Tony Rixon Float Only Series - Plantation Lakes

After a couple of weekends of no fishing I was wondering where to go on Sunday. Lucky for me I spotted Tony Rixon looking for a couple of stand ins for his first match in his float only league. I fished the same match last year as a stand in drawing on Jubilee lake. I spent some time Saturday morning putting my gear together for carp fishing on pole and pellet waggler. Then off I went to Rovers to see us win our last game at home 4-0, at least the last few months have been decent!

I went to H&H cafe on Sunday morning for a breakfast roll and as ever it was decent. Then on to Plantation and arrived with lots of time to spare in time to have few chats. Pools paid and draw done at 9am peg 32 stuck to my mitt, this is on the match lake.

Got to my peg and had a little island to fish a pellet waggler against. Trouble was so could Pete Nurse on peg 38 and Matty Tainton on 31, though he did fish away to the right.

Also had a long margin to fish down to as off to my left is a bay which was not pegged. The margins are quite deep at 3 feet and I set a 4x12 Preston Edge float with 12 XSH-B and 0.18, this would do for topset plus one and 13m. I also set up a slapping rig for hard pellets and a 4x12 for topset plus in front.

I started the match on the pellet wag, it was a bit awkward than I thought casting and despite being clipped up it was easy to catch a twig or a bramble. After an hour I had 2 carp and had lost 2 wagglers, and with Pete’s waggler landing fairly close I decided to sack it off. Mat also had 2 carp on it but it wasn’t happening for us.

I decided to get some early feed in on my close margin line, I fed micros and gbait here. I then went down further to 11m and started slapping a pellet about.  It was a bit tricky with foliage and overhead tree branches being caught. I had to reduce the rig length to help. I got two carp here and then no signs at all. I went to 13m which was as far as I dared because of some brambles in the water a little further down. Didn’t get any more signs though.

A look on my short margin fishing with 5 dead reds and some fish were there. Turned out it was skimmers. Unfortunately the swim was full of  twigs, I thought I got most of them out but no, they were everywhere. I did 4 good skimmers from here, but lots more twigs. Whilst fishing here I pinged some 6mm pellets to 13m in the hope of attracting some carp. When I went down there with my slapping rig I nailed a nice 9lb common, again a one off.

I was kind of struggling mid match, Mat was now doing well on skimmers and I think I messed up not having a proper rig out in the open water for them.

Back at 13m and nothing shallow, but decided to try my deep rig with dead reds here, my thinking was I might see if any carp were in the spot deeper. The rig didn’t move for 10 minutes and I was just going to ship back when the float buried. I was attached to a decent fish that thankfully swam out into the lake. I thought it might be fouled as it went on some crazy runs, but it turned out to be a near 15lb common. There were 2 hours to go and I decided to pot in micros, pellets and dead reds at 13m as I felt I needed to catch here. 

Catching just a big skimmer after 30 minutes here didn’t get my confidence up. But a few more carp did put in an appearance. A couple of foulers lost, two more took me into snags (I retrieved an empty groundbait bag full of water and shiteon one), but had a couple more decent carp 9lb+

Match over and I knew Mat had beat me as he had a few late carp from where he was catching skimmers, but Mat wasn’t in my section. Mat won his section with 88lb (including 33lb of skimmers) pipping Tony who had 82lb on the pellet wag (he lost 4 wags).

My silvers went 11lb 14oz and when added to my carp I had 80lb 6oz. I was second in the section picking up £55 as Vic Bush on the opposite side of the lake had 89lb 7oz, that was also the top weight on the day. 

Weigh sheets below and generally it was a bit of a tough day, especially in some areas. It was a close affair in most sections with just one or two fish making the difference. I enjoyed it, a case of being patient and some lovely big common carp.

Not fishing the bank holiday weekend, but hopefully will be the week after.

Hillview Fishery Open

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.