Bailiff Comments

Week Commencing: Sat 31/01/2026

Leaving it late

Let’s kick things off this week with regular angler Dan Coles, who found himself in familiar territory this week back in Co’s Pointafter his last session in there during early December just past.

It was just a process of pressing the reset button for Dan, as since his session back in December it was still in the area towards the ‘flat oaks’ that was producing the bites, so that is where the rods were positioned for the week.

And it wasn’t long before the bites came coming.  In-fact the first evening he managed to land one of our fresh stockies.

Daily action followed from here forward, a handful of new ones came along over the next couple of days, which Dan got to christen with names.  But it was from Tuesday onwards when the average weight began to creep up slightly.  Four fish on the Tuesday, ‘Bert’ at 22lb 4oz, ‘Scamp’ 13lb 8oz, ‘Paradox’ 16lb 4oz and topped off with ‘Merang’ weighing 32lb 4oz.

Another 30lb plus fish graced Dan’s net on the Wednesday, this time ‘Presley’ just slightly bigger at 32lb 8oz.  This one was backed up again by two stockies that included the lovely looking ‘Gibbons Lin’ at a mighty 12lb 4oz.

Thursday a much better stamp of fish came along, this time with ‘Pretty Little Ting’ weighing 28lb, ‘Yorkie’ at 36lb and finished off with ‘Rapala’ spinning the scales to 37lb 12oz.

But the best fish of the week for Dan came late on the Friday when he netted a new 40lb plus fish for the lake in the shape of ‘Bratwurst’ that weighed in at exactly 40lb.  Before this one he also managed to land ‘Timbo Slice’ at 21lb 12oz.

A mid 20 came along for a visit during the final night, which Dan slipped back after landing it.  But to end on a 17 fish total for the week was not to be sniffed at for a winter session.

Rigs where the same as before, these were D rig spinners, using the D Rig Kickers on size 4 hooks and Boom material mounted to a lead clip arrangement.  On to the rigs a snowman presentation of a fish meal bottom bait and a coloured pop up topper kept the bites coming, and over this Dan fed a mixture of corn, hemp and boilie and introduced a fair amount of bait each day to keep them interested in feeding on the spot.

Moving on to Alex Machin, who positioned himself into The Stinkfor the week ahead, and it did almost literally take him the week to catch his only fish of the week.  After losing a fish on the Thursday night his confidence was up leading into the final night.  And rightly so, as he went onto catch the largest fish of the week and a nice looking one with it.

‘Squeaky Clean’ was his reward for his patience and perseverance.  Weighing in at 46lb it certainly sweetened the taste at the end of the week for him.

Both of Alex’s bites came from 28 wraps fished just to the left of Bob’s Beach as you look out from his swim.  On this area Alex kept baiting simple with just corn, flake maize and hemp with the addition of Sriracha sauce and hemp oil to aid attraction and introduced around 12kg throughout the week in total.

D Rig spinners being the successful rig of choice and this was baited with a salty squid wafter with the top trimmed off and a yellow corn topper for a sighter on top.

Jack Sherry joined us this week and opted to fish from Alcatraz, and a fair choice after this swim had been doing the odd bite in recent weeks.

Choosing to fish long to the edge of his boundary at 33 wraps he began fishing towards the ‘scary tree’, which sits about halfway between Big Southerly and The Stink swims as you look out.

Here Jack managed his first fish on the Monday morning, landing ‘Dicky Doos’ at 31lb 4oz.

A move slightly to the left with the rods to the right of Big Southerly led to a couple more bites coming Jack’s way during the rest of the week, with a small double returned on the Wednesday evening and then landing a nice looking linear called ‘Lucifa’ at 36lb on the Thursday.  And this final fish of Jack’s had certainly been picking out the corn in his mix, as at the bottom of his sling was plenty of signs of this after the fish had been resting up in it for a bit.

Short D Rig Spinner rigs of around 4” doing the business, and these were baited with yellow pop ups soaked in the Passionfruit Goo.

Jack baited his spot with a mixture of corn, hemp, tuna and crushed boilie to keep the fish interested in feeding.

And lastly this week we move onto Lee Dawson, who was joined for the week by wife Lin, and he opted to drop into the vacant Pole Position.

Keeping his rods out to the usual area out towards The Stink for the first few days didn’t bring anything Lee’s way, but a slight move of them just slightly left of here but at the same distance at 32 ¾ wraps produced his first and only bite of the week on the Tuesday, where he managed to land a nice looking fish in the form of ‘The Jewel’ weighing in at 24lb exactly.

An Essentail Cell wafter mounted to a Combi Multi rig which was mounted to a lead clip set up produced the bite for Lee.  And to tempt it to feed, Lee’s mix comprised of Essential Cell and Cell boilie, hemp, corn and salt with a good helping of the Cell Smart Liquid for good measure.

A 22 fish week to end on was not too bad in the end.  Still waiting for our first member of the ‘A’ Team to put in an appearance this year.  Surely it cannot be too long before we see one of these on the bank……..maybe next week??

Until then, Tight Lines

Gareth “Gino”