I went back to Hillview this Sunday and as I’d not been for a few weeks I was looking forward to the match on the canals as they generally fish well in the winter months.
I drew peg 89 on the 4th canal and on arrival at the peg I thought this peg needs some work done on it. As you can see by the picture above it was like a sky slope! So I needed to spend a while getting my seat box legs adjusted to get it level. Most pegs at Hillview are fine though, this was an exception.
I planned to try to catch the Carp and F1’s with soft pellets at first and then switch to maggots where hopefully I could catch F1’s and Carp but also some of the Ide now present in these pools now. Most anglers where fishing maggots early and catching small F1’s and Ide but I preferred to sit it out early, fishing 4mm Sonubaits Pro Expanders on the hook and feeding small balls of micro over the top. I wasn’t catching many and the first hour was slow but I did catch some of the better sizes F1’s on a top 2+2 line and I was happy do now this early on but it was a waiting game for the fish. Some of the bites where very slight and its always surprising how a little dink on the float can result with a 3lb fish.
I had around 15lb after the first hour and it was slow going. I had to keep my eye’s on the other anglers who were all catching plenty of fish but mainly Ide and small F1 stockies with their maggot attack. But it was time to look elsewhere now. I tried in the left margin again with soft pellets and micros but it was deep and I didn’t really fancy it with micro’s so I began to feed hard 4mm’s but it still felt wrong. I returned to fish soft pellets out but I came short at a top kit + one next and changed from feeding mirco’s to feeding hard 4mm’s next. This was a much better and my catch rate improved feeding the 4mm pellets but still a soft 4mm expander on the hook. I added several more F1’s here during the next hour before it began to slow down. So it was time to change to maggots. I’d been priming a maggot line at 2+2 to my left for an hour and I tied here next. I caught Ide straight away but with constant feeding I began to catch small Carp and F1’s from this maggot line. Then I foul hooked a good sized Ghostie and my 11 Dura slip stretched out for miles down the pool. I got the fish in after a 5 minute battle which was good but this killed the maggot line and I struggled to catch here now. I can only guess the stretched out elastic had spooked the feeding fish.
So I returned to the soft pellet line for the last hour adding several more carp in-between trying the maggot line at times but it never recovered. I did catch a couple of F1’s but the Ide had moved back in. This last hour had seen the temperature drop and it was beginning to get dark. The match finished at 4.00pm and it won’t be long until these matches at Hillview finish at 3.30pm as the nights are drawing in now.
I weighed in 59lb 1oz which won my canal/section and I actually ended up 2nd overall.
Best rigs of the day.
I caught my fish using two rigs. one for maggots and one for pellets. F1 Maggot to fish through the water and the F1 Pellet to fish straight on the bottom.
Pellet Rig – This was a Preston F1 Pellet pole float set up on 0.17mm mainline in 4 foot of water with a a bulk of no.9 shot and 1 no. 10 dropper above a size 16 6inch (0.11mm)Preston SFL ready rig set up on Preston 11 Dura Slip through and Short F1 kit
Maggot Rig – This was a Preston F1 Maggot pole float up up on 0.17mm mainline in 4 foot of water with a strung bulk of 4 no.9 shot and 2 no.10 shot above a size 18 6inch (0.11mm)Preston SFL ready rig set up on Preston 11 Dura Slip through and Short F1 kit
Phil Seedhouse match angler 