I returned to Hillview this Sunday for the Open match which was split over the Moorhen and Heron pools this week. Normally the Sunday opens are on the canals and I fancied a go on them this week as I’d not fished the canals for several weeks but with a couple of clubs on the canals the open was on the lakes this Sunday.

I drew on the Moorhen pool, peg 12 which has great margins and home for some big Carp and F1’s and it has plenty of room so I fancied it today. The wind was strong today so this ruled out the long pole and I plumbed up several short pole lines for hard and soft pellets on the bottom but as I carry plenty short kits I had some shallow rigs ready to go. I’d planned a shallow caster match today so the wind wasn’t welcome and the plan now was to start short on hard pellets but I began priming both margins, micro pellet to the right and caster to the left from the very start.

I started fishing hard pellet at 2+2 in 4 foot of water on the bottom but this was very slow just catching small Skimmers, Ide and Tench and after an hour with little return I was straight into the righthand margin where I’d fed micro pellets and I fished a 6mm Pro Expander over the top. Nothing came in this early and after 20 minutes it was time for a re-think. It was an hour and a half into the match now and I only had a few Silvers in the keep nets.

Switching to Casters

I started fishing the left hand margin on the bottom with double caster straight on the hook on a very light strung out 4×10 float and loose feeding casters over the top. I began getting bites straight away but still small Ide and Roach but some decent sized Skimmers around the pound mark so at least I was beginning to build a weight. I stayed doing this for an hour hoping for some F1’s and eventually I caught some F1’s in between the Silvers. At this point and now getting towards the half way point in the match I began feeding a little heavier hoping to draw in the F1’s. I was now beginning to see F1’s swirl up in the water so I switched to a very shallow jigger rig, still up against the left margin about 2 foot out into the water and this proved to be a game changer. I was now catching big F1’s up to 4-5lb. The next 3 hours turned into a bagging session catching large F1’s and the odd silver fish and my other lines had now become redundant, although I still fed then as a back up lines and I stayed on the caster line until the end of the match.

At the end of the match I weighed in 134lb 6oz which included 27lb of silvers and rest were all F1’s. This got me a section win and 3rd overall in the match. Casters were the key this week. but at £5.00 a pint I only brought 3 pints. I am sure if I’d of had more I would have caught a bigger weight but this was only a small 15 pegger and the cost of bait really needs to be taken into consideration when your fishing for less then a hundred quid. Casters really are key to catching a big weigh in the Summer and although buying several pints of caster for a small open match isn’t in everyone’s budget and unfair in my view with people ‘buying’ the match with caster in the summer months it really is the only way to compete against the anglers doing it.

Best rig of the day

This was the shallow Jigger which was a Preston 4-6mm jigger set at 12 inches to 6 inches on 0.17mm mainline with a 4in Preston size 18 (0.11mm) ready rig. Set up on Preston 11 green Dura Slip elastic through a shot kit