After last weeks Sunday open match win at Hillview I couldn’t wait to get back their. This Saturday Open was on the two main pools rather than the canals but with a lovely June day forecasted I just hoped I could continue the winning streak!

I drew peg 38 on the Heron pool, a peg with no recent form but at Hillview you never know, you can win from any peg. I set out my stall to fish hard pellets on the short pole starting at 5 metres with a view to coming in closer to the bank later in the match, my left hand margin and shallow rigs for out on the long pole.

I started at 5 metres cad potting in a few 6mm pellets over a banded 6mm hard pellet. This produced a few silvers early on with a odd F1 but wasn’t brilliant and I began priming a long caster shallow line. With an hour gone now looking around the pool, not a lot was being caught and I felt I was already winning the pool. I just needed to continue to catch and I tried casters shallow for the next 40 minutes but this was no good and this was binned off for the time being. I returned to fishing hard pellets on the short pole but this time I came in to my top kit plus one line where I’d been feeding a few 6mm pellets since the start of the match. I began to catch more silvers here but it wasn’t soon before the F1’s rocked up. The beauty of fishing a top kit plus one line is it’s very easy to feed accurately throwing by hand to the pole float and with the noise of these pellets going in this line can really produce. I was feeding 6mm’s to keep the fish on the bottom but fishing a strung out rig in 4.5 foot of water so if I caught on the drop I could shallow up but fishing on the bottom was the best, and this really is the story for this match. I pretty much stayed on this line for most of the match, just resting it for a couple of times where I fished the left margin or tried shallow again. I did catch a few from the margin but it wasn’t as good as the top kit line and the shallow rigs were just not working today. The fish wanted to be on the bottom.

At the end of the match I reckoned I had about 80lb and the top weight from this pool was 108lb so I’d already conceded defeat but some of these F1’s must of weighed more than I thought. My clicking was way out today. I actually placed 116lb 15oz on the scales which was enough to win the pool and I began to think how the Moorhen pool had fished. Talking to the other anglers on their, the top weights so far were 111lb and 105lb. I was on with doing the double match win but Nev the venue expert who wins the opens here on a regular basis was last to weigh in and he been sat on peg 9 which is a noted flyer and he’d caught so I was told. I knew he’d have a big tonne plus weight even though he’d admitted to just over a tonne. I was pretty sure he’d win and I didn’t even bother to watch him weigh in and I return my trolley to the car park.

I was right, he won the match with 119lb which put me 2nd overall with only a couple of F1’s needed to beat him. But I was still happy, I’d had a great days fishing.

Best rig of the day

This was my top kit plus one line where I’d fished 6mm pellets on the bottom in 4.5 foot of water with a stung out rig which was a 4 x14 Preston F1 maggot pole float set on 0.17mm main line with 6 no. 9 shot and 2 no.10 shot strung out above a 4 inch Preston size 16 (o.13mm) GPM Banded Ready rig set up on Preston 11 green Dura Slip though a Short F1 top kit.