The following weekend I was supposed to be flying to Ireland on the Friday night,landing back at Bristol on Sunday night and then driving straight back to my parents house in Wales as I had a funeral to attend on the Tuesday so had some time-off. Well,thanks to that Volcano my good plans were scupperedwhich meant one thing.....fishing! After a couple of quick PM's to Jake Cork on the Friday I found myself booking into the Saturday open at Hillview Lakes in Tewkesbury. My new plan was to set off at around 6.30am,drive the 2 hours to Hill View,fish the open and then have an hour long journey back to my parents house in South Wales. Hill View was always my favourite venue and I used to regularly fish the Wednesday,Saturday and Sunday matches from the age of around 17-20. It was strange pulling into the carpark for the first time in 4 years and I soon saw some of the old faces as well as some new ones. After Jake came over to say hello I polished off a massive breakfast and was ready for the draw as were 28 others. Both lakes were in along with canal 1 and the general feeling was to avoid the canal,so anything below peg 40 would do. Into the bag went the lucky left hand and out came.......37,that'll do! This put me towards the end of the causeway bank on Heron. After getting to the peg I had Ian Didcote (diddy123) behind me on Moorhen peg 9 so atleast I'd get to see a few fish!
Going from past experience along with speaking to a few people before the draw I had a rough idea of my approach. The sun was blazing with very little ripple and a few fish were mooching about near the surface. I planned to start on pellet short at around 4-5m,shallow meat long between 13m-16m and corn down the edge in front of the spare pallet to my left. My short pellet rig was a 4x12 Chianti on 0.16-0.14 and an 18 B911 to yellow bungee. Shallow rig was a 4x10 Chianti on 0.18-0.16 and an 18 PR36 with a band on the hair and yellow bungee. I set the rig at 8 inches with a 3ft lash as I used to find a long line worked better on bright still days at Hillview. Finally the edge rig was a 4x10 Chianti: 0.18-0.16 and a size 3 Tubertini 175 matched to red vespe. This was plumbed in front of the platform in just over 3ft of water. For bait I had a bag of fishery 4mm pellets,3 tins of meat (2 x 6mm,1 x 8mm),2 tins of corn and some expanders.
The all in was called and a pot of corn and pellet went to the edge swim before I baited with a 4mm expender,put a few 4mms in a cadpot and shipped out to 5m and 3 cubes of meat were pinged out to around 13m. After 5 minutes of lifting and dropping I hadn't had a bite so added a few more 4mms to the cadpot and repeated the process, all the while pinging meat long. Neville Groves had a few early carp short but it was pretty quiet and after 50 minutes I had a skimmer of around 1lb in the net from the short line and despite trying the long line a couple of times I hadn't had any signs shallow. A carp swam past a few metres out so I flicked the rig in front of it and it snaffled the bait but frustratingly fell off after a few minutes. However this led me to believe the fish weren't really feeding so it was back long & shallow but I flicked the rig past and to the right of where I had been feeding. After a few seconds the float buried and a carp was on. A few minutes later and a fat 10lber was in the net. Next put in after a few slaps the float buried and another carp was soon in the net,this time a good 9lb fish. Over the next couple of hours it was a case of flicking the rig around the peg and snaring the odd fish although they were clearly not really in a feeding mood. I kept pinging meat to the same spot at around 13m but was only feeding one or two cubes every 5 minutes or so and picking off fish beyond the feed. All the while I had been feeding to the next platform and hoped that it would be worth a few late on. Ian had been struggling behind me but with 2 hours to go he switched to the margins and started to bag a few.
I managed two fish down the edge but one was foul-hooked and I also lost one before the all-out was called. I thought I had 60-70lb and with Neville admitting to a ton plus I had to hope I might sneak the section. I was the last angler to weigh and when it got to me Neville had put 120lb on the scales,Jake had put 68lb but most others on the lake had struggled. Diddy had put 106lb on for second overall. My weight was called at 66lb 12oz- less than 2lb off second on the lake and a couple of lost fish had cost me. Chatting to Ian afterwards I realised I had fished the edge wrong as it was far better to fish to the side of the platform where it was that bit shallower than in front of it. It's little things like this that can make a big difference and I knew it had cost me.
I heard a rumour that somebody had dropped out of Sundays match so when I got home an hour later I rang to see if I could get on and was told that I had infact won my section and there was an envelope there for me....doh! The sections were split which I wasn't aware of. With a space available for Sunday I duly booked on....well,I had to collect my winnings didn't I!
Arriving at the venue at around 8.45am I duly paid my pools and with 40 fishing there would be 15 on each lake with 10 on canal 1. Once again I really wanted to avoid the canal so was pleased when peg 10 stuck to my hand,almost behind where I was the day before. It was the end peg on the causeway bank with a corner to my right. the next peg to my left was in so there was no platform to fish to and with Neville Groves on a good peg in peg 8 I knew he would be a real threat. My plan was similar to the day before with a shallow 'mugging' rig although this time it was a Scone AM Wellardz on 0.18-0.16 and an 18 PR36 with a band on a hair and yellow bungee. The edge rig was a 4x10 Scone GAZE on 0.18-0.16,Tubertini 175:3 and orange wilkie elastic. I found 2.5ft at 5m to my right and 12m along the bank. The long line would be potted and the short line would be fed by hand. Finally I set-up a short rig at 4m- 4x14 KC Chimp on 0.16-0.14 and a 18 B911. For bait I had 3 tins of 6mm meat,2 tins of corn and half a bag of 4mm feed pellets.
The all in was called and 2 pots of corn with a pinch of meat and pellet were cupped in long down the edge,a handful of meat went short down the edge and a cadpot of pellets went in at 4m,followed by 3 cubes of meat pinged out to 13m. No bites short so I was soon on the long shallow rig and found a few carp. It was hard going for most and several people were fishless after a couple of hours. I had 5 carp in the net all on shallow meat,Shaun Wilson & Richard Ahearne were catching well on the pegs in the far corner and Neville was picking off odd fish shallow. At this stage my peg dried up and I couldn't buy a bite anywhere. I'm really not sure why as I even went out to 16m and played about with the depth etc but it was like a switch had been thrown. I had a couple of looks down the edge but this was also devoid and I knew I needed it to come good to stand any chance. I had been feeding the long edge with half a big pot every half an hour or so but this clearly wasn't working so with just over an hour to go I decided to feed a full kinder pot every 5 minutes. This worked to an extent as in the last hour I managed to get 6 carp down the edge but there were no real lumps and when the all-out was called I expected to have somewhere in the region of 40lb.
The scales made their way around with Richard Ahearne putting 98lb of maggot caught edge fish on the scales before Shaun tipped 84lb of shallow caster fish into the sling. Most other people struggled big time and my 11 fish went 42lb odd,but with Neville framing with 94lb and the overall winner coming from the bottom bank with 102lb I picked up £40 for the section win.
Having not been to the venue for 4 years I was pleased with 2 section wins and I learned plenty and there's a few things I would do differently next time,especially when fishing the edge. I had a good chat with Neville after the match and picked his brains on a few things which I will utilise on my next visit. After packing up I went round to see Shaun & Richard and spent a good hour catching up. I used to fish with them regularly and used to travel with Shaun so it was good to see them. Hillview is 2 hours away from me but I absolutely love the place and will be making the effort to get up there a few more times this year.
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