Hillview Canals Sunday 29/8/12

This weekend saw us back down Hillview for a Cradley Heath club match on canals 2,3 & 4 and I was hoping it fished a bit better than it did a few weeks ago where canal 3 took all the money, low weights were caught that day for this venue 66lb and I won canal 2 with 41lb but to be fair the weather was a lot cooler than today. I was hoping to continue my run of very good form winning 5 of the last 6 Cradley matches on the bounce I was on fire I don't know what I am doing lately but it is working! This was also the first day of our annual fishing week were Stav and I go fishing to different commercials around the Midlands, there is also the pride and prestige of a £1 side bet each day to play for. After a message to Nev (2 METERS) who helps run the matches down here and catches a few kippers too I felt that if I got a decent draw I would do well with the run of form I was in, I had tied a few rigs up for the coming week and got my kit sorted out so after getting some fishery feed pellets I was primed and ready for the draw. I drew a peg in the middle of pool 4 one peg away from the aerator ( the permanent peg number escapes me ) and Stav drew in the middle of pool 3 where all the weights came from a few weeks ago, the peg looked ok as I could get to the bare bank and into the very shallow where I had been told to look for failing this it was going to be a fishing shallow job. My margins were very deep at around 3 1/2ft as the reeds came out a long way from the bank and as I had been told maybe too deep to catch well so I was going to fish shallow there, I was going to set up a short line a 2 meters in-front of me as a back up in-case all else fails. I set up 4 pole rigs too cover my peg.
Rig 1, up against the far bank at 13m around just over 1ft deep a 4x10 Preston PB Carp 1, 0.18 mainline to 0.16 hooklength with a F1 band for hard pellet & black hydro elastic.
Rig 2, the same as above but with a Tosciro 175 size 3 hook for meat or corn hookbait.
Rig 3, shallow margin rig Maver 4x12 Jurassic dibber set 18" deep with 0.16 line straight through to a size 3 175 & Preston 13h elastic.
Rig 4, top kit rig at 2 meters 4x12 Preston Durra 10, 0.16 line straight through, to a size 3 175 hook & black hydro.
For bait I had brought a bag each of micro & 4mm fishery feed pellets, 4 tins of corn & 4 tins of 6mm chopped meat plus a few different hard & soft hooker pellets.
Today for company I had Chris Owen to my left and John Bab to my right so at least we could have a good laugh if we didn't catch a lot, before the all in I had to go on the bait tub scrounge as I had left all of mine in my shed at home (plank!), just to go and show you that old age and forgetfulness creeps up on us all John Bab had forgot all of his keep & landing nets having to borrow some dodgy looking well worn things from the fishery.
On the all in I fed a pot full of mixed micro & 4mm pellets on my 13m line and I was only going to feed corn on my 2 metre line and meat to my left by hand just odd pieces now and then for later on, first put-in on the 13m line with a 6mm hard banded pellet I began to get liners straight away as there were fish over the feed pellets. I missed the first 2-3 bites as there seemed to be a lot of fish already in the peg and it took around 5mins before I hooked my first fish of the day a nice 1lb f1 and I was off the mark , with me missing another couple of bites before hooking another f1 of a similar I knew there were a lot of fish in the peg but it looked like I had fed too much at the start! feeding for Carp with a full pot of pellets were normally when I fish for f1's I would only feed with a kinder egg pot of pellets. The next couple of fish were Carp in the 2-3lb bracket which must have eaten most of the opening pot of pellets as the bites/liners began to get less as I began to feed small amounts through the kinder pot, the rest of the first hour was good as I hooked and landed a few fish from the far line while those around me were only having odd fish. Most of the fish were F1's but with the odd Carp thrown in now and then so I stuck to this line for the second hour while I was putting some fish in the net, after a couple of hours I had quick look on both my 2m line and down the edge but apart from one small 1lb Carp from the margin swim I couldn't get any bites at all so I was soon back out over the 13m line. I was catching both on the deck and up in the water taking odd fish here and there with the same rig (rig 1) if I pushed the rig right up the far bank where I had shallowed up to less than 1ft deep I was taking fish there or if I pulled the pole back to around 12m I was having odd ones shallow were the shelf dropped off to around 3ft deep. With around 3 hours of the match gone I thought I had got around 50lb in the net when it started raining heavy and you could hear the thunder in the distance getting closer, when the storm came right over the top of us the and the lightning was all around I was just holding my top kit with the shallow rig down the margins not wanting to hold 13m of carbon! I hooked a good Carp of around 4lb on red meat which I prefer on the hook while feeding plain meat but as I was playing it I had noticed that the better stamp of Carp that were in my left hand net had all come to the top of the net, the smaller fish in my other net didn't react the same, even when I put the new edition into the net the others seemed not bothered they were all just swimming around the top 1ft of water! Weather it was oxygen the rain was putting in or taking out I don't know but I had never seen fish react like that before? I know that big thunderstorms like this can de-oxygenate the water and cause fish fatality's but what ever it was the fish were up and feeding as the next put in produced another Carp, in fact while the storm was over us I had my best spell of the match and in around 45mins I had around 12 Carp all in the 2-5lb bracket shallow in the margins with the meat putting around 40lb in the net. At one point in the middle of this purple spell the rain turned into hail and it got that heavy that I thought I was going to have to pack the pole away before it got broke! I was playing Carp but as the hail was hitting my top kit it sounded like it was breaking. When the weather broke and the storm moved on the sun came out it was back to t-shirt weather, we were now into the last hour and Chris to my left was now bagging down the edge he too had caught well through the storm but my margin fish had stopped feeding and vanished. I just picked odd fish off from over and one more from the margin just before the all out sounded and at around 3lb it was my last fish of the day, as I started to pack away getting all the water from my luggage which was swimming I thought I had got around 95-105lb which I was happy with after catching 41lb from canal 2 a few weeks ago. There were some good anglers on canal 3 which had produced the better weights on the last match and the word on the bank was that Martin had caught well from opposite me but due to the trees and bushes I couldn't see him, while I was giving all the bait boxes back to the lads I had borrowed them off Barry in the right hand corner said he had caught well all day and was around the 100lb mark. We started to weigh-in from the corners of canals 2 & 3 as you can weigh both pools at the same time coming down the middle and it soon became apparent that canal 2 had not fish very well again with Steve Robson winning this lake with 54lb, canal 3 was better with most weights 50-70lb with Martin Yardsley being  the best with 81lb, Stav next to him had 65lb and I knew I was 1-0 up in our side bet before I had even weighed in. As Baz in the corner peg pulled his nets out it was obvious that he was going to take the lead the scales read 110lb 8oz, there was a couple of 50-60lb weights before it was my turn and as I pulled my nets out I knew it was going to be close to Barry's weight, I was given 111lb 10oz to take the lead there was only Chris who I thought would come close as he had some good margin lumps in the last hour, Chris was given 84lb for 3rd and I had won the match by 1lb 2oz, GREAT!!! this was now my 6th win on the bounce with Cradley out of the 7 matches we have fished this year. I have never had a run like this before I must be doing something right, I have been match fishing since the age of around 12 (now 43) and never had a run like this, I win, fame or section a few times each season but this run is above all this.
More importantly I was 1-0 up on Stav for the start of fishing week. Talking to Baz after the match he had also experienced the same with all his big fish coming to the top of his net during the thunderstorm? strange that one. Thanks to Nev for the info I owe you a pint mate,cheers.