Bailiff Comments

Week Commencing: Sat 04/10/2025

“Alive”, not “Dead”

 

Straight off the back of our annual “Korda Social” from last week, this time around we have The Gaffer’s annual “mates” trip.  It was great to see many regular faces and to also to meet a new one as well.  So, with DF and 8 of his invited guests in attendance it was time to get this new week off and rolling.

 

Let’s kick off this report with the main man himself, Danny Fairbrass.  Having had a respectable draw, Dan found himself choosing to fish from Big Southerly for the week ahead.  

Now this swim has not been in the greatest of form of late, but if anyone was going to get any level of success from here then it was going to be Dan, and he didn’t disappoint.

Being very observant for the first couple of days and keeping his eyes peeled on every inch of water at his disposal it was Monday night when action started to come.  First fish in the net and pressure off, Dan’s reward was ‘Albert’, a lovely common weighing just over the 40lb barrier by 4oz.  A perfect opportunity early on for a group photo of everyone on the trip.

It was another fine common that came to visit Dan on the next occasion, when he landed ‘Roblox’ at a staggering 54lb and this fish was also backed up by a mirror that is called ‘Catch Report’ and weighed 46lb respectively.

Dan was certainly getting into the groove of his swim now, and this showed the very next night when he managed to land three more fine specimens.  These included ‘The Richmond Fish’ (A fine original scaley) at 32lb, ‘Tank’ weighing 54lb 8oz and lastly his biggest for the week in the shape of ‘The Teacher’ at 56lb.  Dan caught this very fish on the same trip last year; this time it weighed 4lb heavier than his previous capture.

Things were rounded off on the last night with another common, this time weighing 36lb.  

Bites came from two areas of his swim during the week. One of these being 12 ¾ wraps cast towards the tall tree looking down towards the corner of Big Girls swim, and this spot Dan used a marker float for a visual reference when baiting with just boilie by the aid of his throwing stick.  He baited this spot for two days before fishing it, allowing the fish to come into him with confidence not having any lines in that area.  When he did finally put a rig onto this spot he managed two bites on the first night of fishing it.  A tactic everyone can take on board, baiting a spot for a few days before fishing it, allowing the fish to feel comfortable feeding in this area before placing your rigs in.

Dan’s other area of interest was out to the left of Alcatraz as he looked fishing his rods at 26 ¾ wraps with dry line and 26 ¼ wraps on recasts when the line was wet.  This spot was baited by the use of a Midi Spomb loaded with his mix of hemp and boilie.  This mix comprised mostly of hemp with a scattering of boilie, almost 80% hemp to 20% boilie.

Around 20 Spomb’s seemed to be the right amount when it came to baiting up this area, and the tighter the better.

It was no surprise to see Dan’s rig of choice being his trusty Spinner Rigs, these measuring 5” from loop to loop with a size 2 Kurv hook keeping him in contact with the fish he was capturing.  Onto the hooks were match the hatch bottom baits drilled out slightly with a piece of cork in the top section of the bait, still allowing the hook bait to sit flat on the bottom of the lake matching his free offerings.  These ran freely up and down the shank of the hook with his hook bead set right up near the bend of the hook.  His rigs where then set up with Lead Clips and Dark Matter Tubing to keep things lying flat.  Dan was ensuring that the lead clips allowed him to dump the lead on the take to help him to keep the fish up in the water and away from any snags and muscles in the swim.

Dan put a lot of effort into his fishing this week, and this goes to show that those who put in maximum effort certainly reap the rewards.

Well done this week!

 

Over to the ever-popular Co’s Point swim and in here this week we had angler Andrew ‘Phil’ Gibbens.  Andrew is somewhat of a fish expert and has certainly helped us when required when it comes to our stock ponds on site, and his help is always gratefully appreciated.

Starting off the week fishing two areas, 28 wraps at the “Tit’s” and the 18-wrap area towards the flat oaks, Andrew’s first bit of the action fell early on when he managed to land 3 fish in quick succession, ‘Bucko’ weighing 36lb 4oz, ‘Boreas’ at 40lb and finally ‘Youngest’ at 27lb 8oz.

With the action coming thick and fast out at 28 wraps Andrew ended up putting all his rods at this range but split them between the “Tit’s” and “Flat Oaks”.  And more bites were not far away when he went on to land on of the original scaly’s in the shape of ‘Shredder’ at 36lb along with one of our latest stockies ‘Hugo’ at 25lb 4oz, this fish has more than doubled in weight in 10 months! 

Another fish came later in that day in the form of ‘FiFi’ weighing 38lb.  6 fish landed in two days was a great start to the week for him.

A short quiet spell came during Tuesday, but he was soon back to the action on Wednesday where Andrew managed to land his smallest of the week in the shape of ‘Strokey’ at 23lb 8oz, then just as the light was fading netting a scale perfect 37lb 8oz common.

The end of the week had a nice high moment to it when he had managed to net and weigh an old friend of his at 60lb 4oz, this was ‘The Dustbin’.  Now this is a fish that Andrew held and stocked into the lake on our first stocking of home-grown carp, and it was introduced into the Main Lake by himself at 10lb 8oz back in November 2016.  A lovely moment with them both being reunited together for another picture with each other.

Another couple of nice fish to grace his net at the end of the week included ‘Pumped’ weighing 28lb 4oz and ‘IBC’ at 39lb 12oz.

Eleven fish landed this week from Co’s is a good steady achievement for any week on the Main Lake, so a big Gigantica well done.

Both of his spots at 28 wraps produced almost equally, 5 from one spot and 6 from the other.

A similar combination of 75% hemp to 25% boilie ratio in his free offerings kept the fish active in the area, with a match the hatch fishmeal wafter hook bait in 18mm fished on Spinner rigs of 5” of 25lb Boom and Wide Gape hooks, this was the first time he had added the Shot On The Hook to his set up and it didn’t do any harm and gave great hook holds every time.  This was then set up to a running lead clip arrangement, using the Multi Lead Clips and Dark Matter tubing.

Well done again this week Andrew and again thank you from all of us for your help as well this week.  We all learnt a lot!

 

Moving on to Chris ‘Evo’ Evans over in the inform swim, ‘The Stink’.

With the tail end of the storm coming through on Saturday and Sunday Chris decided to keep his fishing rods short until the wind died, but when it did start to ease, he was back out on the dance floor at 31 wraps with his rods towards Baxter’s and just to the left as he looked out.

And action started from the Monday when he landed his first fish of this trip in the shape of ‘Minus Seven’ weighing 29lb.  Not a monster but a start non the less.

Following on from this action came fairly steadily when on the Tuesday Chris caught ‘Shergar’ at 34lb and then followed this up the next day with the awesome looking ‘The Missile’ at just over 40lb, weighing 41lb “alive”.

Thursday produced another 40lb’er, this time around ‘Kling-On’ again just over the 40lb barrier by 4oz.

But the icing on the cake was yet to come for Chris.  The very final night he landed his best and the biggest of the week, one of our ‘super stockies’ in the form of ‘Parker’ weighing in at a new top weight of 65lb!  Another of our awesome common stockies that I’m sure will break into the 70lb bracket sooner rather than later.  This was an amazing way to end the week for not only Chris but everyone on the trip.  Save the best until last as they say.

You could have almost set your alarm all week for bite time for Chris, all of his bites virtually came between 9 and 10pm, this is certainly the time for the next angler going in to this swim needs to have everything set in good time before then.

Chris baited with a fishmeal boilie and hemp combination, again more hemp that boilie, and then introduced a few liquid attractions.  Including a match the hatch flavour fishmeal liquid, I.B. stick mix liquid, salmon oil, hemp oil and chilli oil…..quite the recipe!  And he introduced around 20-30 Spomb’s a day and then 7 after each bite on top of this.

Hook baits were 20mm wafters, either pink squid flavour or a white garlic smelling boilie.  These were attached to 6” IQ D rigs with size 2 Kurv Shank hooks then mounted to a Dark Matter Heli Safe leader.

Well done Chris, he goes away from this trip as the winner of ‘The Sexy Fish’ award for catching the largest “stockie” of the week…….well I say he goes home with it, but he went on to leave his award in his swim when he left.

Well done Chris, always a pleasure to see you.

 

Mr Embryo himself, Matt Pettitt, joined us for the week and after coming out late in the draw dropped into ‘Oblivion’.

For anyone that doesn’t know Matt he is a great angler who quietly goes about his fishing back home, and in between that also heads up the Embryo branch of the business.

Again, like the other lads on this bank at the start of the week he had the strong winds hammering into his swim, so Matt opted not to fish the swim at range but more so at a more comfortable range.  And it was the Sunday night when he had his first taste of Gigantica action in the shape of ‘Rapala’ weighing 36lb.

The next fish to visit Matt was a pristine looking 36lb common, it is that pristine that identifying it proved difficult.  And this one came on the Monday night.

We weren’t too sure if his scales only stopped at 36lb, as surprise surprise his following capture weighed exactly 36lb again! 

This time around it was one of our old originals, and a rare visitor to the bank, ‘Ed’ Lamp’.  A great looking fish for sure.

All of Matt’s fish came from fishing out at 28 wraps to a real nice clean area free from any weed.

Rig wise, Matt went for a 8” combi style rig with a size 6 Choddy hook onto a heli-safe set up and his rig was baited with a 15mm match the hatch bottom bait. 

Well done Matt, great to see you again.

 

Regular visitor to us here was Chris Irving, and I’m sure for those regular readers of our catch reports will have read about him recently.

Chris came out last in the draw this week with ball number nine, and put himself into fish from Stock Pond, which had fished very well the week prior.

It was Wednesday night when Chris managed to land his only fish of the week, after losing a couple prior.  But a nice-looking fish it was, ‘Shmokin’ spinning the scales around to 42lb.  Whilst the photos were being done it was also another great opportunity to get another group photo.

Chris caught this fish on a Spinner rig that was baited with two grains of slow sinking double corn, fished over a bed of mainly hemp and boilie.  His rig and bait were positioned in towards the far right corner of his swim at 26 ½ wraps.

Chris is back again later in the year, so we all look forward to welcoming him back and fingers crossed he gets back amongst our residents here.

 

Good friend of Dan’s is Andy Reynolds, ex owner of Fat Fish Tackle, and Andy this week parked himself into Bob’s Beach.

Off the back of his success from Big Southerly back in August of this year, it was no surprise to see him fishing out at 15 wraps with his trusty D rigs made from N-Trap Soft and the ever-faithful Kurv Shank hooks.

Hook baits again was the same match the hatch boilie as before, this was all fished over a spread of just boilie baiting with his catapult approach.

It was Tuesday night that Andy’s opportunity arrived, and he managed to land a fish called ‘Rumi’s’, which is a really cool looking carp, very dark and grey, that manged to spin the scales around to 33lb “alive”.

Sadly, the fish didn’t turn up on this side of the pond in mass this week and this was his only piece of action.

Until next time, and as with all the other lads great to see you again.

 

Lastly this week we have Bill ‘The Golfer’ Hodkin.  Bill put himself into The Alamo for the week ahead, where he went onto land one of our fresh stockies from the previous December, a fish called ‘Dijon’ and one that is growing well since being introduced, now weighing in at 17lb.

Bill caught this fish out on his longer spot at 29 wraps, and despite being near to the fish they just weren’t getting their heads down in this area it seemed.

 

Despite a fairly challenging week, some great carp were landed.  And with the full moon in full flow, it was no surprise to see a number of our nice commons being caught.  This is a regular occurrence I have noticed on this moon phase here.

Until next time gentlemen.

 

Tight Lines

Gareth “Gino”