Gigantica Tips by Danny Fairbrass

Bait
I have always done well over a bed of mixed particles and chopped boilies; we have a food processor on site so you can chop your own or the ones we supply. My mix is 50% mixed particle which includes hemp, party mix, maize and tiger nuts and 30% chopped boilie and 20% mixed pellets. Feeding so many sizes of bait mean the fish never know what they have been caught on. We cook the particles in lake water which makes it immediately acceptable to the fish.

I start with about 30 spods in one area and add a few spods after each fish or every 6 hours if I haven’t had any action. If you are baiting up with one of our boats then make sure you spoon the bait all over your area, the worst mistake you can make it to pour it all in one place, the fish are very wary of this and it is easy to miss such a concentration of bait with your casts.

For hookbaits I have done well on Sticky Baits Dumbbell hookbaits and Mainline 15mm Dumbbells, both are sold on site if you have trouble getting them. Tipping the bait off with a bright piece of plastic corn or a bright pop up has got me bites recently.

I use small ‘long chuck’ pva sticks of pellet, groundbait and tinned tuna, again all of this is for sale on site if you are unsure of what to bring but any good pellet and groundbait will work with tuna.

This is of course only a guide, the standard boilie approach has worked well, don’t be afraid to wash your boilies out in lake water 24 hours before feeding/rigging them, ‘old’ bait is less dangerous to a wary fish.

Spots
In open water I keep all rods very close together, no more than a rod length apart. By baiting the same spot several times a day I bring the fish to me during the week. Because the bottom is flat the bait IS the feature. Keep plugging away and it will happen, the worst thing you can do is panic 3 days in and start a new spot. Try a rod off the bait or close in for sure, but always keep two on the food!

To get my range exactly right I do not cast at the marker float, once I have found my spot which is usually a comfortable distance for casting 80-120 meters I go out in the boat to spread 30 small scoops of bait all over the swim, I try to put about a spod full in each scoop, this is less scary for the fish, it can draw fish in from a wider area and it gets the fish moving between baits making them easier to hook.

Once I have put in my first bait I wind the marker float down to the bottom and put the line under the line clip and wind the float in, with no casting! Then I lay a fishing rod next to the spod rod on the bank and wall a rig out with the marker float till that rod hits the clip, I then lay the rig next to the float, walk back to the rods take up the slack clip up the line on the fishing rod. I mark the line just down from the tip of the rod with some electrical tape and wind the line back in leaving the float were it is. I then repeat for the other two fishing rods and finally the spod which I clip up about 2 meters short of the marker float because the fishing rods and float will swing back towards me when they hit the clip, the spod will not because it lays on the surface.

Once this has been done I gently cast the rods with no rig on away from the swim to wet the line and get it tight on the spool, I then put on a hooklink and whack them out to the spot which I have lined up with trees on the horizon, all 3 rods are no perfectly on the spot with no practice casts in the swim. For recasts I simply cast away from the swim and get the mark just down from the tip, clip the line up again and then cast it back out to the spot.

I re-bait using the spod during my session and only use the boat at the start and at the worst time of the day which is usually the middle of the afternoon.

Rigs
These fish are riggy there is no doubt, I have caught well on stiff combi links like the hybrid stiff with the last 2cm stripped back by the hook. Running rigs also work well in open water. Close to snags I prefer a super strong hook like a wide gape x which I would crush the barb on.

The bottom is not silty but it is soft clay so I would keep to swivel leads on standard hooklink, inlines do work but only with longer hooklinks which should be soft braided to stop them sticking bolt upright off the bottom.

I always hide the line whenever possible; I use both a flying back lead and a backlead too. These fish have seen up to 100 lines around the lake week after week year after year, they must be petrified of lines by now.

Of course I have seen anglers who have done the exact opposite to me and caught well so nothing is set in stone but personally I think they would have caught even more if they had employed a few of the tips I have suggested.