Saturday 25/04/2015 - Hillview Open - Moorhen And Heron Pools

Firstly I must mention last weeks Hillview Festival which was won by Bristolian Craig “Trigger” Edmonds. Trig not only cleaned up with section wins and the overall pickup of £1,000 but he also cleaned up in the after match card games – well done matey.

Overall Festival Result:

Trig stayed at Hillview with Bob Gullick in one of Keith’s B&B. It must have been a nightmare for Bob because Trig took the blow-up Scarecrow back every night with him. I don't know what Trigger did but if any angler approaches her she starts screaming – see video below!

Steve and I weren’t sure whether to go to Hillview today because the fish would have had a right hammering spending most of the week in keepnets. However, it’s an amazing venue so we still decided to give it a go. Steve was hoping to draw away from Heron Pool end Bank – alas not, pulling peg 23! I was much luckier pulling peg 9 on Moorhen. There was still a chilly wind blowing in from the SW, luckily it was over my left shoulder.

I set up three tops set rigs – 4x12 Jolly for meat in the RH margin up to the bush; although I kept feeding this with meat I didn’t get a bite from it, probably because it meant facing the wind so some half heartiness involved. Next was a 4x14 Jolly to fish out in front in 4 foot of water with either meat or semi hard pellet. Lastly 0.3 gram PC paste float for the RH margin up to the hay bale (don’t hook the bale it wins the tug–o-war every time).

I immediately started to dribble in some hard 4’s into the paste margin but started fishing over kindered meat out in front with meat on the hook. As usually the first fish is always a 4oz Skimmer. It took a while to catch a Carp which was an F1. The fishing all round was starting slowly. The meat wasn’t working for me, so I switched to 10 o clock converting to pellet over micro. I did have a run of F1’s and four decent Carp, plus the regulatory 4oz Skimmers. The fishing was still slow so I decided to give the margin a look with paste. Surprising I couldn’t even get the nibbling from the Ronnie’s/Skimmers. Back out on the pellet and I added a few more F1’s. I decided to put ¼ pint of caster into the paste margin following up with the paste rig. It was a nightmare the first four put in’s resulted in four foul hooked big Carp – unusual for paste me thinks. My next decision was wrong, staying with the paste I should have kept going on the deeper pellet line. With the paste I stayed, foul hooking more than I landed – very frustrating. Maggot out in front might have been a better choice too!

I finished the match with 83-08-0 for 9^th overall. Steve ended with 50lb so another battering from Dad!

The match was won by Terry “Top Kit” King (pictured right indicating his peg) with 121lb 8oz. Terry caught some of his fish in the margin in meat, with most falling to maggot into the deeper margin. Terry fed about one pint of maggots throughout.

Full Result:

1. Terry King 121-08-0 peg 25
2. Huggy 110-08-0 peg 15
3. Paul Ennis 104-0-0 peg 31
4. John Woodrow 97-0-0 peg 26
5. Ian Chatfield 96-0-0 peg 16
6. Matty 94-0-0 peg 5
7. Billy Hill 94-0-0 peg 13

Weigh Sheet: