This week the Sunday open was held on the Heron pool, rather than the canals that are regularly used on a Sunday. The canals had club matches on them today and I looked forward to fishing the Heron pool. It had fished well the day before but with more anglers on it today there was going to be more pressure on the water.

The canals can be a little boring catching the same stamp of fish all day but with the pools at Hillview the variety of fish in them can be much different. You can catch anything from small stockies and silvers, good sized F1’s to large carp. So different rigs come into play from the ones used on the canals where lighter gear is used. There had been a match on this pool the previous day where some excellent weights were recorded but there weren’t that many anglers on it yesterday. With more anglers on the pool today there was going to be more pressure on the pool to perform. I drew peg 27 which is right in the middle of the pool and an OK area where I have done well in the past so I hoped for a good day.

With breezy condition’s forecast I set up a short pole line to fish hard pellets, a short top kit line for corn, meat and soft pellets plus the margins where I would feed micro pellet and corn. I thought about setting up bomb rod for the middle of the pool if the fishing was hard and you needed to get out into the middle of the pool, given the breezy conditions but I expected my pole lines to fish OK and so I left the rods back in the car.

Starting on hard pellets

I kicked off the match fishing top two plus 3 sections fishing a 6mm hard pellet and potting in just a few 6mm’s over top top catching a few stockies early on. I continued to feed a few 6mm’s after every fish and it wasn’t long before the first Carp of the day arrived and this was soon followed by a couple more. Looking around the pool after the first hour I was doing well, not much was being caught from the pool apart from peg 31 up in the top corner of the pool. The fishing was slow though compared to the previous days match with more anglers on the pool putting pressure on it so I continued to persevere just feeding a few 6mm’s over my hard pellet hook bait. I was getting the odd Carp and F1 doing this while most of the other anglers were struggling. I was quite happy to plod along picking up the odd fish and getting a few in the keepnet knowing in the latter part of the match the fishing would get better. It was just a case of continuing to fish the hard pellets for the odd fish but I needed to keep my eyes on the other anglers as the margins would come into play at some point later where if I wasn’t careful someone could start to build a weight.

Switching to the margins

At around 1.00pm a few fish from the margins were beginning to be taken especially Stu Thomson my fellow Jubilee Nomad on peg 29 which has one of the best margins on the pool. So the alarm bells were now ringing out loud and clear. I needed to try the margins. In went a big pot of corn and micro pellet and 10 minutes later in I went. But nothing, not even a swirl. I sat and waited for 10 minutes, then the elastic shot out with a foul hooker. It was on for a couple of seconds before the hook pulled out. I at least now knew some fish were there. I cad potted in a pile of corn and micro and fished double corn over the top waiting for the next bite!

It never came! I sat there for another 20 minutes biteless but at least it gave me time for a cup of coffee and the margin was soon binned off until later, returning to the pellet line after big potting in some corn and micro on to my top kit line, again for later on the match.

The hard pellet line was still producing a odd fish but it wasn’t prolific and I began moving around the peg, taking a few fish off 2+1, 2+2 and 2+3 lines while Stu on peg 29 was starting to catch me up from his margin line. So I tried my top kit line next but nothing was happening here and I was back into the margin line again. But again I couldn’t catch fish close in and it wasn’t long before I returned to the hard pellet line.

Back to hard pellets

Going into the last hour now. My margins and top kits lines hadn’t produced. Where as I could catch further out with hard pellets. So I decided to stay on these lines alternating between 2+1 and 2+2 to see if I could continue to catch. I could go back to the margin if needed but the 2+2 line came good and I had began to throw feed pellets from my hand now, mainly 6mm’s but with a few 4mm’s if the bites slowed down. I had a little golden spell doing this so I saw out the match on the hard pellets adding several more Carp and F1’s before the all out.

Weighing in

I hoped for a pick up estimating I had around 75lb. One the whole the pool hadn’t fished as well as the day before, probably due to more anglers being on the pool today. I knew I’d beaten the anglers to my left on both sides of the Pool but my mate Stu Thomson had caught well from peg 29 and I knew he had caught some lumps from his margin late on, plus the bloke at the top end of the pool had caught well all day. My fish weighed in at 88lb 8oz and Stu was next to weigh. luckily his fish tipped the scales at 73lb 8oz and really it was the bloke on the top end of the pool I had to worry about but he weighed in 130lb for a clear win. So I had to settle for 2nd place and a section win. I really enjoyed the day though and now the weathers warming up I hope for many more days fishing hard pellets as I really love this way of fishing.

Best rig of the day

This was one my 2+2 line where I fished the 4×14 Preston Carp Pellet (first time this year) on 0.19mm Guru N-Gauge with strung out 8 x no.9’s at 3 inch gaps from the hook length which was a size 16 (0.13mm) Guru SLWG banded ready rig set up on Preston red 15 Dura Slip.