Bailiff Comments

Week Commencing: Sat 08/03/2025

Foggy Morning’s 

Well what a week this has been, plenty of fish caught from all over the pond, and all anglers bar one managed to catch a few. It was a interesting week with the weather not being favourable, foggy morning’s, hard frost’s, freezing fog, rain, cold easterly’s and even the odd warm sunny day. But with a full moon on the horizon (Thursday) the lad’s were super keen. 

90% of the bite’s came at first light, anywhere between 7am and 9am, and surprisingly the better morning’s were in thick fog with a couple of lads having mutable takes, not ideal for re-casting but the lads would still get the rods back by casting down the line, where a rod would already be in position. 

We will start off with Adam Graham who settled up nicely in Big Southerly, after the walk around and taking in all the information he aimed to fish two spots, one at 26 wraps towards the left of Alcatraz and the other on a shorter spot at 14 wraps, hard left towards Alamo. A few days past with no joy, and as I was delivering breakfast on the Wednesday he mentioned the old “wobbly Wednesday” saying. After a little chat and bit of encouragement from myself I was off delivering the rest of breakfast. No longer than a hour later Adam messaged the group, “Ben I have a possible 50 in the sling”, ideal. Span round there only to open the sling and see a fish that was slightly bigger than 50lb, “The Clean Fish” at a mega 65lb 8oz! With photos taken and a P.B in the locker, Wobbly Wednesday was soon a distant memory. Thats not all the following day Adam managed a stunning stocky, going by the name of “Dirty Mag’s”  at 34lb 8oz. That’s was all for Adam but a very happy man. Rig wise he opted for the ever so faithful spinner rig, 4inch Boom Section, Size 4 wide gap on a running lead clip with 10inch of tungsten tubing above that, and not to forget a Big G yellow special pop up. Baiting not to heavy, keeping a bit of sent in the water each day with crushed Cell, a few whole cells and a handful or so of the 10mm essential cell for colour. 

Next up we have Dave Hoodless, Dave Started his week off in Oblivion, and after watching Cousin Ron next door in Big Girls catch a few and him nothing, he made the move over to Stock Pond, on the hunch they would move back and fourth around the spit and he would intercept them that side. What a cracking decision, on the first morning after the move he had two carp lying in slings waiting for their photos to be taken, a couple of nice mirrors “Snurger” at 24lb 8oz and “Bionic” at 19lb 12oz. He then went on to catch a Common at 21lb that he had pleasure of naming, but the reel fun came on the final morning, a mega 51lb 10oz P.B common named “Septimus”. Dave thought he would get away with the P.B soaking put Cousin Ron was having none of it, in fact had a double soaking once in the water as the fish was going back and once in front of the sign. Dave caught 3 out of his 4 fish from the 26wraps spot into the far corner but the 50 came from the shorter spot along the tree line at 17 wraps. Rig wise again a 4 inch spinner, size 4 wide gape tungsten tubing to a lead clip but this time with double slow sinking maize as a hook bait. Baiting up with a bit of crushed essential cell, corn and hemp, not going to mad on the bait either, just enough to get a bite. 

And this leads me on to Ron Hoodless fishing opposite in Big Girls. Ron came out 2nd in the draw and after recent form from Big Girls he had no hesitation but to get in there. Ron fished constantly all week, two rods at 26wraps towards the spit and one down the treeline at 21 wraps on the inflow pipe coming from the stock ponds. Both spots produced for Ron, landing a total off Five fish, the biggest being “JP” that he named after his mother at 37lb, a fish that was stocked back 2018 and Ron was first to catch it, Gigantica is full of surprises. It started off very strong from Ron with him catching every night up until Wednesday and the fish moved off with the wind to the other side into stock pond. But still a very happy angler, especially after giving Dave a good soaking. Solid bags for the win for Ron, little yellow hook baits on small German rigs got him his bits and the same mix and Dave, again keeping feed down to a minimum. 

Regular Dan Coles got into his favourite swim “Alcatraz” once again, this guy has fished this swim on more occasions than anyone. On the walk around we were chatting and I was telling him that Alcatraz has been fishing very slow all winter and even a blank the week before, but coming out late in the draw and with Alcatraz an Bobs beach left among the favourites he just couldn’t help himself. But saying all that he ended the week on being top rod with a total of 12 fish all the way from mid double upto his biggest being “The Unwanted” at 36lb 12oz. Dan fished the week out very tidy, fishing at 33 wraps towards right of Big Southerly with Spinner D Rigs, a bottom bait, with a yellow topper. Dan fed fairly heavy throughout the week compared to the rest of the anglers. After catching a couple on the first morning, he gave them 70 spombs that day, ready for the following morning. This worked as I was running a 4th sling round to him the next morning. 70 spombs sounds a bit mental but when its 70 of the correct stuff when fish are over you it soon gets eaten. His mixed consist of sweetcorn, hemp, crushed boilie and some smart liquid. 

Another regular Steve Crouch who came out last like he normally does, ended up in Bob’s Beach, and not a bad swim to end up in after it catching a few the week previous. Steve spent most of the week with no fish even entering his swim, but as laid back as Steve is, he kept his head on and waited for them to turn up. During the thick freezing fog on Thursday morning he managed three, one after the other, what a result and a perfect example of keeping to the spots and It can finally happen. “Patch Lin” being the biggest at 32lb. Steve fished two spots, one at 24 wraps towards Alamo where he placed two rods and the 3rd at Big Girls at 15 wraps. Both spots produced, two from the 24wrap spot and the other coming from the 15 wrap spot. Similar to Dan, Steve was catching on spinner rigs with bottom baits and yellow toppers and also feeding similar to Dan but just on a much lower quantity. 

Lee Terry came out first in the draw and done the correct thing and the same thing everyone else would of done and went into Co’s Point. After it doing 20 fish the week before it would of been mad not to! But thing’s didn’t work out to well for Terry, he did manage Three fish early on with the biggest being “The Jewel” at 22lb, but as soon as the wind changed to a NNE the fish done the off to in front of mate Dan in Alcatraz. This is a common theme in these two swims, one always fishes better than the other. Fishing practically identical to each other, rig wise and bait it was clear the fish wasn’t in front of Lee. The ones he did catch were from 31 wraps towards the tits and one from 31 wraps towards the flat oak.

And that leaves myself, I ended up fishing in Pole Position this week and managed five myself upto 36lb 8oz, a lovely common. I started off fishing the week on singles, three stiff hinges were cast out on a spread with yellow pop ups. This did work as on the Sunday I managed one during dinning service, a small stocky. I soon changed things up after seeing fish from around the pond coming over bait, so I went for the long spot a 33 wraps to the right of stink, and managed one every morning after that bar the last morning, feeding around 25 spombs per a evening ready for the morning chaos, crushed cell, hemp, corn, hemp oil, cell smart with a bit of flake to hold the liquids. My go to 4inch spinner got me them bites.

Thats all for this week guys, plenty off fish out, things are starting to change and looking brighter. Here’s to a good spring!

Hope to see you soon.

Tight Lines.

Ben