Bailiff Comments

Week Commencing: Sat 04/01/2025

Power Trip

It is great to be back here at the Big G, having been away since November.

It wasn’t so great being woken up on the first morning being back to minus 6 degrees and a heavy frost outside.  The week was due to be all over the place with the temperatures going up early week into the dizzy heights of double figures and then by the end of the week back down to just above freezing during the day and frosty mornings again.

We were also due to embrace some strong south westerly winds with the mild temperatures to hopefully stir things up a little with it.

With the winds forecast in the direction they were due to blow it made sense for Terry Barber to position himself in the fall force of the winds in The Stink.

With the swim having produced one fish the week previous, it was a no brainer for Terry to position his rigs on the same area that had produced the fish, this being out at 30 wraps towards the cut on the tree line to the right of Baxters as you look from his swim.

And right on queue with the much milder temperatures and the winds guesting into that part of the lake on Monday Terry had his first slice of the action at around 9:40am.  A nice clean near mid 30 common weighing 34lb and going by the name of LuLu was his reward.  Anything this time of year is very well deserved, and it was a nice way to get going.  Terry Started off by putting out just 12 Spomb’s of bait on the opening evening and sat patiently until a fish came along.  Terry’s bait mix comprised of mainly sweetcorn and Essential Cell boilies, with a tiny little bit of hemp and doused in a garlic flavouring to make it just that little bit more attractive.  

With the near storm strength winds blowing in his direction, and a couple of tree’s blown down on site, Terry dropped his rigs and baiting back to 28 wraps to make casting just a little easier.  This did not affect his action, as on the Wednesday he managed to land one shortly before first light, Jayden weighing 45lb 4oz, and then at 10:30am a nice 31lb 8oz stockie that had no name on the website, so he has now christened this one No Socks, after hearing a story that he doesn’t wear socks whilst fishing.

One more fish came and visited him before the end of the week on the Friday morning, again around first light.  30lb 6oz, and a fish called Spooner’s Vlog that had no recorded captures since 2021.  A lovely fish that I am sure will make plenty of anglers happy in future years.

Terry caught all his fish this week on spinner rigs comprising of Boom material and the dedicated Spinner hooks in size 4 with yellow Northern Special pop ups to tempt the fish over his frere offerings.

Well done this week Terry, consistent angling.

Another angler taking advantage of the wind direction this week in his swim decision was Bill Hodkin who placed himself into Big Southerly.

Being no stranger to the lake Bill set his stall out at 26 ¾ wraps out just to the left of Alcatraz opposite him and waited patiently for something to happen.  And his patience paid off on the Wednesday at around 1am when he put the net under a lovely framed 44lb common going by the name of Alfred.  Another fish that hadn’t been recorded for a few years.

The day prior to Bill landing this fish he had put out a single whole large tin of corn tight over his spot to tempt this one to feed.  Spinner rigs again with a yellow pop up on, this time soaked in the ever-popular Isotonic Goo won this fish over.

This was Bill’s only bit of action, but he was still truly made up by this fish.

That was all the action from this week for the anglers.  With the weather all over the place this week hopefully with some more settled weather forecast, all be it cold, hopefully some action will keep the anglers warm over the next few weeks.

Don’t forget, if you are visiting us over the winter be sure to pack your wellies.  As the water table in the area is up again so it means we have some extra water in the swims and around the site.

Be lucky and stay warm.

Gareth “Gino”.