Sunday, 22 March 2015

Sunday 22/03/2015 - Hillview Open - Four Canals

Bela doesn’t like driving on motorways so I agreed to drive his van (The Drone) to Hillview. It’s surprising how quick I got use to driving an automatic car; at the end of my road I stalled the van. Then I was driving in second gear for a long time before Bela suggested I change up to 5th gear!! And then there was the slim chance I got caught on a mobile speed camera on the ring road – time will tell.

After breakfast with Bela, Glenn Bailey and his mate Billy the dog it was time to go into the woolly hat. Keith spread us over the four Canals so plenty of room. I was second in to the hat and out comes peg 67 on the second canal (Pictured right). For some reason I thought I was in the middle of the Canal, but found I was on an end peg. Reasonably happy with this because there is plenty of water to go at.

I set up 2- 4x12 Jolly’s. One set for down the track and the other for just up both the inside and far side shelves. There was plenty of Ghost Carp swimming around which decided me to set up a 1.5 Gram Paste float. I only tried it a couple of times landing one small F1 – so that was thrown up the bank.

I started down the track with semi hard 4’s over kindered wetted micro and was soon catching small F1’s to 1lb. However, it wasn’t long before the tiny Carp arrived. I persevered with this line catching these tiny Carp – a bite is a bite, but was later to realise this was a mistake.

Next I tried the far bank and after cupping in a few micros the swim erupted with four/five large Carp dashing off leaving me with a foul hooker which soon lost me in the weeds – these larger fish are very nervous and any sign of feed or the pole over their heads they disappear. Out again and I had some more small F1’s before the small fish arrived. I then went to the inside margin down to the end platform where the pump hose enters the water. Again it was soft 4’s over micro. I had an excellent hour catching F1’s to a 1lb very quickly. After this the small Carp arrived, but made the same mistake by anticipating the better fish would arrive – they didn’t. The penny had now dropped – once the small fish arrive you have to change lines (I can only apply this to the second Canal). Also once these small fish arrive you can’t go back over the same line later either. With an hour to go I went 2 metres pass the platform with the same rig and caught my biggest fish a 3.5 lb Ghost Carp, followed by some more F1’s.

Lesson learnt on this Canal. If I hadn’t lost time catching small Carp (talking 2-4oz fish) and anticipating return of the F1’s I think I would have done much better. I weighed 67lb 8oz for 8th overall. I am sure I had more fish than anyone else – no consolation!!

That said best days fishing so far this year.

The match was won by Terry “Top-Kit” King (pictured right with a bucket of some of his catch) from third Canal peg 70 (just behind me). Terry living up to his nick name caught on his top–set tight up to his inside edge, down to his right. Terry initially started on soft 4’s over micro catching small F1’s. It wasn’t until he switched to 4mm meat that Terry caught bigger fish loose feeding 3-4 piece of meat feed. Well done matey.

Bela caught 47lb off peg 45, I caught 67lb off peg 67 and Glenn didn't catch 75lb off peg 75, should have been on peg 45!! 

Full Result:

  1. Terry “Top-Kit” King 132-0-0 peg 70
  2. M Howard 99-08-0 peg 81
  3. Neville Groves 80-0-0 peg 58
  4. Huggy 74-0-0 peg 47
  5. Gabe 72-0-0 peg 56
  6. Billy 70-0-0 peg 45
Weigh Sheet:


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