Hillview Open Match – 26/9/2009
20 Pegs

At the draw I pulled out peg 35 which had 117lb last Saturday and 118lb the previous Saturday to that, to say I was pleased was an understatement. Right peg, right pool or so I thought!

Setting up I went about fishing how the weights had been done normally, short pole and margins. I plumbed a 0.4 MW Diamond up and 4 metres on 0.16 to 0.16 and a 175 number 3 hook and a rig to the pallet to my left with a 0.2 Ackoo margin mugger and 0.18 to 0.16 hooklength and again 175 but in a number 4 size. I also set up a shallow rig but didn’t plan on using it.

After 3 poor hours I had 3 carp that would go about 10lb, one foul hooked! I was pulling my hair out as I just couldn’t put anything together. I decided because I wasn’t going to win anything (Nev was bagging a carp a chuck right opposite!) I set up a new rig to fish for skimmers at 13m. I fished a light 0.3 pellet stick in 5 foot of water on 0.14 to 0.12 and a number 1 175. After putting a pot of 4mm pellet in I just planned on fishing it out and catching anything. I baited up with a 4mm RS expander and never looked back having skimmers every put in and every time I hooked a small stockie I put a toss pot of 4mm pellet in again. The swim started to fizz like mad so I fished 1m to the left of the feed and was bagging. If I didn’t have to double ship I would have caught even faster. I carried on fishing this way until 10 minutes before the end when I had a quick look down the edge and had a small carp about 2lb on paste. I weighed in 47lb, 35lb of that catch was skimmers and small carp caught on my winter-ish Hillview tactics (I say ish as I wouldn’t feed that much in winter!).

Nev won again easily with 195lb 2nd was 90lb and 3rd 75lb I think if I’d have fished for skimmers all day I could have easily had at least 70lb and won the section... Lesson learnt... I nearly have no hair after 3 frustrating matches without winning!!!