Saturday 28/04/2012 - Hillview Open

With Bela crying off from Sunday’s match with “Pensioners Flu”, plus the predicted horrendous weather, this also decided me to miss Sunday and go for Saturday which was promised to be “mainly dry”. I choose to go back to my old haunts – Hillview. So it was into cruise control set at 72 mph from the M32 to the M50, taking 50 minutes – easy drive.

It was a pleasent surprise to find 35 Anglers booked in - excellent for a Saturday; probably all trying to avoid fishing Sunday!


It was nice meeting up with Keith again especially one of his breakfasts. After a chat with Terry King and Terry Homer it was in to the draw bag and out comes peg 5 on Moorhen Lake. It’s not very often the wind blows in to this corner of the Lake, but it was today, coming in to the peg at 2 o clock, which put the ice cold wind in the NNE direction. As luck would have it I had both the Terry’s in my section, TK on peg 8 and TH on peg 2. Nev Groves was behind me on peg 38 and advised that I might catch F1’s down to corner peg 4. I set up a 4x16 Jolly to be fished at 5 metres and 10 metres out in front. A Ronnie rig for the caster, (no more on this as the Silvers on this line didn’t feed adding just one Rudd). A 4x14 Jolly for down to the next peg 4 and a paste rig for the LH margin. I started on the 5 metre line feeding dry micro through the kinder pot. With 3mm expander on the hook I had two Skimmers, two F1’s and a 3lb Carp in the first 5 put-ins. I was emptying it!! I then missed a good few bites which I thought was crafty F1’s, but more likely to be them pecking the shot. I stopped feeding and the bites stopped. The fish weren’t really feeding and from what I could see Stan on peg 6 and Andy on peg 18 were catching shallow – It looked as if the cold rain and wind had chilled the lower water levels pushing the fish up in the water. The way the fish were responding in my swim confirmed this as the fish had moved up intercepting the feed. The wind was starting to pick up and piss me off, so time to try the peg 4 swim, again with 3mm expander over dry micro. I soon had a couple of F1’s and a couple more Skimmers and a lost Carp, followed by a 6lb Carp. As per the 5 metres swim it went dead. I decided to empty my bait bag of casters and maggots in to my LH margin. I then went out on the 10 metre line and as per the other two swims I tried I caught straight away, two F1’s, a Skimmer and a Carp before it repeat the other swims and died – do I need ten swims to catch a weight? In the last ¾ hour I went on the paste for a rest in the margin and hooked five Carp losing three and landing two before the whistle. It was obvious that the Carp had only just arrived in the peg so another hour might have been interesting.

My five Carp, five F1’s and five Skimmers weighed in at 40lb. Although I beat the two Terry’s I didn’t beat peg 5 who I was hoping would get in the frame, but alas not, Stan was one out leaving me coinless and second in section.

 

The match was won by Neville Groves (pictured right with his big Carp catch) from peg 38 on Heron. How Neville caught is a mystery to us all. Perhaps he should explain himself on the Talk Angling Forum?

Hows this for efficient match organisation: Draw 09:30: All-in 10:30: All-out 16:00: All weighed in by 16:45: Results and payout by 16:55: In the car on the way home by 17:00 - Impressive bearing in mind that 35 Anglers fished.

I have really missed fishing Hillview and I have promised myself to get back there soon.

Full Result:

1.      Neville Groves 91-10-0 peg 38

2.      Andy Newton 79-14-0 peg 18

3.      Jake Cork 78-02-0 peg 47

4.      Stan Davis 70-13-0 peg 5

5.      Francis Porter 69-02-0 peg 95

6.      Gabriel Skarba 65-03-0 peg 70