Bailiff Comments

Week Commencing: Sat 30/09/2023

Birthday Carp’s

Another week and another group of 12 happy anglers, all excited for the week that lays ahead of them and for what might grace their nets this week.

Still holding on to warm day time temperatures now here at Gigantica, but this week we experienced much cooler nights than we have had of late and very little wind and misty/foggy mornings.

Let’s kick this week’s catch report off with all round nice guy and Gigantica regular Greg Baillie.  Greg has visited us a few times this year and it is always a pleasure to be in his company, and despite pulling out ball number 12 this week he still found himself in a inform swim, this being Stock Pond.

Taking the advice and following on from the week previous Greg put his rods out to the 18-wrap area towards Oblivion, 26 wraps towards the ‘pipes’ in the corner and also to the first gap in the trees to the right at 9 wraps.

His opening approach was to just fish singles the first night and paid off nicely when on the first morning his 18-wrap rod was away and netted a very nice original scaley.  This turned out to be ‘The Peach’ and weighed in at 50lb 12oz.  A very nice start indeed, this was caught on a Baitworks Induce pop-up fished on a spinner rig.  Sadly, Greg also managed to lose his next two fish to hook pulls.

Having then experienced a few quiet days Greg had to wait until Wednesday to catch a nice 35lb 8oz mirror known as ‘Pollpits’, this time coming from the pipes in the corner, again on a spinner rig with a DNA S4 pop-up fished over boilie and hemp, which Greg introduced to his spot from walking around the margin and baiting from there rather than using a Spomb.  A great corner tactic.

The same day his 18-wrp spot also produced a lovely mirror known as ‘Colin’ with this one spinning the dial around to 45lb 4oz.  This time Greg had caught this carp on two grains of fake maize, and he had baited with just particle now on this spot.  This being a mixture of hemp and maize.

Thursday dinner time, and whilst everyone was enjoying their dinner Greg’s was interrupted with a dinner time bite.  This is one of the luxuries of fishing next to the lodge in that you can leave your rods out at dinner time.  Another original scaley had rolled into his net, and even better than this it was also Greg’s birthday!  What a lovely birthday gift it was when it was identified as being ‘Apple Slices’ and being again over 50lb, 50lb 4oz!  

It was a fantastic time being in the water doing the pictures of this one, good banter and a great crowed all enjoying the moment.

Greg was chopping and changing his hook baits as this one was caught on a yellow dumbbell wafter that had been Goo’d with No Name.  Still on a spinner rig and a heli set up as all the other had been.

Greg ended his week with one of last years stocked carp, weighing 20lb 4oz.  This got christened by Greg as ‘Snurger’…….I will let you google that one!

A great display of angling from someone who came out ball 12, just goes to show that if you work at it despite coming last in the draw the rewards are still there to be had.  Good angling mate, hope you had a great birthday and to see you again soon.

We also had another birthday boy with us this week, James Humble, this time it was the Friday that his birthday fell on.  James had chosen to plot up into Baxters Hole this week after it had produced some fish the week prior.

Taking on the advice that he was given on the walk around James decided to just fish the nights and rest the corner during the day time and kept all of his rods in short, fanning them around at 16 wraps in front of him.  Despite it being a tough week for him he still managed to land himself a birthday carp!  All 41lb 4oz of it, which also smashed his personal best along the way.  Gigantica was being kind to the birthday boy’s this week.  We later identified the fish to be one called ‘Violet’, which was hand reared here and stocked into the lake in 2018 and is nice to see it growing well.

Two grains of slow sinking fake corn was its downfall, fished on a short spinner rig using one of the new Korda Spinner hooks and cast towards the right hand side of Alamo as he looked.  James baited mainly boilie, this being Baitworks Royal Marine and deployed this out into the lake via a throwing stick.  Again, keeping the baiting up in the corners as stealthy as possible.

Well done James for your perseverance, new PB and your birthday carp. 

Rob Jones found himself set up in Pole Position this week, again another swim that has been on good consistent form this year.  Rob set out fishing and baiting his swim at 28 wraps, but after seeing the fish showing shorter the first day and following on from the last weeks angler catching short from that swim at the end of his week, he went on to net his first carp in the shape of a fresh 19lb 8oz common from 16 wraps aiming towards Alamo, this being caught on a Squid Goo’d hookbait.

Again, keeping to the shorter spots but this time at 19 wraps to the right of Big Southerly as he looked out, Rob landed a nice 30lb 6oz common carp known as Brizzle.  This one was taken on a Banoffee wafter tipped off with a piece of fake maize.  

It all went a little quiet on his spots but at the end of the week the fish had shown up on his baited longer spot.  Again, a great tactic, fish short for a few days whilst you have a longer spot baited and wait for the fish to turn up on it.  Rob had a flurry of fish then from his 28-wrap zone, mostly made up of some of the fresh stock fish that had been introduced over the last couple of years.  But still a very strong end to his week and ending up with five fish to his name.  Well done Rob.

Rob’s rig of choice was a Boom combi rig styled in the same way that Darrell Peck uses with great success.  This allowed Rob to change his hook quickly without having to keep re-tying rigs during the week.  Looking at his rigs and how his rods were set up on his buzz bars he definitely watches to much Cypography!

Rob fed pretty much everything in his mix; maize, hemp, Cell and Link boilie (chops and crumb) with a good dousing of liquids on top for good measure.

We also had the pleasure of having Tim Baillie with us for the week, brother of Greg who we mentioned earlier.  

Tim chose to fish from Bob’s Beach and again followed the advice of resting the swim during the day and fishing at a shorter more comfortable range.  This swim is generally predominantly a night-time zone for bites.

Tim spread his rods out in front of him at a very comfy range of 16 wraps and baited with a mixture of Baitwork’s Royal Marine and corn with a good glug of matching Royal Marine liquids and oils.

Tim baited steadily with 15/20 spomb’s per day and was rewarded with his only bite of the week on the Monday.  30lb 8oz mirror was his prize and a carp called ‘Double Jabba’.  Well done Tim, again like your brother great company and a pleasure to be around.

Fishing in Alamo we had another angler who has visited Gigantica a handful of times in the past, and to my surprise was someone who I used to be in the same year as at school, Tim Jackman.

Tim set out fishing at 28 wraps towards Bob’s Beach in front of him and was rewarded from this spot early in the week with a 26lb mirror known as ‘Brillo’.  

Again, like many other anglers Tim fished with spinner rigs constructed from 25lb Boom, size 4 Krank Kamakura hooks.  Hook bait was a Sticky Baits Krill hard hook bait topped with a pink pop-up that had been soaked in the Krill Goo liquid for some time.

Sadly, having plenty of fish showing in his area and despite changing a few things to try to encourage another fish that was Tim’s only piece of action for the week.

Good to see you again after all these years Tim, well done on the fish and will no doubt see you again here.

Lastly, we had young Callum fishing in Big Southerly.  Callum began the week leaving off from the angler the previous week at the 25 ½ wrap spot to the left of Alcatraz.  After no action on the first couple of days he decided to explore the swim a bit and again after no action put his rods back out at the original zone and then caught one that day on the Tuesday.  A very nice 28lb mirror was his prize and is called ‘Patch Lin’.

Callum caught this on a Baitwork’s Royal Marine bottom bait topped off with a corn topper.  This was fished onto a Combi rig made from N-Trap and a size 4 Wide Gape hook.  His lead system set-up was one of the Korda Dark Matter Heli Safe leaders.

Callum fed a mixture of boilie, chops and crumb again with a good helping of the matching liquids over his spots.

Well done Callum on your fish.

A very tough week’s fishing this week as you can tell, but still some nice fish being caught.  Let’s hope they get their heads down for a big feed up in the next few weeks.

Tight Lines……

Gareth “Gino”.