This weeks Sunday Open saw 14 anglers braving the blustery conditions spread over canal 3 and 4 at Hillview. I drew on canal 3 peg 73 which I was happy about as the wind today was off my back for most of the match. But fishing over to the far bank was going to be difficult so I just opted to fish down the track with maggots for the duration of the match.

I set up two rigs to fish maggots in 4 foot of water. A 4×14 float with a bulk and two droppers and also a lighter 4×12 float with strung out shot for fishing on the drop through the water. I started the match with the heavier bulk rig with double maggot hook bait and cad potted in a few maggots over the top. It was a little slow to start, the first hour just showing a couple of small carp for my efforts. I was cad potting in a few maggots over the top of the float every 15 minutes, trying to keep my bait offerings in a tight area. I’d caught those two small carp but I was beginning to attract to many small Gudgeon and Rudd. This tactic was cleanly not right.

Changing the feeding

So I stopped feeding via the cad pot and began to throw a few maggots out of my hand and switched to the lighter 4×12 rig with it’s strung out shotting pattern with a single red maggot hook bait. After a while this proved better, some small carp and F1’s moved into the peg and pushed out the small nuisance fish and I began to catch a better stamp of fish with the strung out rig.

Fishing one line

The blustery weather conditions were making it difficult to fish now. I couldn’t really move around the peg looking for fish so I opted to stay fishing just the one line at 11 0’clock at 2+3 down the track in the middle of the pool for all the match. This isn’t some thing I would normally do, preferring to rest lines but today it was just easier to hold my pole at 11’oclock. The fishing was OK and I was just plodding along all match picking up the odd fish. During the quiet spells I began to switch between the double maggot bulk rig and a single maggot on the lightly strung rig which was interesting and a bit of than eye opener for me. On the occasions when my rig wasn’t working and I wasn’t getting bites I would have normally moved somewhere else to fish. But today I couldn’t do that. So I changed back to the bulk rig with double maggot on the same line and caught fish straight away and then also this happened the other way round when returning to the strung out rig. The fish were there all the time but the presentation change clearly was key to keeping the bites coming all day.

So the match was a pretty simple one just fishing on the same line but using the two different rigs and it proved to be an enjoyable day, working out just how the fish wanted the bait despite the blustery conditions. I just caught steady for most of the day weighing in 57lb which was enough for 2nd place overall and a section win. The same as the last Sunday on Heron pool. I must be getting it right at the moment!

The two rigs

Both rigs were similar but the shotting made the presentation of the bait behave different to the fish. I found this key to keeping the bites coming throughout the day.

Bulk rig – A 4×14 Preston F1 fine set up on 0.15mm Guru N-Gauge mainline with a bulk of 5 no.9’s 18 inches from the hook with 2 x 10’s droppers above a size 18 (o.11mm) Preston SFL-B Ready Rig set up on Green 11 Preston Dura Slip elastic through a puller.

Strung rig – A 4×12 Preston F1 fine set up on 0.15mm Guru N-Gauge mainline with 9 no.11’s at 3 inches gaps above a size 18 (0.11mm) Preston SFL-B Ready Rig set up on Green 11 Preston Dura Slip elastic through a puller.