Out and about

Here we are then, on the cusp of the resumption of match fishing. I for one am certainly looking forward to fishing some matches again, but I will have to see what venues I can get on as time goes on. I had to get the racking / shelving out the van I bought before I could get my gear in. I've tried to sell it for a week, but despite some genuine interest it still remains unsold (although I had a number of buyers who simply never showed up, just idiots I guess). I was looking forward to giving the van a run out, and I had the opportunity when my daughter had to be picked up from Gloucester University for the Easter break. Anyway, this gave me an idea, right or wrong don't judge me, I would have a drive out that way to fish and pick my daughter up afterwards. I know we are not supposed to travel out of our area and this would be the one and only time and one day before the easing of lockdown, that was how I sold it to myself.

Sunday morning, nice lie in and loaded the van with ease with lots of room to spare. I drove up the M5 and arrived at Hillview Fishery around 11:15. I had a nice welcome from Huggy (he recognised me with my mask on lol) and paid for a day ticket. I opted to fish on Moorhen Lake peg 5, the nearest anglers already fishing were on the car park bank and on peg 10. I was well socially distanced and so it remained.

I had actually gone to the fishery with the thought of going on one of the canals in my head as I had plenty of canal rigs still made up from the last match I fished up here in December. However, the short walk and chance of some bigger fish sold me on the lake. I set up a 4x12 Preston F1 with 16 GPM to 0.13 powerline for fishing a couple of feet away from the bank, where I had a nice 2 1/2 foot of water. Then I made up a fresh 0.4g rig for fishing top plus one and a half sections. 0.4g is bigger than I would normally use, but the wind was horrendous and I imagined the lake would be towing, or at least some of it would be. I made the right decision here I feel as the wind got worse as the day went on. I also had a 16GPM to 0.13 on this rig. The choice of hook on both rigs was because I was going down one hook bait route, sweetcorn.

I fed fishery 4mm pellets and corn down to my left for the margin line, and the same in front on the deep line, both top sets had little Preston pots on the end to keep the feeding accurate. The margin top set had 11 hollo, while the deeper 9 hollo. It was a very slow start for me and after 20 mins I had 2 nice skimmers and a roach, and was thinking corn was not right, especially as the lad up on 10 was doing well on soft pellet out in the deep water. However, all of a sudden a shoal of F1's arrived and I had a nice little run of them up to 4lb, by about 1pm I had a dozen F1, but then they disappeared for a while.

For the next 90 minutes the fishing was steady, odd F1, but nothing in the margin line. At 3pm things improved and I started to catch more regular on the deep line and was able to up the feed and get quicker bites. I really had to hold onto the pole at times, the wind was awful, at times I was struggling to get the 4mm pellets into the pot lol! The guy on peg 10 had slowed after the early bagging, but he had been lucky, he retrieved a number 4 section three times, and his landing net and pole went in twice.

I definitely caught some bigger fish in the last hour, but I swear the F1's were fighting 10 times harder than the earlier fish I caught, a number of times I thought I must have foul hooked something, only for the fish to pop up hooked in the mouth. I caught a really big F1, must have been over 5lb, and this one did an impression of an eel twisting round and round, trying to unravel it I badly damaged the hook length. I decided to try the margin again. A few fish had turned up here, with some more bug F1's and a couple of carp with one being close to 8lb.

I had to pack up and leave the fish feeding as I had promised to meet my daughter at 5pm. It had been a very enjoyable day, I really had to work hard on presenting the hook bait to get bites and I did miss a few but not lots like you can with F1's. I had one fish come off at the net, and never had one foul hooker all day, never happens in a match lol. The fish are clearly waking up, and it was interesting to see the mix of methods working today; quite a few were catching on maggot feeders whilst others like me were catching on short poles. The wind put paid to many other methods working, I could also see a few elastics being stretched on the canals.

Matches start here from Wednesday, and there is a Saturday and Monday open on over Easter, think I will give the Saturday a go, but need to make a few more rigs up for the lake in case I draw on that. If you are going out on a match this week, then I wish you good luck and have fun, let's hope this lockdown path can remain in place.