11/01/26 - Hillview - Canal 4

Weight - 35lb 6oz

Catch - 8 Carp, 4 F1, 1 Perch

Weather - Lakes stilled ice over, became increasingly mild and windy

Match - Tackle Den (15 fished) - 4th overall, 2nd on lake.

The first Tackle Den match of the year and we were at Hillview on the Canals 2, 3 & 4.

Although the weather forecast was for much milder conditions, there would be gale force winds and still the expectation of breaking ice. As a result, we had a few dropouts, with only 15 fishing, which meant we were now on Canals 3 & 4.

I was quite pleased to draw p87 on canal 4, as it meant I wouldn’t be at the windward end of the lake where the wind would blow any ice.

After breaking the ice, creating a channel to the far bank I set up my rigs. On the all-in I shouldn’t have been surprised the ice was shifting already. I started across tapping in a few maggots and soon caught an F1, by which point my channel had nearly closed up.

The ice was already clearing from the pegs to my right, and a pair of ducks arrived. So, I started feeding maggot on the ice letting the ducks break the rest of the ice for me. In the meantime, I caught a perch and a small carp on maggot fishing next to the p88 platform. Surprisingly these were the only fish I caught here.

After an hour the ice had pretty much cleared my swim, however the issue was the wind had picked up making presentation on the pole difficult to the point I couldn’t fish tight to the far bank, so I concentrated on fishing the deep water in front of the pampas grass.

Since I was struggling to get a bite on the pole, I thought I would try the straight lead catching a carp on maggot, but it was much slower than expected and I only had 1 more carp late on. I even tried dobbin bread and then maggot, but the wind was a problem and I didn’t have any bites.

With an hour remaining I probably had 15lb, level with Luke and Pete to my left, whilst Matt and Simon were both ahead of me. The wind dropped slightly so I concentrated on the deep water in front of the pampas grass, tapping in maggot and started to get some regular bites, having a strong finish the match, catching 2 carp in the last 5mins allowing me to sneak into 2^nd on the lake. The best rig fishing 0.09 bottom to a 20 F1 pellet hook and 8 elastic.

1.    44-13 – Matt Greaves – p91 (canal 4)

2.    40-15 – Andy Bartlett – p73 (canal 3)

3.    35-10 – Andy Dixie – p82 (canal 3)

4.    35-  6 – Ken Rayner – p87 (canal 4)

5.    34-  2 – Simon Collins – p89 (canal 4)