No fishing last weekend as Wendy and I were in Wales for the weekend, though I did pop back early to see a rare black crowned night heron on the Avon at Newbridge!
The long Easter weekend meant fun, a good start seeing another Rovers home win, 2026 has certainly been an easier watch at home! Decided to go back to Hillview again on Sunday and give the canal another go. Keith Hill was back from his holiday and was happy to see me again. Canals 2, 3 and 4 were in today and whilst I don’t really mind where I draw most people said canal 3 was the place to be. I was second in the woolly hat and I pulled out peg 92, same as 2 weeks ago!
Today I was going to concentrate on fishing meat which has done quite well here, and as the wind was quite horrendous I was going to fish it short. In fact to save any calamity I only got top sets and a short no 4 out of hold-all. Rigs were lighter than last time after some advice from Martin Rayet, 4x10 with 16 GPM to 0.13. The plan was topset for meat, topset plus short no4 in margins. The right margin is much deeper than the left in this peg, but the left side has a lot of roots / weed.
Starting at 10:30 I began on the top set and had a Rudd on the drop on my meat. Next drop a 5lb carp. Nothing else so I tried a new line more to the left and had a 1lb carp. It was painfully slow, no indications just a very odd bite out of the blue. It seemed a slow first hour for my canal. The odd person risked fishing a long pole, whilst they caught a couple of fish it didn’t seem much better so I still kept the pole packed away safely.
Three hours in and all I had was about 20lb at most and was definitely last on my canal. I tried pellets as a change but that was no good and been in the margins for a couple of fish and a few silvers. I was hoping of course that the fishing would improve but it was just as hard and I had about 30lb with just over an hour left. I was thinking it was going to be a DNW today! However, my margins finally came alive with the RH side being nice and steady. Then I ended with 3 carp from the LH side in maybe 7 minutes as the float buried each time before the bait got to the bottom.
I had certainly reduced my deficit on the other lads on my canal in the last hour but no more. Once again peg 95 won my canal, he had 106lb mostly caught in his margin on meat. I had 73lb and the lad on 90 had 78lb. The other end of the canal there were two 87lb weights. So last on the canal, sticking to meat short probably cost me more fish, but my new pole is still intact lol. That said second place went to John Drew on canal 2 with 144lb on meat short, whilst the winner on canal 3 had 153lb on pellets.
My lack of time on commercials and here is showing, getting into the top end of the results is going to take some time and effort, but getting bites and catching fish is going to keep me going back for a while.
