Bailiff Comments

Week Commencing: Sat 12/10/2024

The Babies are getting BIG….

This week we have “The Gaffer’s” annual social.  Joining DF this week we had a lot of regular faces to us here, so a good week was defiantly on the cards in terms of the social atmosphere and fingers crossed the fishing as well.

Just the nine anglers fishing on the main lake this week and with the walk around completed, rules read it was time for the draw.  We had one angler arriving a little later and with everyone else picking a ball from the hat, the last ball left would be for the late arrival of Denni, travelling all the way from Italy…….and would you believe it, the ball left for him was ball one!  This, as you can imagine, went down well in the club house.

With a full moon towards the back end of the week, let’s see how all the anglers got on.

Our host Dan Fairbrass drew out ball number six and despite this still managed to find himself nicely placed in one of the more central swims that commands a lot of water, The Alamo.

Dan began the week going in straight off the back of the previous angler, who had managed to catch a good fish, fishing at 30 wraps.  It was a quiet first couple of days for him, but with so much activity in a different area and at a shorter range he made the decision to pull off the long spot and start fishing and baiting a new area at 26 wraps.  These efforts were quickly rewarded with the first couple of fish slipping into his net from the new area, these fish being “James” weighing 43lb and “Margarita” weighing 26lb respectively.  

It is always nice to get those first fish in the net at Gigantica and the pressure was now off.

Another couple of upper twenties followed the following day.  The first, a nice original scaley upper twenty, managed to escape before we got at least a single photo of him.  But then we did manage to then get some photos of the next fish, “Brillo”.  

With a handful of fish now firmly under Dan’s belt it was surely only a matter of time before one of our larger residents came along, and this was certainly the case as we entered the full moon cycle, which was due to last the next two days.  In the early hours of Thursday Dan was met with a fish that himself and Andrew Gibbens had stocked into the Big G on the very first batch of home-grown carp back in 2016, when it went into the lake weighing 10lb 8oz.  This was “The Dustin” and now it had spun the scales around to 64lb!  This certainly is one of our “Super Stockies”.  An absolute unit of a carp and who knows how big this one is going to get to!

The same night Dan had also managed another fish.  With a number of fish showing short to Dan’s left-hand margin a solid bag was deployed in that area during the night, and he was quickly rewarded with a fish by the name of “Nomad”, and this one went 42lb.  Not a bad brace at all to wake up to, and just shows effort equals reward!

Thursday night and Friday day went a little bit quiet, but one the final night another couple of fish came his way.  “The Teacher” at 52lb and then finally “Gums” weighing 46lb, another great brace of fish to have throughout the night.

 As mentioned above Dan caught his fish on a couple of methods.   The solid bag approach and his ever faithful, and go to, rig set-up the spinner rig.  This comprises of 20lb Boom, size 4 Longshank X (barb crimped flat), D Rig Kicker and a “shot on the hook” finishing the set up.  This was set up on a running lead clip lead system.  Hook baits of choice were a fish meal bottom bait with the top skimmed off and replaces with a matching sized Garlic Goo infused topper.

Dan baited with a mix consisting of mainly fish meal boilies and hemp with a little corn and pellet using around 20kg of boilie and 15kg of hemp throughout the week.

A tough start to the week but adapting to what was happening in front of him and never giving up produced the goods in the end.  Well done Dan, a pleasure as always.

Next up we have Steve Reeves, and after having a good draw with ball number two opted to drop into Bob’s Beachas he had done on the same trip last year as he felt that he had some unfinished business from this swim.

And after losing one on the first night manged to net the second take he had, slipping the net under a fish called “Septimus”, which spun his scales around to 53lb and he was quick to announce that this was also a new P.B. for him!  A great way to start your week in the same swim that he struggled with last year.

4am on the Tuesday morning Steve’s good start continued, this time landing a fish called “The Rocke” at 43lb 15oz (a very honest weight I would say).  The action for him was steady all week with “The Guvnor” coming his way next on the Wednesday morning, and this one went 40lb.  Then followed by another P.B. “Mammut”, which he firstly said it was just over 50lb but in fact put the scales around to a whopping 61lb!  What an achievement, two new personal bests in as many days.

Other fish that came his way on the Thursday night and Friday morning were a lovelly looking linear called “The Juggler” that went over 30lb for the first time, now weighing 34lb and also one of our babies from last year a 16lb mirror that is now named “Colegate” as it came whilst Steve was brushing his teeth that morning.

Final morning drama came in the shape of one of our lovely original scaley fish, that would not look out of place back home this being “The Resident” at 46lb and this was doubled up with another of our stockies called “Partner” that went 24lb.

Steve was very consistent all week with his spots and spread all his rods out at 21 wraps in the direction of The Alamo.  His main ingredient for his bait was Royal Marine boilie, and this was mixed also with hemp to keep those carp grubbing.

Starting off fishing with IQ D Rigs, Steve later changed onto solid bags fishing small dumbells with a little yellow topper to give it a visual aspect.

Good solid consistent angling this week from Steve, keeping the bait going in at the same time every day.  Well done this week.

Another angler this week that caught steadily and getting his first-choice swim, despite having ball number three was Chris Evans, and went into the inform swim Alcatraz.

Like Steve, Chris also lost his first fish on the first night, suffering a hook pull.  But he went onto catch his first fish on the Monday, although being one of our stockies weighing 19lb, a fish called “First Timer”, it still put a smile on his face.  Anyone that knows Chris knows that he has always got a smile on his face.

During the night he managed another fish, “The Ingot” weighing 38lb.  The action got better as the week went on for Chris, Thursday he managed to catch his biggest of the week “The Unattended” that went 50lb 10oz this was then followed up with “The Baby Koi” at 22lb 8oz.  Photo’s done and into the Friday he landed “FiFi” during the night that went 38lb and then that very evening just after dinner managed a bite whilst everyone was still around the club house and with the crowd in his swim netted “Kool Karp” at 36lb, and whilst it was up on the scales another one of his rods was away.  This time a carp of similar size, 33lb and known as “Lips”.  A great bit of evening action with everyone watching on, with plenty of banter flying around in Alcatraz.

Most of Chris’s action this week came from the “spot” that has been in form of late, this being 30 wraps towards Big Southerly and just to the right of it.  He fished with a good helping of Krill boilie and mixed particle doused in a combination of salmon oil, krill liked and Mainlines I.B. stick mix liquid.  Over the top of this Chris used spinner rigs comprising of size 4 Krank hooks with a match the hatch hard hooker topped off a Deep Sea flavoured topper.

A pleasure as always Chris, and great company (as everyone was).

Our fish expert, Andrew Gibbens, came out of the draw with ball number nine (the last ball) but still found himself with the option to drop into The Stink, that whilst lapping the lake the last couple of evenings I had seen a good number of fish in at range.

Andrew managed to get amongst some action on the first night, sadly the first on managed to cut him off but was happy to have another opportunity and this time managed to bank “MK” at 36lb.  Sadly, this fish turned out to be a little camera shy and done the off from the unhooking mat whilst in the water and was away.  A true story of ‘the one that got away’.

Luckily more action was to follow for Andrew, going on to catch another couple the next night, these being “Little Kicker” at 46lb and followed up with a 42lb 8oz common that was almost scale perfect and which I am still trying to identify.  I enjoy identifying the fish, but you always get the odd one from time to time that is certainly more challenging to find, and this is one of those rarities.

After a steady start to the week, it quietened down a little during midweek, but Thursday night into Friday he was back amongst some fish.  Landing his biggest of the week, “Roblox” at 51lb 8oz and this one was backed up with “Dennis” weighing 35lb.

Tactics this week for Andrew was the faithful spinner rigs, approx. 5” in length with Wide Gape size 4’s being his hook of choice.  These were baited with 15mm match the hatch hard hookers, and his free offerings consisted of boilie, hemp and a little maize.  He baited with around 30 spombs per day at 30 wraps.  

Bill Hodkin came out late in the draw also and found himself with Pole Position, which has been producing the odd fish of late so was certainly worth a look in.

There are a handful of areas in this swim that have been producing of late, 33 wraps to the left of Stink as you look, 19 wraps towards “the scary tree” and 16.5 wraps at The Alamo.  Bill also had the luxury of no one fishing in Stock Pond so split his efforts between Pole and Stock Pond to start with and on the Monday night managed a fish from his Stock Pond rod, this one was a nice 31lb 8oz mirror caught from the 26.5 wrap area out of stock pond.

With a few fish showing in Pole, he soon turned his full attention to this swim and began fishing at range at 33 wraps towards the bulk of the fish.  Unfortunately, this didn’t produce the goods for Bill, but later he put his efforts on one of his rods at the 16.5 wraps towards Alamo and put out 6kg of pellet over this area and was nicely rewarded just as it got dark on the Thursday with “Lashes” weighing 64lb this time around.  Bill kept his eyes on the lake at the right times of day, every morning when I was up in the dark, I could make out his silhouette parked at the front of his swim watching like a heron.

At the end of the week for his efforts and catching the biggest of the ‘stockies’ he was awarded the ‘Sexy Fish Prize’ for his achievements.  Well done Bill.

Another of our ‘super stockies’ made an appearance this week from Big Southerly, this time in here we had regular visitor Chris Irving.  Chris fished all week concentrating his efforts out at 26.5 wraps from Big Southerly and was rewarded early in the week with “Wood’s Common” and the first time this particular fish had gone over the 60lb barrier, just scraping over at 60lb 5oz.  A lovely looking common and am sure it is destined to keep getting even bigger.  Well done on this capture, he is back out here in a couple of weeks so let’s see if his good run of form continues here at Gigantica.

One of our other regular guests, more so in the cooler months was Steve French and having a decent draw for a change ended up in Tree Line. 

Fishing this swim as he always does, he positioned his solid bags short and baited a big area to start with using just boilie and as the week went on concentrated his baiting approach tighter around his rigs.  Having lost a fish on the first night his patience paid off on the Thursday when he landed a nice fish, and one he hadn’t caught before, “The Buzzin’ Fish” weighing 67lb 8oz.  Steve likes to catch the bigger ones and he wasn’t disappointed with this one as it is another one ticked off for him.  Like Chris Steve is also back out at the end of November so let’s hope he gets amongst them again.

And lastly this week we had Denni, who despite not being here for the draw still managed ball one and put himself straight into Co’s Point.

It took Denni a little while to settle into a rhythm and managed his first fish on Tuesday morning with a small mirror of 26lb caught from 30 wraps towards the tits.

Then towards the end of the week Denni turned his attention towards a shorter area of 18 wraps towards the ‘flat oaks’ as we call it and landed a 36lb mirror on the final morning on a solid bag.  The bulk of Denni’s feed this week was the ISO Fish boilie from Mainline that we sell on site.  This was bulked out with hemp.

With the full moon in full swing this week it certainly threw up lots of big fish and lots of commons that the full moon is known to produce.  Also, this is the first time we have had three of our home-grown fish out in one week all over 60lb, the future is certainly looking bright.  A great week, as these weeks are, lots of banter and lots of good angling on show around the lake.  With the fish still being well spread around the lake let’s see what our regular visitors from Denmark can do next week.

Tight Lines,

Gareth “Gino”