Saturday 10th April 2010

Hillview Lakes

After arriving at the fishery, the sun was blaring and I imagined we would be in for a good day after the good weights on Wednesday (143lb won, 2 more tons and various 80s and 90s). After a nice big fry up I had a walk around the pools by myself to try and work out what exactly was going on. I was intending to fish shallow, but I actually saw no fish top when I was walking around. Not good. What I did notice was that there was a lot more colour in Moorhen than heron… I had to fancy any peg along the causeway after Wednesdays weights (pegs 5-10) but I would turn my nose up at 19, 17 or 16 either. I have never really got on with peg 12 so didn’t really want to draw that and peg 2 would be the one no one wanted… My dad unfortunately drew this. So in I went and pulled out 15. Not a peg I wanted but it did win last Sunday so I was hoping there were some still there.

Arriving at my peg I saw Terry King setting up on peg 8 and I thought it would be game over, Josh on peg 10 which he skipped to. I had my work cut out. I had a good sit down for 5 minutes and had a think about my plan. I finally decided to keep it simple by fishing shallow at 13m pushing out to 14.5 or 16 if they backed off, a 4 metre line (where all the weights were caught Wednesday) and 2 margin swims, one to the left at 13m up the corner and 1 to my right throwing distance. First of all I plumbed up my 4 metre swim with a 4 x 12 KC Chimp in 4.5 foot of water, there was no breeze at all so I could get away with a lighter float, plus I was fishing pellet so I wanted it to be as natural as possible. This rig was 0.14 main line to a 0.12 hooklength, all Silstar, 16 Gamma Pellet hook. Shotting pattern was simple; number 10’s spread 3 inches apart. Elastic was Grey Hydro. My margin rig was next plumed up, right tight to some reeds up the corner in 2.5 foot of water. This was a 0.2 Grizzly (seems heavy but want to anchor the rig dead still). 0.16 main line to a 0.14 hooklength (again Silstar) to a 14 Gamma Pellet hook. A simple bulk was all that is needed down the edge, 10 inches from the hook. Elastic was black hydro. Finally I set up 2 shallow rigs, both Malman Thickos in 4 x 10. Both rigs were 0.14 main line to 0.12 hooklength. Hooks were 18 b911 eyed as I was fishing a hair rigged micro band on both. The reason I set up 2; one was an ‘ideal’ rig, if the fish were having it shallow I could fish it 1 foot deep or shallower and have a short line to hit fast bites, the other rig was a ‘wary’ rig. If the fish were going to feed iffy and wary, they wouldn’t want a pole over there hair so I could fish this rig a foot deep and swing it past my pole tip – that’s the theory anyway! Elastic wise was number 12 slip. Bait wise, I had a bag of 4mm pellet (feed), 1 pint was soaked for feeding edges and 4 metres and the other pint was left dry for fishing shallow, 1 tin of meat, some 4mm RS Expanders and some 6mm hard pellets for banding.

At the all in I fed my 4 metre line first, just covering the bottom of my big Preston ‘kup’. Next I fed half a pot of pellet at 13m (I wasn’t fishing on the deck but wanted to draw fish in the area then bring them up) and I never feed the edges until about 12 o clock. I picked up my 4 metre rig, hooked a 4mm pellet and lowered it in. At this point there was a lot of debris in my peg so I had to keep tweaking where my rig was. I picked up my catty and started to feed shallow. Terry had already had one big carp and I thought he was going to empty it. I then had a dink on the float which I missed, so I lowered it back in and it went again. First fish of the day on, now all the debris was right under my feet and the fish had gone through the lot of it! I tried my best to manoeuvre the fish around it actually trying to hard and managing to lose the bugger! I didn’t feed and just went back in with another pellet. Minutes later I was into another which I got in about 3lb. I then clipped on a toss pot and fed 20 pellets which seemed to kill the swim.

After 10 more biteless minutes, I had to try shallow. I banded a 6mm on the ‘wary rig’ and swung it out. I was feeding about 4-5 pellets every 20 seconds or so. At this point Josh hooked his first fish shallow so I thought I could have a few. Right at that, my float flew under and I hooked one as well. About 4 pounder in the pan. I had 3 more in the next hour but was really slow and hard going. Slapping the rig just wasn’t right today they were spooking ever so easy.. I had now also started to feed my right hand edge with 4-6 cubes of meat every 10 minutes and I was itching to have a go.. So I left the shallow line, still feeding it, and had a look on the inside.. I had one liner and that was it. I now started to feed my long margin line. I cupped in a handful of pellet and planned on topping it up every 30 minutes to give the fish some confidence.

Back shallow and all I could do was miss bites, so I changed to meat on the ‘ideal’ rig, still missing them.. I then banded a 4mm hard pellet and had 4 fish in 4 drops! Sussed! I continued to put a few more fish in the net but again they had gone a bit iffy again… So I tried my long edge, stocky first bung then a skimmer, then nothing. I fed it and tried the other side, stocky, stocky nothing! So I continued to feed that. At this point robin on 19 had filled his one net and went trundling off to get another! I thought I had about 30lb and needed these last 2 hours to be good. I managed one more fish shallow before just concentrating on my inside lines.

As soon as I dropped in on my short meat edge my pole was yanked out of my hand and a 3 pounder was in the net, so I fed it and laid another cube back in, the float dinked slightly and a sharp lift resulted in another chubby carp. Again just flicking cubes in I changed to my long line down the edge not wanting to exhaust them so early on. As I laid the rig in it didn’t even settle before it flew away. I lifted and it was just heavy, it was harder work just trying to pull a heavy weight to the side to get my pole on my rollers. 30 seconds later a big 10 pounder lay in my net flapping its head off. I then fed that line and changed to my short one… This was the trend for the rest of the match as I managed a few from each line, but any feed over there head when you were fishing it, I wouldn’t get a bite.

At the all out, I had a foul hooked carp on which I got out 5 minutes later about 5 pound. Alan had bagged the last 30 minutes on 6 and Robin hadn’t had another fish since he dropped another net in. Robin weighed in first with 58lb, I thought I had about 60lb but not much more, 2 weighs later and I had 73lb, the stockies really have piled on the weight. Bob on 12 had a few the last hour but Alan managed 3rd with 47lb from 6. It fished tough but I had managed a win never the less. Hopefully they’ll switch on properly soon.