeling that lead down at 20 wraps towards the corner of the lake to the right of Turtles as he looked.

Paul’s head did drop a little at the start of the week but through the night of Tuesday he had managed to land his first Road Lake carp, a nice mirror weighing 31lb and named Boiler.

This was again caught on a match the hatch Link boilie out of the bag with a sweetcorn topper for the visual effect.

In the early hours of Thursday morning Paul called me saying he had a fish he believed was a good one in the sling.  Again, making my way over to him and weighing the fish for him I took the reading of 42lb from his scales.  Paul was absolutely made up with this and turned out to be a mirror known as ‘God Knows’.  As with his previous fish this was also caught on the same hook bait tactics and on a coated braided blow back style rig.  

Well done Paul and keep that casting practice going.

Dale Mayfrey found himself set up in Shingles this week and despite the wind kept plugging away at getting his rods out at 20 wraps towards the island.

Dale was rewarded shortly before midnight on the Sunday night with a fish known as ‘Krak Off’, which was a PB for him weighing a very respectful 44lb 10oz.  Well done on your capture and your new PB Dale.

Dale landed this fish using a lead clip set up with rig tubing and rigs constructed from a coated braid material.

He fed a mixture of Mainline Cell and Link boilie with house pellet and particle from us.

Sadly, despite taking a battering from the storm winds we had no more bites came his way, but I am sure still left a happy man.

We had a couple of other captures this week with a pair of 21lb carp being caught from Goo and Tea Party 2 respectively.

The mirror known as ‘Dumpy’ was caught from The Goo out at 15 wraps towards the obvious tree on the opposing margin just to his left and the one from Tea Party 2 was caught from 21 wraps fished out slightly to his left.

A very tough week all around and with some very challenging weather conditions during the week everyone stayed in good spirits throughout the bad weather and tough fishing situation they found themselves in.  Fingers crossed for next week…………..

Until next time, tight lines.

Gareth, AKA ‘Gino’.