Bailiff Comments

Week Commencing: Sat 21/05/2022

Faceplant, Three swivels and the Freddy Knight Show

Well, this group of lads is always a week I look forward to with much anticipation, a cracking bunch that certainly know how to catch them out of the main lake…Time to get on with it!!

Im going to start the report off with Lewis “stop making it weird “ Hannaford who has had some mega successful trips on the main lake in the past…he was shocked after coming out 9th in the draw that Scotties Corner was still available, and he jumped at the chance to get round there! Deciding to fish the entrance to the bay instead of in the margins Lew concentrated 2 rods at 15 wraps towards the V in the tree left of Stock Pond and one at 19 wraps towards Alcatraz. He fished quick change combi rigs on the 2 rods on the baited spot and just solid bags on the 19 wrap spot. His first fish 3 fish came from his solid bag rod in quick succession with a 24lb common, 32lb mirror and “The Stranger” at a mega 51lb! What a carp that is! All of Lews bites came on pink hookbaits he couldn’t buy a bite on yellows! His first bite from the baited spot came in the shape of a 22lb mirror which was followed by a 37lb 4oz common and another mid 20 mirror…Lew was baiting with 2kg of boilies every evening with the throwing stick to minimise disturbance! One more twist to the tail was another 50lber in the shape of “Mr Tong” at 51lb 4oz! This one however came to the solid bag rod fished across to the weedbed!  Well mate 59 carp in 4 trips to the Main Lake really isn’t bad going at all! Bring on the monsters next time!

Harvey “new trainers” Claydon doubled up with Paul “thinking tackle” Hastingsin the Alamo and after losing a fish early on for Paul it was Harveys turn on the Friday to convert a bite into a landed fish! Harvey started the week off fishing 18 wraps between Baxters and Beach using house maize , 10mm Cell and Essential Cell, 18mm Cell and sweetcorn. After a few days without any action and seeing fish showing beyond his spots Harvey decided to fish at 25.5 wraps for the rest of the week which worked in his favour as on Friday during the day he landed “The Clean Fish” at 58lb!! This fish fell to a Spinner rig on a size 4 Krank with 2 grains of fake maize! Good angling mate!

“magic “ Mike Reynolds got off to a flier in Big Southerly when he landed “The Rocke” at 42lb on Saturday afternoon after seeing fish cruising in the area he flicked a zig out at 30 yards straight out in front of him and landed the mega common before dinner had been delivered! Great stuff! Sunday the fish were further down in the layers, and he nicked a 23lb common from the same area as the day before but on a solid bag! Monday morning produced a 23lb mirror from his baited spot at 25.5 wraps over 3kg of chops! It went quiet for Mike after that but still good stuff at this time of year! 

Joe “The Ongar Conger” Horne, who on his first trip to the Main Lake was a bit overwhelmed by the distances people fish in the videos of the past and was pleasantly surprised to hear that fish were getting caught from 50-80 yards all around the lake! With this information and after the walk around Joe came out high in the draw and fancied a week in The Stink! Starting off fishing 2 rods 12ft apart at 16 wraps towards the poplars in Treelines margin and 1 at 14 wraps to the tall tree to the right of Baxters, Joe started off light with the bait with just 5 spombs of 18mm and 15mm Mainline Cell over each spot! The left and middle rods were on spinners with Cell wafters and his right hand rod was on a choddy with a home-made Banoffee Pop up, the choddy was due to bits of thicker onion weed around the spot just to ensure he was presented at all times!  He didn’t have to wait too long for his first bit of action when his right hand rod sprung into action on Sunday morning producing “The Almost Nude Fish” at 34lb 8oz and after a quick recast the same rod went again with a 28lb mirror on the end…what a great start! After bringing in his left and middle rod for a re-chuck he found some weed on both the spinners so decided to switch all 3 over onto choddies…Joe introduced 30 spombs of the same bait mix over the 16 wrap spot and had “Elephant Tube” at 30lb 8oz soon after! 20 more spombs followed and after seeing fish showing at a similar range but straight out infront of him he moved his left rod to the shows and baited with 15 spombs of the same mix, this resulted in a bite at 21.30 in the evening in the shape of “Bullet” at 38lb! A pink cell homemade pop up being the hookbait of choice this time! Next up the banker rod (RH Rod) was away again and was Joe’s first 40lber of the trip with “Phil” at 40lb 10oz! 24 hours later almost to the minute he had a bite on the left hand rod this time with a 32lb 8oz stockie and then lost one soon after on the RH rod! The best was still to come though when on Wednesday morning the right hand rod was away again with one of the biggest stockie commons in the lake “Lashes” at 45lb 8oz being the prize. Friday morning he managed another stockie mirror which rounded off a seriously impressive first week on the Main Lake! Well done that man!

Sam “In the tree” O’Brien didn’t hesitate to drop into Big Girls with the form the swim has been in he would have been a fool not to, starting off fishing solid bags he lost a fish on Monday night and decided to changeover from supernatural to armakord hooklinks to try and prevent any damage to the hooklink in the fight! Sam landed “Jims Lin” on Wednesday at 19lb and lost a couple more fish to hook pulls on Friday when the fish decided to turn back up in the swim!  Sam went on to land 3 more on the last night up to 24lb…also landing a sparrow and 3 pigeons on Saturday morning… good angling lad, not just a carp angler! Sam baited with sweetcorn 12mm Pnademic and 15mm Creamino and had his bites on Pink Cornz!

“Uncle” Will Greenhill finally managed to get himself into Bob’s Beach for the week on the hunt for that elusive Immaculate Common, fishing all 3 rods at 16 wraps straight out infront Will didn’t manage to get amongst any of the Main Lake monsters this time but landed two lovely mirrors, “Small and Mighty” @ 23lb 8oz and “Red October” @ 28lb. Both fish were landed on spinner rigs with Wills homemade Banoffee Pop ups as a hookbait.  

Next up we have Shaun “faceplant” Russell who after MUCH deliberation ended up choosing Co’s Point for the week. Opting to fish close in at 15.5 wraps he spread his rods a good few rod lengths apart, baiting with 10-15 spombs of 18mm fishmeal, sweetcorn and pellet per day. He managed to land 4 fish up to 38lb 4oz, “Ugloe” was the prize a proper old crusty original! All of Shauns fish came on helicopter style lead set up with D-Rigs and cut down 18mm bottom bait with a pink topper!

I dropped into Stock Pond and managed to land a stunning 27lb stockie named “solid scales” fishing the Gigantica bag mix in solid bags down to the corner at 9.25 wraps.

That concludes another mega week on the Main Lake with over 30 fish landed and lots of laughs and memories made! Special shoutout to Freddy Knight who even though the fish were all over him and he couldn’t buy a bite, kept everyone laughing all week with his nightly “Thinking tackle Gigantica specials” and just being standard Fred. Looking forward to having you all back soon!

Until then,

Tight lines,

Steve