03/03/24 - Hillview - Canal 3

Weight - 73-12

Catch - 30 Carp/F1, 14 Ide, 4 Tench, 1 Gudgeon

Weather - Frosty start, bright and sunny.

Match - Tackle Den (23 fished), 3rd overall, 2nd on lake

With my car back in the garage with ongoing electrical issues, I managed to get Volvo to pay for a hire vehicle for today. When I turned up in the car park Matt Greaves just pointed and laughed when he saw me driving a van with Enterprise emblazoned on the side, later suggesting I need to get rid of my car. He may have a point.

Today’s match was spread over canals 2, 3 and 4, and following the cold week, including a heavy frost this morning, a number of us brought bread only to discover that bread is banned at the venue after 1^st March. Due to the weather the general feeling was it would fish harder than of recent, so I was pleased to draw p69, an end peg on canal 3, although I was the only one without a space peg.

I did think about dobbin maggot to start, but instead decided to start at 12m to the right of the aerator fishing 4mm expander over fishery micros. This produced a F1 and then a carp, followed by 3 tench which prompted a switch to the dobbin rig to try and catch up with John next to me on p70 who already had a couple of fish

dobbin.

The fish were being really spooky, even shying away from any loose fed maggot. To be honest, I wasted too much time chasing carp around the swim and I don’t really enjoy this type of fishing. I did manage 1 carp, but that was foul hooked, and I just felt I needed to take a more positive approach.

I had fed some meat and micros into the left corner and caught a couple of F1s and an ide, but it didn’t feel right. Instead, I decided to switch to maggot to try and catch some ide, fishing with .10 bottom, as it didn’t appear the carp/F1s were feeding. By tapping in a few maggots against the end bank, I started catching a few F1s and carp, obviously preferring a different presented bait, along with a few ide.

I ended up moving around the end and far bank to stay in contact with the fish and moved ahead of John over the next couple of hours, who was still catching the odd fish shallow. Whilst I felt I had more fish than John, the fish he was catching were a better stamp.

With 90mins remaining the maggot swims were waning and I had started feeding meat at 5m, plus down the left corner. Whilst those swims settled, I switched tapping 6 cubes of 6mm meat, across to the far bank and started catching again. When I needed to rest the swim I would try the left corner swim, which produced little, which was the same for the 5m swim. With nothing to lose, the 5m swim got a half cup of meat and micros. When I came back to the swim 20mins later I soon had a couple of F1s which were a little on the small side, but nothing more. Fortunately, when I returned to the far bank swim after resting it, I would have another run of fish on meat, losing only 1 fish under the aerator.

Come the weigh in it was very close as I only needed 1 more fish to win, coming 3^rd to Andrew Black and Alistair Tilney who both caught dobbin maggot. Overall, an enjoyable day as it stayed dry for a change.

1.    73-13 – Andrew Black – p96 (canal 4)

2.    74-  2 – Alistair Tilney – p82 (canal 3)

3.    73-12 – Ken Rayner – p69 (canal 3)

4.    65-  0 – John Pearce – p70 (canal 3)

5.    59-  6 – John Brady – (canal 4)

6.    47-  2 – Dominic Olivia – p64 (canal 2)