This match was on the 3rd and 4th canals at Hillview. I really wanted canal 3 as that one is fishing the best at the moment but peg 84 on canal 4 was home for the day. But an end peg so always a chance!

As it was a calm overcast day the plan was to dobb bread over to the far bank at the start while I primed up maggot lines down the track and margins.

I fished a small 4 x 10 F1 maggot pole float on 0.17 mainline and a size 16 (0.11mm) Preston SFL ready rig, 6 inches off the bottom with a 10mm bread punch tight up against the far bank and I landed a 3lb F1 first put in, so a great start but I only added 4 more during the first hour while I watched the angler on peg 81 (flyer) opposite doing the same and catching well dobbing the bread. So it was really time to try maggots next.

I shipped out to the middle of the track with double red maggot and began to loose feed a few maggots over the top. I expected to catch a few silvers first before the Carp and F1’s showed up but I was into F1’s and the odd carp straight away. The the next couple of hours I was bagging. It really was like a summer match and at 12 o’clock I was thinking the 3 keepnets I had in weren’t going to be enough if this catch continued for the rest of the match, and a trip to the the car for another keepnet was on the cards. But then it slowed down. I did expect this to be fair as its December and the fish were only going to feed in spells during the day. When I caught an Ide that pretty much hold me to move off this line but it had been good for a couple of hours.

I’d been feeding maggots in the left margin for a couple of hours now so I went there next but I never had an indication and I soon binned it off. So now it was a case of cutting down the loose feed and trying different lines looking for fish and I picked off the odd F1 or Carp from various lines for the next hour. I continued to feed the main track line with maggots throughout this time as I expected it to come good again in the last hour, which it did and at the end of the match I felt I could challenge for the section on canal 4. My clicker was on 99lb so I hoped I could do a tonne which for the December is excellent and why I love fishing these canals at Hillview in the winter.

Come the weigh in I was last to weigh in the section and I had 85lb to beat which I was pretty confident of doing and my fish went to 98lb 8oz (only 8oz of my clicking!) This got me the section win but I knew someone would probably top that off canal 3 which is the better canal, especially peg 81 on there which is probably the best peg on the whole complex. That prove right as it won the match with 115lb and further down canal 3 there was a 105lb for 2nd, so I ended up 3rd overall and tonight’s take away paid for!

Best Rig of the day

This was the maggot track rig, which was a 4×12 F1 maggot pole float in 3 foot of water set up on 0.17mm mainline with strung out shot. 4 no.9 shot and 2 no. 10 shot above a size 18 (0.11mm) Preston SFL Ready rig. set up on Preston 11 Dura Slip through a short stop kit.