Todber Manor – Silvers Open – 14th June 2025

Todber on Saturday with a ‘Dirty Dozen’ booked on including none other than Guy ‘Venue Pro’ Manton, as we assembled and awaited the draw, Mr Dew and me took up our usual positions at the back of the queue. Rather worryingly as the others began opening their tickets, the favoured middle pegs were disappearing at an alarming rate, when it got to just two left, Ade grabbed one (68 of course!) and with a little trepidation I opened mine but there was no need to worry as I’d only gone and drawn end peg 75 again!

As I parked up, I could see the wind was hacking up the lake into my peg and I really fancied it. Along with the normal maggots, casters and groundbait, I had some Bait-Tech micros and corn with me as a mid week match had fished brilliantly with lots of good weights on the ‘Niblets’! I set up rigs to fish a top kit down the edge, top five towards the bush, the same distance straight out and 13 metres (although the latter may have been a little ambitious given the wind!).

On the whistle I fed a little loose groundbait and some casters short, the top five line received micros and corn, I pinged a few casters by the bush and then put two balls of groundbait in at 13 metres (although I won’t mention it again as I didn’t try it all day!). Starting down the edge I had a few small roach on maggot so switched to caster and hooked a better fish which turned out to be a 12oz perch, next chuck I hooked another but it went round some vegetation and came off, when I had a small carp shortly after I decided to feed it again and have a look at five sections.

With corn on the hook I had a lovely run of 8-10oz skimmers but also bumped a couple and had a decent leaper come off, I did have a big 3lb skimmer but bites began to slow up so came back on the inside. I started catching roach and skimbobs including two better ones and several more nice perch. A first look by the bush resulted in two skimmers straight away but then I couldn’t get a bite there. Martin Fuller on my left was getting some decent skimmers and I could see Guy on 73 was also catching well.

Back at five sections I had three decent skimmers but then pulled out of one shipping back. Towards the end of the match I started hooking quite a few carp and all told, I think I hooked six and landed three to around 6lb plus I had several tiny little ones which were a bit of a pain. I did manage a couple more skimmers and a little 3oz tench but from doing really well, I struggled for the last 45 mins while Guy had a great last period, landing several better fish.

At the all out, I’d clicked 47 fish plus I had quite a few bits and bobs I hadn’t counted, I asked Guy if he had 30lb and he confidently replied he had nowhere near that! The scales started at the other end and when they got around halfway up the lake I went to see what the weights were like. The early pegs had been relatively hard before Nicky ‘The Nurdler’ weighed 22lb 2oz of mainly roach on 66, Mike H next door had 24lb 9oz of skimmers on the feeder, Adrian Dew then went into the lead with an excellent 26lb 6oz, Pete Neate had 19lb 4oz, Lee Jan weighed 14lb 11oz, Parker ‘The Pole’ had a nice net of fish for 23lb 4oz and Andy Akehurst weighed 22lb 2oz as once again there were loads of close weights all within a decent skimmer of one another.

Then we got to Guy and he had a cracking net of big skimmers for 31lb with a couple that probably went 10lb between them, Martin had 17lb 5oz and then I was last to weigh, I did think I had a chance of sneaking third but it was a little more than I thought at 30lb which put me second. Photos courtesy of Todber Manor*

1 – Guy Manton (Todber Manor) – 31lb
2 – Jamie Rich (Bait-Tech/Colmic) – 30lb
3 – Adrian Dew (Todber Manor) – 26lb 6oz

I had a nice pick up of £80 for second place and the fishing is brilliant, seven of the twelve anglers recorded weights over 20lb with two of 30lb+, the fish are well spread out now and getting caught on a variety of methods and baits, just lovely.

Guy had a clean sweep of nuggets which he kindly donated to the charity pot, I had one off Ade and he gave me the pound he took from Lee so The Nugget-O-Meter climbed to £325.

There’s still a great offer running if you fancy treating yourself to some new fishing gear, use the exclusive discount code AgainstMenandFish10 to get 10% off when you shop online at Somerset Angling

Also I still have copies of my book available from eBay here or Amazon here

And if you could spare five minutes to leave a nice review on Amazon, it would be very much appreciated.

Next up – Dillington

Coming soon – Lots more match reports

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