This match was from a couple of weeks ago but I’ve been away in Spain for a bit of Winter sun so it’s a late post just done from Memory. Sorry its a bit short.

The match was split over the Moorhen and Heron pools at Hillview and I fancied a bit of winter waggler fishing but when I drew peg 2 on the Moorhen pool this was ruled out as you are really are casting over the pegs on the left and right banks. So I opted to spend the first hour on the Bomb and bread hoping to catch a Carp or two but this proved fruitless with no pulls on the rod. This was dispite an angler doing the same to my left catching an 18lber on the same method in the first hour! So I was playing catch-up straight away.

I’d got maggots on the side tray which would always catch me a few small fish, but now as I was well behind, I needed to catch F1’s or Carp so I began to fish Corn and pellets on the pole at 13 metres but this again proved fruitless and after another hour fishless I came on the short pole with 4mm expanders fished over micros. I began to catch some small F1’s with the odd better one, so at least I had something in the keep nets and I continued here for another hour. But my thoughts were really now on the margins. Peg 2 on Moorhen has some good margins and I hoped they would come good for later in the match. I cupped in some mirco’s and tried it a couple of times while fishing the short pole but they weren’t there yet.

It was with about an hour or so before I caught my first margin fish from the left margin but once I’d caught one there I turned my attention to it for the rest of the match as I was still playing catchup to that 18lber. As its still cold I fished a light pole float, a 4×10 with just a few no.10 split shot with a 4mm Pro Expander hook bait for a gentle fall through the water rather than a heavy rig with a bulk shot. I just potted in a few micro’s after every bite. hoping the gentle fall of the pellet would attract some big F1’s or a Carp. This tactic worked well and during the last hour I had a good run of F1’s which gave me a total weight of 59lb 4oz which was just enough to pip the angler who had caught that earlier 18lber by a couple of pound. This gave me the lake win and section.

Best Rig of the day

This was the light rig I used on the left margin which was a 4 x 10 Preston F1 maggot pole float with 4 no.10 split shot strung out for that gentle drop with a 6 inch Preston size 16 (0.13mm) GPM ready rig, baited with a 4mm Preston Pro Expander on the hook and set up with Preston 13 dura slip elastic though a standard top kit.