Hillview Lakes Open - 22/3/2009

As I wasn' able to fish Saturday, Sunday open it was. Which was a decent thing in hindsight as they are very good turnouts. 31 anglers turned up to fish, on all four canals. Great! Although they had been fishing well, I didn't fancy having nearly 8 (or 7 on 1 canal) on each canal! This was going to be tough.

At the draw, I managed to get near the front (I desperately wanted peg 69). In went my left hand ... out come peg 74! Damn it! I thought I was in for a real bashing as peg 69 had been king on the 3rd canal. After realising I had forgot my trolley to my box and having one of the longest walks ever, I finally got to my peg and chucked off my jacket... I was roasting!

Looking at my peg, I felt a lot more confident than I did at the draw, it had a nice gap in between 2 reed beds where I could fish a rig right tight to the far bank, which meant I would be in the shallowest water (which I wanted with the sun blaring, and being so warm). I was on a canal with 8, which meant it was pegged quite tight but not cramped, i still had a pallet either side!

Setting up, I had 4 rigs. The 1st rig (the main 1 I would be using) was fishing over to the far bank in the gap, I pushed this tight over to find 2ft which was perfect! On this rig I fished 0.14 silstar to a short length of 0.12 with a pellet band incorporated, to an 18 b911 hook. I used a small Malman Snake 4, in 4x12 which is the perfect float for this style of fishing. The elastic I used was a double no.6. My next line was down the track in 6 feet of water, right at the bottom of the first shelf. All the material was the same as the other rig, apart from the float, which was a Ackoo Pellet Stix in 0.4 version. The last 2 rigs i set up were for fishing the margins, i had one tight to the vegetation to my left and one for shallow (as they do come up in the edges!). I incorporated the same set up as the above 2 except these were on 0.16 to 0.14 and used a 0.1 Hillbilly, Grizzly! The only bait I had with me were some 6mm hard pellets for the hook and some 4mm feed pellet...as you will tell in time i am a self confessed pellet head!!

At the all in i fed all my lines except the far bank with around 100 4mm pellets and a few 6mm pellets to let them know what theyre going to be having!! I baited my 'over' rig with a hard 6mm (with my awesome new bandabait tool) and filled my tiny drinks cap with 15 4mm pellets. I pushed the rig up the slope and potted in my bait. . . . within seconds i was into my first stockie of the day, next cast the same thing happened. Next cast i didn't have a bite straight away so now i had chance to start working the bait, lifting and dropping. This time I hooked something more substantial and i just wasn't quick enough to steer it from the 2 bushes and it snagged me! After a lot of pulling, my 0.12 hooklength finally broke. New one on and back over with another 15 pellets. I started to lift and drop again, and I was now catching much bigger stockies, and some 3lb-4lb fish. All the time i was feeding my other 2 lines as my main line started to fade. After 2 hours i had around 20lb and looked to be winning my canal. I decided to rest my main line over and try the track rig, 1st cast i had a small tench, but the next cast i had a 4lb ghostie. Superb.

In the last part of the match i swapped between the 2 lines and put fish in the net for the rest of the match, the angler on the fancied peg 69 looked to be catching in the edges, but i never had a tickle! Come the weigh in, i knew the 2 end pegs on my canal had caught but didnt know what weights they had. Apparently the end peg on the 2nd canal had bagged up all day fishing paste!

At the weigh in 40 odd pounds was winning from the 4th canal, 27lb was winning my canal, I weighed in 58lb the only one left to beat me was the angler on the 2nd canal.... he weighed 55lb. Result.

A nice win to start off my blogg, come back next week to see how i get on Saturday at Hillview and then a Talk Angling match on Sunday at Froggats Farm... a place i have never heard of!