Bailiff Comments

Week Commencing: Sat 25/10/2025

Pitch ‘n’ Putt

This past week historically would have been our final week of fishing on the Road Lake for the season, but with us now being able to stay open for longer, what would this week produce for the anglers……read on to see what happened.

Let’s start things off with regular visitor to us, but usually over the road on the Main Lake, Josh Cook.  During the draw Josh had in mind one of the Tea Party swims or Turtles as he preferred choice, but after these had gone prior to his time to pick, Josh opted for Shingles as this put him as close to the body of water that he had in mind to fish.

After setting his stall out at 18 wraps towards the dot island and after a few quiet days Josh decided to do something a little different in that he opted to fish the same range but to put a lone single solid bag just off the spot to the left slightly and after dinner on the Tuesday evening with the rig only being in the water for a short amount of time he was into his first piece of action.

After a dogged fight which lasted a while, the net was slipped under what appeared to be a very large fish, in fact he was having to fold the fish slightly to get it into his net….always a good sign of a big’un.

Well Josh quickly identified it via its very distinctive tail……’Hansen’!  Only out recently, but not unusually for this fish to make a second appearance soon after being caught.  On the scales this time it just pipped over the 70lb mark by 4oz….70lb 4oz.  First time fishing over here and first fish resulted in being the king of the pond!

A quiet couple of days then followed but another fish on the Thursday night made up for it, this time Josh went on to land ‘Le Défi’ weighing 32lb 12oz and this was backed up with another better fish that he landed whilst I was out doing the breakfast drop on the Friday morning, ‘Top Loader’ weighing in at 53lb 4oz.  This was this fish’s second appearance this week as we will get to later in the catch report.

A three fish week including the king of the pond isn’t a bad week at all.  I’m sure a lot of us would have been happy to have gone home with a 30, 50 and a 70 under our belts.

As I have already mentioned Josh used Slow Melt Solidz for his bags and these were filled with his trust pellet and powder mix from DNA and fished size 4 Kamakura Wide Gape hooks and a supple hook length to a 3.5oz lead, drop off style, and baited the rigs with just one single grain of slow sinking I.B. maize.

Josh used 10 and 15mm boilies mixed with maize and plenty of liquid goodness to tempt the fish to feed.

Well done this week!  See you back on the Main in the future.

Another regular and on his second of his back-to-back week we had Gavin Middlebrook, who after pulling ball number one had no hesitation to put his name into fish from Turtles Corner.

 This is a swim that has been on form of late, producing plenty of bites, and it didn’t disappoint this week neither.

From the very first night Gavin was catching, but it was the Sunday night when he got into his first better fish of the trip. A fish at a new top weight of 58lb 8oz, ‘Mysterio’.  Hopefully we will see this one break into the 60lb category soon.  This fish was also a new personal best to boot.

The very next day it was Gav’s second 50lb that came his way, ‘Top Loader’ which weighed 51lb 10oz, and as mentioned above this fish was to come out twice this week.

Some other notable captures for Gavin this week included ‘Snooki’ (named after my daughter) at 48lb 4oz, ‘Jamil’ 36lb 12oz and a host of over doubles and 20lb’ers.

But Gavin saved the best until last, capturing another new personal best for him and his first ever 60lb fish.  JB’s at a top weight of 61lb!  It looked big and it was big.  A total of 27 fish came and visited him in Turtles this week.

Gavin baited his rigs with two grains of slow sinking I.B. maize and his rigs were 5” spinner rigs made from Boom material and used with size 4 Krank hooks.  This was then connected to a lead clip arrangement.

To bait up with Gavin introduced plenty of maize and fishmeal boilie to keep the fish interested and fished two areas at 21 wraps, his left-hand margin where he would walk around to bait up easily and just to the right of the dot island as he looked out.

Well done on not just one but two personal bests this week. Again, see you in the future.

Heading over to the other side now and Tea Party 2 where we find angler Steve Tillett.

Steve also found himself getting amongst the fish from the off, by catching on the first night.  But it was Monday at around lunchtime when he managed one of the lookers of the lake and a fish of a better size.  This was ‘2 Scale’ which spun the scales around to 57lb 8oz, this was also backed up on the same day with ‘Horris’ at 36lb.

A trio of 30’s was Steve’s best of the bunch on the Tuesday, ‘Mammut’ at 37lb along with the newly christened ‘Elbo’ 36lb 8oz and ‘Axe’ at 32lb 8oz.

Fish, although of a smaller stamp, just kept coming for Steve.  The pick of the rest of his fish included ‘The Millenial’ weighing 39lb, ‘Covid’ 34lb 4oz and ‘Amphibian’ coming in at 28lb 4oz.

Steve finished the week landing 34 fish in total, with his bites coming from 24 wraps across to the far margin.

Rig tactics were combi rigs made from a loop-to-loop system down to a ‘German Rig’ set up with double 15mm Link boilie being his choice of hook bait. 

Steve was making the effort to walk around to the far side to do the bulk of his baiting up each day, where he was feeding Link boilie, corn, maize and hemp and then topping up with the Spom as required.

Steve also kept himself and some of the lads occupied during the week with his bag of golf ball and wedge, where the challenge was to chip the ball into a bucket.

Well done on the fish this week.

Right next door in Tea Party 1 was Charley Barnfield.

What isn’t unusual for this swim is a slow start to the week, and that is exactly the case again this week.  It was the Tuesday when Charley managed to net a proper unit and a new 60 for the lake.  This was ‘Eye-Q’, a fish that is probably deeper than it is in length.  This was also a new personal best for him.

Off the back of this he was soon after in the water helping net a fish next door in TP2 net in one hand, beer in the other…..what a lad.

From this point on the Tuesday more fish kept coming Charley’s way, whereby the end of the week he had managed to net 11 fish from 13 bites.

The fish included, a lovely 38lb 8oz common, ‘Pac Man’ 29lb 4oz and ‘Lunar’ weighing 27lb 6oz.

Loop-to-loop combi rigs was his go to rig for the week. These were made from “old skool” 25lb Amnesia (who remembers this?) and Kamo braid for the supple section to size 4 Krank hooks and again double Link bottom boilie for hook baits.

Bait being fed for the week included Link, Cell and ISO Fish boilies mixed with maize and plenty of liquid.

Well done on the P.B. and the other fish you caught.

Lastly this week we are heading just down the bank, and into The Goo and angler Jamie McFee.  Now Jamie started off choosing The Poo and after just one night made the move into The Goo as plenty of fish were showing more in this area than where he started.

Jamie kept at it all week staying positive the whole way through, with it all coming good on the Thursday night when he had to make the 100m dash to get to his screaming alarm.  After a long and delicate fight Jamie had managed to land a new personal best with a lovely long common called ‘Scottie’s Common’ and beat his previous best by just over 5lb at a new P.B. weight of 44lb 4oz.

A solid bag done what he needed to happen for him, with a size 8 Krank hook and a single grain of slow sinking I.B. maize mounted to a supply hook length and a running inline lead bringing the fish to the bank.  Jamie’s solid bag was treated to a generous helping of Garlic flavoured Goo.

Well done on the new P.B. we hope to see you again in the future.

Well that’s it for the week, a good number of fish caught, and some very nice fish thrown in the mix as well.

The first of our winter week’s next week, let’s see if the big’uns keep coming at new top weights.

Tight Lines

Gareth “Gino”