26/07/26 - Hillview - Canal 4

Weight - 129lb 13oz

Catch - 43 Carp, 3 F1, 1 Tench, 1 Perch

Weather - Warm & sunny, but windy. 

Match - Tackle Den (17 fished) - 4th overall, 2nd in section

For today’s match we were over canals 2, 3 and 4 and I was very happy to draw p83, an end peg on canal 4, particularly as the wind was blowing into my end of the lake.

I had bought 5pts of caster expecting to catch shallow and there were plenty of fish showing themselves.

On the all-in I tried mugging a couple of fish early without success, not least helped by loads of branches and cut reeds that had blown into my swim. So, I switched to fishing 6mm pellet over 4s, down the right margin and down the end bank at 5m. This only produced a couple of fish, so I was soon trying to catch shallow on caster, but the wind was proving to be a real pain.

I caught a couple of fish, before one snagged me in a branch, prompting me to go round to try and clear the worst of the snags. To be honest I was pretty annoyed as I lost 4 fish to

various snags, which was clearly avoidable had more care been taken when gardening.

Back to the shallow line and I couldn’t catch, although the wind was increasingly getting stronger making feeding difficult. Looking down the lake, I could see John Brady who is a good shallow angler also struggling so I didn’t feel too bad about not catching.

I decided to return to my pellet swims and started to catch well. Due to the snags and the fact, I was catching more carp than F1s I switched from 4x10 rig to 4x12 and stronger elastic.

I kept going alternating between the 2 swims for a couple of hours, before I started foul hooking fish. I had pre-soaked some micros just in case I wanted to fish paste (the rule being you can only use fishery pellet and you can’t cup in the paste). First drop into the right margin I had a 8lber and stayed on this for a couple hours alternating between the right margin and a new swim down the left side of my nets.

With 30mins my paste rig snapped above the float, so I reverted back to fishing pellet and kept catching but the swims had slowed. As a back-up, I had fed pellet at 5m down the track resulting in a final run of fish before the end of the match.

I was fairly sure I had won my lake with about 150-155lb. The weigh in started at the other end of the canal and I followed the scales. When we got to my peg I realised one of my 5 nets had been blown into the water by a strong gust of wind. When I recovered it there were only 4 fish remaining and I reckon I lost about 20-25lb.

So instead of winning the match I ended up 4^th overall – gutted but I only have myself to blame.

1.    143-  4 – John Brady – p88 (canal 4)

2.    139-  9 – Steve Venn – p76 (canal 3)

3.    132-14 – Andy Dixey – p74 (canal 3)

4.    129-13 – Ken Rayner – p83 (canal 4)

5.    122-11 – Darren Lawrence – p79 (canal 3)

6.    111-12 – Vince Grillo – p72 (canal 3)